Juvenile Justice
School To Prison Pipeline
The ACLU actively supports efforts to remedy or eliminate school policies that disproportionately exclude students of color from the Massachusetts school system by channeling them into the juvenile justice system.
Under zero-tolerance policies, school administrators have enormous discretion in suspending and expelling students based on out-of-school conduct. In practice, minority youth are more often suspended, expelled and disciplined at the elementary, middle and high school levels than their white counterparts. Statistics do not show higher rates of misbehavior among African American students, but rather harsher punishments for the same crimes committed by white students. Students with learning disabilities and mental and psychological problems are also at risk under these rigid policies.
In addition to zero-tolerance policies, expulsions and suspensions, high-stakes testing is applied inconsistently to minority youth. Under this form of testing, schools are held accountable for students’ scores. Since MCAS failure rates are the highest among low-income and minority students, their already under-funded schools are penalized, thus perpetuating the cycle of unequal access to quality education.
Juvenile & Adult Corrections
Minority youth are seriously over-represented at every point of the juvenile justice system. Youth of color are more likely to be arrested, detained, tried and committed than white youth. The juvenile justice system has become a pathway to the adult correctional system rather than a diversion from that path.
In order to receive federal funding, states must identify and implement policies to address disproportionate minority contact with the juvenile justice system. According to a 2003 ACLU report, Massachusetts is failing to do so and therefore is failing the most vulnerable of our society (see statistics at right).
The situation is equally grim on the federal level, where 61 percent of adjudicated juveniles held in the Federal Bureau of Prisons are Native American. Such startling numbers demonstrate the need for state and federal reform, ensuring that racism does not continue to play a role in failing our nation’s youth.
Although Massachusetts does not impose the death penalty, juveniles may be tried as adults and committed to life without parole – a policy widely considered a violation of international law and fundamental human rights. As of December 2005, 60 inmates were serving life without parole for crimes they committed as juveniles. To date, the US Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of life without parole as applied to juveniles.
The ACLU actively supports efforts to remedy the disproportionate impact that policies and practices both within schools and the juvenile justice system have on youth and youth of color. It supports prevention, early intervention, and rehabilitative efforts to break the pipeline to prison.
Publications
Locking Up Our Children: The Secure Detention of Massachusetts Youth After Arraignment and Before Adjudication
Disproportionate Minority Confinement in Massachusetts: Failures in Assessing and Addressing the Overrepresentation of Minorities in the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice System
Juvenile Injustice: Boston Globe editorial
Racism's Role in the State's Juvenille Justice System: Boston Globe Op-ed by Carol Rose, ACLU of Massachusetts |
