Table Of ContentThe School-to-
Prison Pipeline
Recent Titlesin
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The School-to-
Prison Pipeline
Education, Discipline, and
Racialized Double Standards
NANCY A. HEITZEG
Racism in American Institutions
Brian D. Behnken, Series Editor
Copyright©2016byNancyA.Heitzeg
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedina
retrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,
mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise,exceptfortheinclusionof
briefquotationsinareview,withoutpriorpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Heitzeg,NancyA.,author.
Title:Theschool-to-prisonpipeline:education,discipline,andracializeddouble
standards/NancyA.Heitzeg.
Description:SantaBarbara:Praeger,2016. | Series:RacisminAmericaninstitutions |
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2015046761(print) | LCCN2016009074(ebook) |
ISBN9781440831119(cloth:alk.paper) | ISBN9781440831126(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Racismineducation—UnitedStates. | Prison-industrial
complex—UnitedStates.
Classification:LCCLC212.52.H452016(print) | LCCLC212.52(ebook) |
DDC370.89—dc23
LCrecordavailableathttp://lccn.loc.gov/2015046761
ISBN:978–1–4408–3111–9
EISBN:978–1–4408–3112–6
20 19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5
ThisbookisalsoavailableasaneBook.
Praeger
AnImprintofABC-CLIO,LLC
ABC-CLIO,LLC
130CremonaDrive,P.O.Box1911
SantaBarbara,California93116-1911
www.abc-clio.com
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaper
ManufacturedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Portionsofthistexthavebeenadapted,withpermission,from:
NancyA.Heitzeg,“Race,Class,andLegalRiskintheUnitedStates:YouthofColorand
ColludingSystemsofSocialControl.”ForumonPublicPolicy,Summer2008.
NancyA.Heitzeg,“EducationorIncarceration:ZeroTolerancePoliciesandtheSchoolto
PrisonPipeline.”ForumonPublicPolicy,Summer2009.
NancyA.Heitzeg,“‘Whiteness,’Criminality,andtheDoubleStandardsofDeviance/Social
Control.”ContemporaryJusticeReview,18(2),2015.
Contents
Series Foreword vii
Introduction ix
Part 1: School-to-Prison Pipeline: EducationonLockdown 1
1. Education, Race, and Social Control 3
2. Segregated Schools, Sociopolitical Shifts, and Education
under Siege 17
Part 2: School-to-Prison Pipeline: TheContext of Social Control 33
3. Racialized Control in the Era of Color Blindness 35
4. The Prison Industrial Complex: Profit, Race,
and the Prison Track 51
5. The Medical Industrial Complex: Race and the Double
Standards of Diagnosis 69
Part 3: School-to-Prison Pipeline: PunitivePolicies and
Transformative Alternatives 87
6. Criminalized Education: Schoolhouse as Jailhouse 89
7. Education Not Incarceration: Ending the School-to-Prison
Pipeline 105
Notes 125
Bibliography 155
Index 173
Series Foreword
WhilePraeger’sRacisminAmericanInstitutions(RAI)serieshasexplored
various aspects of institutionalized racism in education,The School-to-
Prison Pipeline is the first book to examine how educational policies lead
to mass incarceration. The book thus merges institutionalized racism in
schools with the institutionalized racism in the criminal justice system.
The RAI series focuses on the ways in which racism has become, and
remains, a part of the fabric of many American institutions. For example,
while the United States may have done away with overtly racist acts such
as extralegal lynching, racism still affects many of America’s established
institutionsfrompublicschoolstocorporateoffices.Whilethemediadis-
carded many of its most racist practices and characters years ago, stereo-
typical depictions of people of color remain with us. Schools were
supposed to be integrated after 1954, yet today many American schools
remain one-race schools. This open-ended series examines the problem
ofracisminestablishedAmericaninstitutions.EachbookintheRAIseries
traces the prevalence of racism within a particular institution throughout
the history of the United States and explores the problem in that institu-
tion today, looking at ways in which the institution has attempted to
rectify racism, but alsothe waysin which it hasnot.
The School-to-Prison Pipeline examines a critically important subject.
The school-to-prison or cradle-to-prison pipeline is a concept that
explains how so many young people of color seem to go directly from
school to jail. It explains how race and criminalization continue to go
hand in hand. In many cases the pipeline emerged from schools’ zero-
tolerancepolicies—policiesthatweredesignedtosendapowerfulmessage
about school behavior, and expectations that were supposed to be color-
blindbutthatoftendemonstrateddifferentialtreatmentforwhitestudents
and students of color. Zero-tolerance policies also go far in explaining
differences in treatment for white and nonwhite students. For example,
while a young Black male may be expelled from school for fighting, a
viii Series Foreword
young while male might receive psychological counseling instead.
The treatment thus differs and the broader societal perceptions of each
of these students also differ. The school-to-prison pipeline also explains
how schools have become entangled with law enforcement. Schools fre-
quentlynowhavepoliceonstafftoprotectschoolbuildings,staff,andstu-
dents,butthesepolicearealsooftentheenforcersofdistrictzero-tolerance
policies, bringing young people—from elementary students to high
schoolers—into contact with law enforcement and the criminal justice
system at a very young age.
SociologistNancyA.Heitzeghasresearchedandwrittenontheseissues
for many years. Her work in The School-to-Prison Pipeline examines the
school-to-prison pipeline in almost every possible, conceivable way. The
book moves seamlessly from a detailed explanation of the school-to-
prison pipeline to a fascinating chapter on how the pipeline serves as a
method of social control. She also explores mass incarceration, punitive
educationalpunishmentpoliciesversusotherless-severeformsofpunish-
ment, and the growing criticisms of the school-to-prison pipeline. Most
importantly, Dr. Heitzeg demonstrates conclusively that the school-to-
prison pipeline exacerbates racialized mass criminalization, which facili-
tates the flow of people of color and the poor from schools and into the
criminal justice system.
The School-to-Prison Pipeline explores an important subject, one that
profoundly impacts the lives of millions of young Americans on a daily
basis. Zero-tolerance policies, color-blind policies (which are frequently
racist), and mass incarceration have all worked together to create the
school-to-prisonpipeline.Thatpipelinehasworkedtofurtherinstitution-
alize racism in the American educational arena.
Brian D. Behnken
IowaState University
Ames, Iowa
Introduction
Isaidthen,andIsaynow,thatwhilethereisalowerclass,Iaminit,andwhile
there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am
not free.
—EugeneV.Debs1
Thisvolumewillexplorehowstructuralracismisperpetuatedbytheedu-
cation system particularly via the “school-to-prison pipeline.” The pipe-
line describes the policies and practices that further racialize
criminalizationbyrouting youthofcoloroutofschool andonapathway
towardprison.Thisisaccomplishedbysimultaneouslymedicalizingwhite
youth for comparable behaviors and via double standards in the applica-
tion of disciplinary policies that are “color-blind” in theory, but not in
practice. The school-to-prison pipeline is most immediately facilitated by
the proliferation of harsh zero-tolerance policies and a police presence in
the schools, but it flourishes in a larger social climate of under-resourced
schools and overlapping systems of control that criminalize Blackness
while mitigating white deviance with medical labels. This volume will
locate the school-to-prison pipeline in that larger climate of color-blind,
yetheavily racialized socialcontrol.
InPart1,School-to-PrisonPipeline:EducationonLockdown,thepipe-
lineisdefinedandtheracialdynamicsthatshapeitrevealed.Entryintothe
pipelineisneitherrandomnorraceneutral;studentsofcolor,particularly
Black, students who are poor in under-resourced schools, and students
withdisabilitiesaremostatrisk.Thepipelineislocatedtoointhecontext
of schools that are underfunded and under pressure. The pipeline has
emerged primarily in public schools that remain segregated by both race
and class, and are dominated by private, for-profit interests; a regimental
emphasisontestingastheprimarypedagogy;andtheearlytrackingofstu-
dents into various sectors of the economy. The school-to-prison pipeline
refers to this growing pattern of tracking students—largely students of
