ABSTRACT
The school to prison pipeline describes an actual and metaphorical trajectory for Black, poor, and vulnerable children in the United States. Children who dealt with the double barriers of racial segregation in schools and unequal educational opportunities faced, in the last few decades, a system of punishment that propels them into the prison industrial complex. The term school to prison pipeline was coined by educational rights advocates in response to the criminalization of student behavior through harsh, exclusionary discipline policies combined with an increased role of law enforcement in schools that siphons students into the juvenile justice system. The pipeline is but a manifestation of the criminalization and mass incarceration of poor people of color. Neoliberalism in public education is the biggest threat to the civil rights of students, and will perpetuate the school to prison pipeline, but in an environment of little to no recourse.
