Scrutiny Intensifies Around Zero Tolerance, School to Prison Pipeline
By Ava Wallace
As suspensions and expulsions continue at an alarming rate across the nation, lawmakers are taking another look at decade-old zero tolerance discipline policies that are doing more harm than good.Civil rights advocates have long called out harsh disciplinary measures for the disproportionate effect they have on at-risk students and students of color. In March, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ survey found that Black students are more than three-and-a-half times as likely as white students to be suspended or expelled, In addition, more than 70 percent of students arrested in school were Black or Hispanic.
A new article by University of South Florida Assistant Professor Zorka Karanxha and graduate student Eric S. Hall details how zero tolerance is funneling students in Florida and across the nation into the juvenile justice system.
In “School Today, Jail Tomorrow: The Impact of Zero Tolerance on the Over-Representation of Minority Youth in the Juvenile System,” Karanxha and Hall write, “The growing number of school suspensions ov