School-to-Prison Pipeline

The ACLU is committed to challenging the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a disturbing national trend wherein children, particularly Black and Brown students and students with disabilities, are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal legal systems.

Racial Justice issue image

What you need to know

2X
Students of color and students with disabilities are nationally two times more likely to be referred to police and arrested in schools than other students.
28.7%
In 2017-18, Black students accounted for 28.7 percent of all students referred to law enforcement and 31.6 percent of all students arrested at school or during a school-related activity — twice their share of total student enrollment of 15.1 percent.
55%
In 2017-18, 55 percent percent of high school students attended school with police presence, while. only 40 percent of high school students attended school with school social worker.

What's at Stake

The ACLU’s education work centers on a disturbing trend called the school-to-prison pipeline, a set of policies in our nation’s public schools that pushes an alarming number of kids into the juvenile and criminal legal systems when they most need support from their schools and communities. From inadequate counseling to reliance on school-based police officers, to harsh zero-tolerance policies, many students, overwhelmingly students of color and students with disabilities, are punished, criminalized, and pushed away from positive supports and opportunities to learn and achieve.

In some jurisdictions, students who have been suspended or expelled have no right to an education at all. In others, they are sent to disciplinary alternative schools.

Youth who become involved in the juvenile justice system are often denied procedural protections in the courts, and students pushed along the pipeline find themselves in juvenile detention facilities, many of which provide few, if any, educational services.

Through strategic litigation and advocacy campaigns, the ACLU Racial Justice Program works to promote initiatives that help ensure access to high-quality education and facilities for all students and to challenge policies that criminalize students in school.

The ACLU’s education work centers on a disturbing trend called the school-to-prison pipeline, a set of policies in our nation’s public schools that pushes an alarming number of kids into the juvenile and criminal legal systems when they most need support from their schools and communities. From inadequate counseling to reliance on school-based police officers, to harsh zero-tolerance policies, many students, overwhelmingly students of color and students with disabilities, are punished, criminalized, and pushed away from positive supports and opportunities to learn and achieve.

In some jurisdictions, students who have been suspended or expelled have no right to an education at all. In others, they are sent to disciplinary alternative schools.

Youth who become involved in the juvenile justice system are often denied procedural protections in the courts, and students pushed along the pipeline find themselves in juvenile detention facilities, many of which provide few, if any, educational services.

Through strategic litigation and advocacy campaigns, the ACLU Racial Justice Program works to promote initiatives that help ensure access to high-quality education and facilities for all students and to challenge policies that criminalize students in school.

Support our on-going litigation and advocacy work