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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 12:18 pm
Time: 12:18 pm
Results for zero tolerance policy
2 results foundAuthor: National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Title: Report on the Evaluation of Judicially Led Responses to Eliminate School Pathways to the Juvenile Justice System Summary: Many schools across the United States have enacted zero tolerance philosophy in response to perceived increases in violence and drugs in schools. It is believed that aggressive and unwavering punishment of many school infractions, including relatively minor infractions, will create safer schools. However, zero tolerance policy is said to have contributed to increased number of disciplinary actions and increased number of students who come in contact with the court system. Effects of the policy include the removal of students from the educational system, through disciplinary actions such as expulsions and suspensions. These disciplinary actions have negative unintended consequences for families and society. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) received grant funding from the Atlantic Philanthropies, Public Welfare Foundation, and the Open Society Foundation to provide training and technical assistance to jurisdictions preparing to start or continue initiatives with judicially-led collaboratives to reduce stringent school discipline and referrals of youth to juvenile courts for school-based behaviors. Additional funding was provided by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to conduct a process and outcome evaluation. This research report discusses the findings from the process and outcome evaluation, including some lessons learned about the challenges of collecting data on this complex issue. Details: Reno, NV: The Council, 2016. 54p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 28, 2016 at: http://www.ncjfcj.org/sites/default/files/NCJFCJ%20Evaluation%20Report%20School%20Pathways%20Final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.ncjfcj.org/sites/default/files/NCJFCJ%20Evaluation%20Report%20School%20Pathways%20Final.pdf Shelf Number: 147918 Keywords: At-Risk YouthDelinquency PreventionSchool CrimeSchool DisciplineSchool-to-Prison PipelineZero Tolerance Policy |
Author: Davis, Alicia J. Title: How Has the Baltimore County Public School System Addressed Disproportionate Minority Suspensions? Summary: Disproportionate minority contact refers to the higher proportion of minority youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [OJJDP], 1999). Researchers have found overrepresentation at every point of contact, from arrest to referral to adjudication (Hamparian & Leiber, 1997; Kakar, 2006). Furthermore, research has shown that the school system is yet another point of contact, where minority students are disproportionately arrested or referred to the juvenile justice system. Nicholas-Crotty, Birchmeier, and Valentine (2009) argue that the disproportionate use of exclusionary discipline by schools has created patterns of disproportionate minority contact, which ultimately are replicated, at least in part, by referrals to juvenile courts. They examined school disciplinary data from 53 Missouri counties and found that schools disproportionately targeting African American students for exclusionary sanctions also experienced higher rates of juvenile court referrals for African American youth. This trend has been defined as the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which is a system of educational public safety policies that pushes students out of school and into the criminal justice system (N.Y. Civil Liberties Union, n.d.). The STPP is fueled by zero-tolerance school policies. Zero-tolerance policies have been blamed for many of the disparities in school disciplinary actions. These policies, initially intended to deter serious offenses from occurring in schools, now include mostly minor offenses leading to more suspensions and expulsions (Johnson-Davis, 2012; Skiba, 2004). According to Skiba and Knesting (2001), 94 percent of schools now have some form of zero-tolerance policy in effect. In addition, although all races and genders are affected by these strict policies, researchers find that children of color are impacted the most (Advancement Project, 2005). For years, researchers and advocates have attempted to expose the negative consequences of zero-tolerance policies, such as the STPP. Studies across the nation - notably in Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, and Oregon public schools - have proven that minority students are overrepresented in the use of out-of-school suspensions (Florida State Conference NAACP, 2006; Johnson-Davis, 2012; Langberg & Brege, 2009; Portland Public Schools, 2002-03). Consequently, students are directly and indirectly being filtered into the juvenile justice system. Studies also have shown that children who have been suspended are more likely to be retained in grade, to drop out, to commit a crime, and/or to end up incarcerated (Johnson-Davis, 2012). Johnson-Davis (2012) conducted a study on Maryland's Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) for the 2008-09 school year and found that out of 103,180 students, 20,178 (19.5 percent) were suspended out of school. Of this number, 13 percent were in elementary school, 28 percent were in middle school, and 55 percent were in high school. At all school levels, suspensions were given most for disrespect/insubordination/disruption offenses. For these minor infractions, the percentage of suspensions given in elementary school, middle school, and high school were 24 percent, 44 percent, and 41 percent, respectively. The main focus of the BCPS study was to determine if a relationship existed between African American students and disproportionate school discipline practices in the system. The study explored the relationship between African American students and suspensions (in and out of school), and attempted to determine if that relationship varied based on students' academic performance. Results of a correlation and chi-square analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between African American students and suspension rates in BCPS (Johnson-Davis, 2012). The data revealed the strongest relationship in elementary schools. Specifically, a significant relationship was observed between the percentage of African American students and both in-school (0.328) and out-of-school (0.634) suspensions. Also, in high schools, a significant relationship was revealed between the percentage of African American students and in-school (0.465) suspensions. Additionally, a logistic regression analysis was used to determine if the percentage of African American students significantly predicted school suspensions when controlling for the effects of gender and student performance on standardized math tests (Johnson-Davis, 2012). Again, in elementary schools, the percentage of African American students was significantly and positively related to out-of-school suspensions even after controlling for gender and student performance on standardized math tests. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that performance on the standardized math test was significantly and negatively related to out-of-school suspensions in elementary schools, suggesting that African American youth who scored high on the standardized math test were less likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than African American youth who performed poorly (Johnson-Davis, 2012). Details: Baltimore: Schaefer Center for Public Policy University of Baltimore - College of Public Affairs, 2015. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 4, 2017 at: https://www.ubalt.edu/cpa/schaefer-center/minority_-suspensions_report_revised.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: https://www.ubalt.edu/cpa/schaefer-center/minority_-suspensions_report_revised.pdf Shelf Number: 147542 Keywords: Disproportionate Minority ContactRacial DisparitiesSchool DisciplineSchool SuspensionsSchool-to-Prison PipelineZero Tolerance Policy |