The term and construct "school-to-prison" pipeline has been widely used by advocates, researchers, and policymakers to describe the relationship between school disciplinary practices and increased risk of juvenile justice contact. It has been unclear whether the construct is a useful heuristic or a descriptor of empirically validated relationships that establish school disciplinary practices as a risk factor for negative developmental outcomes, including juvenile justice involvement. In this article, we examine the literature surrounding one facet of the pipeline, school exclusion as a disciplinary option, and propose a model for tracing possible pathways of effect from school suspension and expulsion to the ultimate contact point of juvenile justice involvement. Available multivariate analyses suggest that regardless of demographic, achievement, or system status, out-of-school suspension and expulsion are in and of themselves risk factors for a range of negative developmental outcomes. Recommendations are offered to assist schools in replacing disciplinary exclusion with a range of alternatives whose goal is to preserve both school order and provide all students with educational opportunities.

The escalation of school violence within the United States during the 1980s and 1990s inadvertently prompted the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) emergence. Heightened efforts were implemented to abate this surge in school violence and keep American youth safe in the academic environment. With the imposition of zero-tolerance policies and the enactment of the Gun Free Schools Act 1994 (Pub L No. 103-882), American students, disproportionately those of color, are subject to stringent disciplinary actions regardless of behavioral circumstances or mitigating factors (Kang-Brown et al., 2013). These harsh punitive measures fuel the pipeline resulting in the growth of uneducated, stigmatized "delinquent" youth populating our juvenile and criminal justice systems. The following case study exemplified the interrelationship between the STPP and exclusionary punishments. Through the distribution, collection, and evaluation of survey data completed by 55 incarcerated male inmates, housed within one of two New York jails, the subsequent study validates the prevalence of the STPP. The findings suggest a correlation between the participants' current incarceration and a history of suspensions and expulsions during their educational years. In conjunction with existing literature, this study identified an overrepresentation of Black and brown participants affected by exclusionary punishments. Black and brown participants were disproportionately funneled through the pipeline accelerating juvenile and criminal justice contact.

While there is a large amount of scholarship discussing the discipline and policing policies that aggravate the school-to-prison pipeline, this article specifically uses WCPSS as a model to highlight the challenges that many school districts face nationwide. This article not only evaluates conventional methods to extinguish the school-to-prison pipeline that have been widely introduced, but it also tenders non-conventional methods such as goodwill, as an effort to cure the community from the harms suffered by the pipeline's powerless targets. This paper examines America's racially discriminatory criminal justice system and climate of law enforcement in America, while exploring the correlations of this inequitable climate with schools. Additionally, it summarizes extensive data on the school-to-prison-pipeline and analyzes WCPSS' security and policing policies, by incorporating narratives of instances in which students-of-color suffered injuries under WCPSS' unjust student discipline and policing practices. Also, this paper explores multiple programs that have proven to be successful in improving school discipline and policing policies to extinguish the school-to-prison pipeline. Finally, it concludes by proposing solutions for WCPSS and surrounding areas which will ideally serve as a standard of development for school districts nationwide that have encountered similar challenges within their respective school-to-prison pipelines.