System Failure: Policy and Practice in the School-to-Prison Pipeline

SYSTEM FAILURE examines how education policy contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline, highlighting how it maintains silence around structural racism and civil rights, marginalizes youth voice and culture, focuses on schools or the criminal justice system, and overlooks intermediate settings.

Format: Hardback
Length: 160 pages
Publication date: 31 March 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

SYSTEM FAILURE offers a comprehensive framework for comprehending the multifaceted ways in which education policy within various organizational settings contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline, as extensively documented in the literature and observed by authors in empirical studies of justice-involved youth in regular public schools, juvenile court schools, probation settings, and alternative schools. Burch and his contributors argue that education policy inadequately serves low-income justice-involved youth in three significant ways: by maintaining a deafening silence regarding issues of structural racism and civil rights, by marginalizing the voices and cultures of youth, and by prioritizing either schools or the criminal justice system while disregarding intermediate settings, such as the role of for-profit and not-for-profit education companies. While the problem of the school-to-prison pipeline has been widely acknowledged, SYSTEM FAILURE provides critical insights and detailed descriptions of a policy process that tolerates and hinders efforts to abolish it.

This book is designed to cater to a wide range of stakeholders, including educators, students, policymakers, and practitioners who are interested in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the policy issues at hand as well as advocates who are actively engaged in addressing these issues. By delving into the intricacies of education policy and its impact on justice-involved youth, SYSTEM FAILURE aims to empower individuals and organizations to work towards dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline and fostering more equitable and inclusive educational opportunities for all students.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032200651