“Hakeem A. was recently sent to live at the state’s juvenile detention center for smoking marijuana and leaving his house without his parents’ permission – both violations of his probation.

Jusstice W. was also recently locked up at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School (CJTS) in Middletown. He violated his probation by failing to obey the rules of his mom’s house.

The state’s reliance on a maximum-security facility for convicted youth offenders whose crimes are not severe enough to land them in the adult criminal justice system has led to a 10-year high in the number of boys living at the detention center. On Dec. 1, the population was 140 at the Middletown facility run by the Department of Children and Families. Pre-conviction placements are run by the Judicial branch.”

Read the article here.

ABA Journal: “Students of color, particularly boys, are suspended and expelled at alarming rates, and zero-tolerance school discipline polices fail the communities they serve, said speakers on an panel sponsored by various ABA entities.

Black students are 3.5 times more likely to be expelled than white students, said Nancy Heitzeg, a St. Paul, Minn., critical race theory professor who teaches at St. Catherine University. She also noted that more than 70 percent of the students involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were black or Latino. Many of them, she added, also had special needs addressed by Individualized Education Plans.

High-stakes testing also complicates the issue, Heitzeg said, and schools are using suspensions and expulsions to push out underperforming students. She noted the statistics at an ABA Midyear Meeting panel discussion titled “The School-to-Prison Pipeline: What are the Problems? What are the Solutions?” The Friday event was jointly sponsored by the ABA’s Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice, the Criminal Justice Section and the Counsel for Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline.

“They say we should ‘Leave No Child Behind.’ The fact is we are leaving the majority of the nation’s future behind,” said Janette C. Wilson, another panelist. A lawyer, pastor and former teacher, Wilson spoke of a “Gestapo-type environment” at schools.”

Read the rest here.

From the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law:

“”Kiera” is a 13-year-old 7th grader placed in a segregated classroom for students with emotional disabilities. (Kiera is a client of Maryland Disability Law Center; I have changed her name and altered details to protect her confidentiality.) She has been diagnosed with a mood disorder, a mild to moderate intellectual disability, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. According to her psychologist, Kiera’s various disabilities affect her impulse control, perception of risk, and ability to regulate her emotions. Last spring, while having a bad day at school, Kiera created a disturbance in her classroom by using profanity and refusing to follow instructions. Unable to manage Kiera while attending to the other students, her teacher called for the school resource officer. The officer entered the classroom, armed and in uniform, to remove Kiera. He grabbed her by her arm to escort her out of class; she reacted by kicking the officer in the shin and attempting to run away. The officer responded by charging Kiera with assault on a police officer, disturbing school activities, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. Kiera was handcuffed and taken to a juvenile detention center. When she returned to school the following day, she was issued a five-day suspension for the incident. Although the school determined that Kiera’s conduct was a manifestation of her disability and her public defender attempted to use this information to defend against the charges in court, the court found Kiera delinquent. She remains under the court’s supervision.

Contrast Kiera’s experience with an alternative scenario. Imagine that instead of calling the school resource officer, the teacher was able to call a trained behavioral aide or mobile crisis staff experienced in de-escalation, knowledgeable regarding the impact of Kiera’s disabilities on her behavior, and present in the school with the explicit purpose of assisting teachers and students in the event of crisis. Imagine this person arriving to the classroom, not with an authoritative and disciplinary presence, but rather with a calming and supportive approach.  Consider how the teacher, Kiera, and the other students may have been affected by the alternative and the value to the school’s climate and the court system in avoiding the former scenario.

Shifting the practice of Maryland schools to the latter scenario is among the goals of Maryland Disability Law Center’s juvenile justice project. Here I discuss the various advocacy strategies Maryland Disability Law Center has explored in our continuing effort to effectuate this change; our quest for and use of data on suspensions and school-based arrests of students with disabilities; and our collaborative work with strategic partners to ensure students like Kiera remain in the classroom with the supports and accommodations they need to thrive.”

Read the rest here.

Wichita Public Radio:

“The Ulrich Museum’s exhibition Juvenile in Justice presents the award–winning work of photographer Richard Ross.

His documentary photographs are a stark look at America’s youth who are currently housed in state-run juvenile detention centers. Ross has visited more than 300 of these centers in 31 states, including one in Sedgwick County.

On his visits, Ross conducted interviews with these kids – some as young as 10 years old – before taking their pictures. The subjects’ faces are blurred or obscured because they are minors. These kids are pictured sitting on their pathetically thin beds or curled up in the corner of unforgiving rooms. Excerpts from the interviews accompany the photographs.”

Read the rest here.

“Burbank Unified school district is falling in line with a growing state trend that has seen student suspensions decline over the past school year compared to the year prior, according to data released this week by state officials.

There were 246 fewer suspensions in Burbank schools in 2012-13 compared to 2011-12, the most recent years for which extensive data is available.

While there were 948 suspensions across Burbank Unified in 2012-13, there were 1,194 the year before.

There were also five fewer expulsions during the last academic year, compared to the year prior when there were 16.

Statewide, expulsions decreased by about 12% from more than 9,700 in 2011-12 to about 8,500 in 2012-13. Suspensions dropped across California from 709,596 in 2011-12 to 609,471 in 2012-13.

Even with the statewide decrease in suspensions and expulsions, state officials found disparities among students.

While black students make up 6.3% of the state’s total enrollment, the group made up 16% of suspensions. Latino students make up more than 52% of total enrollment and nearly 55% of suspensions, according to state officials.

Meanwhile, white, non-Latino students make up 25.5% of total state enrollment, but were tied to nearly 21% of suspensions.”

Read the rest here.

     Among the many harms of criminalizing and pushing out youth from school for “insubordination” and other non-violent offenses, is the detention centers they can be sent to. The harsh and brutal legacy of AGDSB carries on to present day in numerous detention facilities around the country. Youth are pulled deeper in to the criminal justice system, are more likely to experience mental health problems later on, are subjected to sexual abuse by staff members and more.

“The exhumation will continue in the next several months as an estimated 96 boys died during detention at the AGDSB based on state records.”

“The AGDSB was the subject of several investigations since 2008 aimed at finding if its staff committed abuse in disciplining young detainees there during its operation from 1900 to 2011.”