Can Restorative Justice Stop the Schoolhouse-to-Jailhouse Pipeline?

Jeremy Adam Smith, via a kind reader's email:

Instead of being kicked out for fighting, stealing, talking back, or other disruptive behavior, public school students in San Francisco are being asked to listen to each other, write letters of apology, work out solutions with the help of parents and educators, or engage in community service. All these practices fall under the umbrella of "restorative justice"--asking wrongdoers to make amends before resorting to punishment.

The program launched in 2009 when the San Francisco Board of Education passed a resolution for schools to find alternatives to suspension and expulsion. In the previous seven years, suspensions in San Francisco spiked by 152 percent, to a total of 4,341--mostly among African Americans, who despite being one-tenth of the district made up half of suspensions and more than half of expulsions.

This disparity fed larger social inequalities: Two decades of national studies have found that expelled or suspended students are vastly more likely to drop out of school or end up in jail than those who face other kinds of consequences for their actions.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 17, 2012 3:08 AM
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