The Poverty to Prison Pipeline Extensions/Adaptations
Extensions/Adaptations
- Multimedia Presentation Expansions
Each research group will record video/audio of its interviews and, in the spirit of A Debtors’ Prison, make a short documentary film. The films should incorporate their research and arguments from their persuasive writing.
Instead of presenting a letter, students can transform their persuasive essays into multi-media presentations (Resources: Prezi, PowerPoint, Keynote, GoAnimate, Google Slides).
2. Due Process: Juvenile Justice from Reform School to Gault
When Illinois legislation established the first juvenile court in 1899, the goal was to provide a more progressive approach to juvenile delinquency that prioritized rehabilitation over punishment. Children would not be tried in adult court and incarcerated in adult prisons, but this improvement came at a cost. Children no longer had the same constitutional rights to due process and equal protection under the law as adults, including right to trial by jury, immunity from self-incrimination and a right to counsel regardless of financial status.
In 1964, a 15-year-old boy named Gerald Gault was arrested after a neighbor accused him and a friend of making an obscene phone call. When the police arrived, his parents were at work so the officer took him into custody without providing his family with notice. After a night in detention, Gault was adjudicated without legal counsel or an understanding of his rights. Gault challenged the constitutionality of the proceedings before the Supreme Court—In re Gault 387 U.S. 1 (1967)—and the court held that certain protections needed to be in place in juvenile delinquency hearings, including a constitutional right to free counsel.
Today, a half century after Gault, youth in most states are still not provided with free legal representation. Children’s financial eligibility is often predicated on an investigation of their families’ financial status, and this can significantly delay access to counsel while children await assistance in detention. Working in groups, students should assess the impact of Gault on their local juvenile justice system.
Resources:
- Jessica Lahey, “The Children Being Denied Due Process.” The Atlantic, May 22, 2017.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/05/the-children-being-denied-due-process/527448/
- Teresa Wiltz, “Movement Against Juvenile Court Fees Runs Into Resistance.”The Pew Charitable Trusts, January 17, 2018.
- “Honoring Gault: Ensuring Access to Counsel in Delinquency Proceedings.” National Juvenile Defender Center, 2016.
http://njdc.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Access-to-Counsel-Information-Card-Final-8.18.16.pdf
- “The Price of Justice: The High Cost of ‘Free’ Counsel for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System.” Juvenile Law Center, 2018.
https://jlc.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2018-07/Paying-For-Justice-2018FINAL.pdf
- “Access Denied: A National Snapshot of States’ Failure to Protect Children’s Right to Counsel,” National Juvenile Defender Center, May 2017.
http://njdc.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Snapshot-Final_single-4.pdf
- Jessica Feierman with Naomi Goldstein, Emily Haney-Caron and Jaymes Fairfax Columbo, “Debtors' Prison for Kids? The High Cost of Fines and Fees in the Juvenile Justice System.” Juvenile Law Center, 2016.
https://debtorsprison.jlc.org/documents/JLC-Debtors-Prison.pdf
- “Rights of Juveniles,” U.S. Department of Justice.
https://www.justice.gov/crt/rights-juvenile
3. Black Girls Matter
Girls of color face much harsher school discipline than their white peers, but are often excluded from efforts to address the school-to-prison pipeline. Recent data show that schools are expelling and suspending black girls at alarming rates, which can lead to a harmful cycle of criminality that persists throughout their adult lives. According to the U.S. Department of Education, black girls were suspended six times more than white girls, while black boys were suspended three times as often as white boys. The failure to receive a high school diploma often places young women on a pathway to low-wage work, unemployment and incarceration.
Have the students pair with partners and distribute one of the following articles to each pair (each student will need their own copy).
Instruct the pairs to discuss the article and prompt them to think about answers to who, what, when, where, why and how. Next, reorganize the class so students pair with new partners who have different articles. Pairs can use the prompts again to guide the discussion about how criminalization of race and poverty impacts the well-being, health and opportunities of black girls. Students can pursue additional research to create multimedia reports and/or explanatory essays about the issue. They can also convene a round-table meeting with school administration to present their findings and discuss how their school can improve its own policies or those of the school district.
Articles:
- Jill Ament. “In Texas, Black Girls Are Almost Seven Times As Likely To Be Suspended From School As White Girls,” Texas Standard, January 11, 2018.
- Lauren Camera. “Black Girls Are Twice as Likely to Be Suspended, In Every State,” U.S. News, May 9, 2017.
- Tanvi Misra. “The Rising Criminalization of Black Girls,” CityLab, March 22, 2018
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/03/the-rising-criminalization-of-black-girls-dc/556127/
- T. Rees Shapiro. “Study: Black Girls Viewed as ‘Less Innocent’ Than White Girls,” The Washington Post, June 27, 2017.
Sources
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