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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMississippi County Jails Kids For School Dress Code Violations, Tardiness, DOJ Alleges
Mississippi County Jails Kids For School Dress Code Violations, Tardiness, DOJ Alleges
In Meridian, Miss., it is school officials not police who determine who should be arrested. Schools seeking to discipline students call the police, and police policy is to arrest all children referred to the agency, according to a Department of Justice lawsuit. The result is a perverse system that funnels children as young as ten who merely misbehave in class into juvenile detention centers without basic constitutional procedures. The lawsuit, which follows unsuccessful attempts to negotiate with the county, challenges the constitutionality of punishing children so arbitrarily and severely as to shock the conscience and alleging that the citys police department acts as a de facto taxi service in shuttling students from school to juvenile detention centers. Colorlines explains:
Once those children are in the juvenile justice system, they are denied basic constitutional rights. They are handcuffed and incarcerated for days without any hearing and subsequently warehoused without understanding their alleged probation violations.
To illustrate how this system works, Colorlines provides the example of Cedrico Green. When he was in eighth grade, he was put on probation for getting in a fight. After that one incident, every subsequent offense was deemed a probation violation from wearing the wrong color socks, to talking back to a teacher and the consequence was a return to juvenile detention. He couldnt even remember how many times he had been back in detention, but guessed 30 times time when he wasnt in school, fell behind in his schoolwork and subsequently failed several classes, even though he said he liked school.
The phenomenon of disciplining kids through the criminal justice system is known as the school-to-prison pipeline a process that paves the way for some kids accused of minor disciplinary violations to spend less time in school, and more time getting exposure to the criminal justice system. Colorlines explains:
-snip-
Full article here: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/27/1239111/mississippi-county-jails-kids-for-school-dress-code-violations-tardiness-doj-alleges/
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Mississippi County Jails Kids For School Dress Code Violations, Tardiness, DOJ Alleges (Original Post)
Tx4obama
Nov 2012
OP
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)1. this is just hideous.
LiberalArkie
(15,730 posts)2. Track the money trail.
Turbineguy
(37,372 posts)3. Being last is kind of like being first.
it's a title you can lose.
Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)4. Huh? n/t
Tsiyu
(18,186 posts)5. Way to go, Meridian, Mississippi!
Your children are your future, but just like in so many small towns, they are merely fodder for your greedy grownups.You are destroying all hope in your town, one student at a time.
I hope many heads roll, and that some of these cruel, stupid, greedy adults responsible GO TO JAIL themselves.
What an evil, evil, evil school system.