Months after Connecticut’s governor announced he would shut down the state’s abusive juvenile jail, lawmakers hope to divert young people from the juvenile justice system.
On Wednesday, Connecticut’s Senate approved an omnibus bill that cracks down on the school-to-prison pipeline by forcing school officials to handle disciplinary matters in-house. And in order to reduce the likelihood of ending up in the juvenile justice system, school administrators will be required to ensure educational alternatives for kids who are expelled.
On average, the state has 1,000 expulsions a year, and students fall far behind in school as a result.
Late last year, students kicked out of three separate school districts filed a complaint against Gov. Dannel Malloy (D), members of the State Board of Education, and superintendents for “substandard education” given to them upon expulsion. A sixth grade girl received less than three hours of instruction at an alternative school. When police informed school officials of an alleged delinquent act — charges were later dropped — an eighth grade boy was expelled and given a tutor for ten hours a week, for approximately four months. The boy moved to a different city, but was barred from enrollment because of his previous expulsion. Without a tutor or opportunity to enroll in an alternative school, the boy missed a year’s worth of schooling.
Getting booted from school drastically increases the likelihood of future arrests and juvenile detention. Expelled and suspended students can’t keep up with classroom instruction, don’t receive consistent guidance or supervision, and miss out on behavioral development through socializing with peers. Without a robust support system in place, those students are more likely to commit crimes in the future.http://archive.thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/03/3756169/baltimore-school-police-officers/
Under the bill, Connecticut schools have to offer parents and students the opportunity to fight expulsions. Local administrators have to set up individualized, 180-day alternative education plans for students who are ultimately expelled. Kids caught with drugs or a weapon can no longer be excluded from alternative programming. And the State Department of Education has to issue guidelines to ensure those programs provide quality education. The department currently has no standards for alternative curricula.
Additionally, officials will no longer be able to use the court system to punish students for breaking school rules, including truancy. Going to court one time makes dropping out four times more likely, and often leaves young people with criminal records that stick with them for life — even for minor, non-violent offenses.
“These are the most needy students. They need more education, not less,” the executive director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, Martha Stone, told the CT Mirror. “These students need a robust and unconditional education.”
The state House has already done so.
The policy shift is just one aspect of a larger push for juvenile justice reform, which includes shutting down a juvenile jail known for its physical abuse. Following reports that the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middleton locked kids away in solitary confinement for extended periods of time, used violence against juveniles, and illegally used restraint as a form of punishment, Malloy announced the facility would be closed by July 2018.
The governor also proposed legislation to raise the age at which offenders are sent to adult courts, which state lawmakers have voiced approval of. If passed, young people will remain in the juvenile system until they are 20 years old — not 18 years old.
But the bill voted on Wednesday ultimately relies on education to keep young people out of the system altogether.