The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP)—disproportionately impacting students of color— involves a set of interactions between and among children, youth, their families, school personnel, other service providers, and gatekeepers to such outcomes as incarceration or college. Educators can, through their interactions with and expectations for students, contribute significantly to negative outcomes or lead the charge toward more positive outcomes. In this article, the authors first examine four factors that amplify the pipeline to prison, which if addressed effectively by educators can reduce it while creating alternative pathways to success. They then provide concrete suggestions for bolstering educator and school capacity to eliminate the STPP and implications for teacher preparation.

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The disproportionate rates of police surveillance and encounters in many communities in the US may be contributing to inequities in health and violence. Frequent policing in communities, which may often also be aggressive policing, has been associated with diminished health and well-being. This study adds to the growing body of research on this issue by examining the relationships between neighborhood police stop-and-frisk encounters and both health outcomes and violence rates in New Orleans, Louisiana, in an ecological, cross-sectional study using local police report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and census data. The average rate of police stop-and-frisk encounters was more than three times higher for Black adults compared with their White counterparts. Even after we accounted for concentrated disadvantage (a high percentage of residents of lower socioeconomic status) and residential racial and income segregation, neighborhoods with higher rates of encounters had significantly higher prevalence rates of smoking, physical inactivity, and poor physical health, and they experienced significantly more violent crime (18.35 more per 1,000) and domestic violence (49.91 more per 1,000) events than neighborhoods with lower levels of police encounters. There is a need for strengthened policy focused on the relationship between frequent policing and health and violence outcomes.

Adolescents who live in low-income neighborhoods face numerous unique challenges. Examining their resilience in multiple contexts sheds light on what contributes to the diverse outcomes of these youth. The current study examines how adolescents’ reports of structural and experiential neighborhood characteristics buffered the impact of exposure to community violence on academic performance. A total of 206 African American high school students completed a series of questionnaires; some of the item measures covered by the questionnaires include the following: exposure to community violence; opportunities for involvement and actual engagement in neighborhood-based structured activities; and self-reported grades for the school year. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that structural and experiential factors buffered the impact of exposure to community violence on academic performance. These findings suggest that in the face of exposure to community violence, adolescents who are involved in neighborhood activities, even when opportunities for involvement are minimal, have better academic outcomes.

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