Ontario Safe Schools Act and its Effects on Racialized Immigrant Youth: 'School to Prison Pipeline'

Abstract

It is recognized that racialized youth are significantly over-represented in the Canadian Criminal Justice System relative to their population percentages. Research also determined that similar disproportion exists with respect to school discipline. Similar to US research, a number of Canadian studies found that racialized youth are being disproportionately affected by zero-tolerance school disciplinary policies, such as the Ontario Safe Schools Act. Such research also hypothesized about a "school-to-prison pipeline" for minority youth. This MRP explores the link between immigration, policing, and school disciplinary policies in Ontario, Canada. In particular, the MRP investigates the racialization of school disciplinary procedures that largely affect immigrant youth, and the criminalization of certain behaviors that may lead visible minority youth, including immigrant youth, to having disproportionate police contact. The findings suggest that there is a relation between racial disproportion of school suspensions and expulsions and the racial disproportion in the likelihood of youth- police contact.

Politicizing Early Childhood Education and Care in Ontario: Race, Identity and Belonging

“…Embedded racism against Indigenous people and anti-Black racism are violent processes that are intertwined with white supremacy as status quo. Anti-Black racism in Ontario has amounted to disproportionate expulsion, push out and suspension rates of African-Canadians, in addition to the pushing of Black bodies, particularly Black male bodies, into the prison system (Dei, 2007;James, 2012;Kovalenko, 2012;Madan, 2016). Settler colonialism and CRT converge to challenge the ongoing displacement, appropriation and genocide of Indigenous peoples and land and the normativity of white hegemony that underpins structural and institutional racism in Canada.…”

Politicizing Early Childhood Education and Care in Ontario: Race, Identity and Belonging

“…Embedded racism against Indigenous people and anti-Black racism are violent processes that are intertwined with white supremacy as status quo. Anti-Black racism in Ontario has amounted to disproportionate expulsion, push out and suspension rates of African-Canadians, in addition to the pushing of Black bodies, particularly Black male bodies, into the prison system (Dei, 2007;James, 2012;Kovalenko, 2012;Madan, 2016). Settler colonialism and CRT converge to challenge the ongoing displacement, appropriation and genocide of Indigenous peoples and land and the normativity of white hegemony that underpins structural and institutional racism in Canada.…”