The Disciplinary Policies Of Salt Lake City School Districts

With the growth of law enforcement used as a discipline management measure in high schools since the mid 1990’s, incidents among high school students have been increasingly treated as criminal acts, sending students into the criminal justice system instead of the principal’s office. This is a growing crisis known as the â€Å"school-to-prison pipeline,† where even growth of out-of-school suspensions can result in higher drop-out rates and thus a higher likelihood of criminal behavior. Research has shown that both poverty status and minority status are predictors of school suspensions and arrests, and that the same incident will result in harsher discipline for minority students than for white students. In Salt Lake City, low-income†¦show more content†¦Comparing two schools within two separate districts instead of simply two schools in the city will add an additional layer of depth to this analysis, in that differences in the districts’ particul ar policies can be examined as to whether or not they contribute to the findings. BACKGROUND The disproportionality of harsher discipline for minorities than whites for similar offenses (Finn Servoss, 2015) coupled with the â€Å"militarization† of high school disciplinary practices (Alexander, 2012) are the culprits for what has been dubbed the â€Å"school-to-prison pipeline,† resulting in poor minority students entering the juvenile and criminal justice systems 50% more today than they did 20 years ago for similar offenses (Wald, 2003). Harsher disciplinary practices were adopted in the 1980’s and 90’s due mostly to the war on drugs and the rise of gun violence in schools (Triplett, 2014). These came in the form of zero-tolerance policies and employment of School Resource Officers (SROs). SROs are sworn law enforcement officers assigned full-time to patrol schools. This means that discipline problems traditionally handled by school principals and teachers are now handled by a police officer