The School to Prison Pipeline

Yes, Gentle Readers, there is such a thing as a "school to prison pipeline." Apparently it's a little easier to observe in Meridian, Mississippi, than it is in most communities:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-mississippi-lawsuit-idUSBRE89N1I420121024

I think the terms of the lawsuit reflect a misunderstanding, but that may be because of the way the pertinent law is written. It's not just "black and disabled" students who fall down the pipeline. It's poor students, a disproportionate number of whom happen to be "black and disabled."

I want to pontificate about this at some length because I see comments on some of the news stories linked here showing that some readers have noticed statistical connections between race, income, school record, and adult criminal behavior...but they've not considered the statistics in depth.

First, to get the color thing out of the way: More Americans are of European than of African or Native American origin. The connection between income, school record, and criminal behavior is observed in more White individuals than Black individuals. However, Africans, Native Americans, and a few other minority groups are more likely to have low family incomes than Euro-Americans are. I am not a number cruncher myself, but the number crunchers say that this is the complete extent of the link between race and income/school/criminality. Skin color probably has no real effect on the behaviors that are linked.

In my home town we have a specific term that describes the syndrome. It does not sound very p.c. and some people may find it hurtful, but since we are describing a set of voluntary behaviors and since I don't think race is really relevant, I want to use this word from my local dialect anyway. The word is "trashiness."

Trashiness is found in all ethnic groups, but it does tend to run in families. Sometimes it can be observed over ten generations or more in the same family. There may or may not be a genetic predisposition; what has been demonstrated, notably by prison doctor Alexander Schauss, is that the syndrome can be disrupted by voluntary behavior changes.

Here's the typical behavior pattern:

1. Parents who may be overfed, but are undernourished, marry early, have too many children, eat a poor diet, and use alcohol and other drugs during the pregnancy/infancy years.

2. These children are slow learners who resent more efficient learners and often become discipline problems at school.

3. They fail to learn self-control even at puberty, and may become violent or steal small items on impulses they immediately realize they should have resisted. They are genuinely sorry for the harm they've done...but they don't develop enough judgment not to do something similar on some other occasion.

4. Their instinctive sense of what makes them feel better or worse is badly damaged. They tend to reach for more of the junkfood that has actually made them ill rather than for food that contains the nutrients they need. Even if they don't use drugs (and most do) they are capable of becoming addicted to sugar and monosodium glutamate.

5. When they get out of school, they become discipline problems on the streets, or even in the home.

6. As soon as possible after puberty, they flop into bed with each other, and the cycle starts over for a new generation.

7. Meanwhile, a bad school record increases the likelihood that the adults will receive prison sentences.

8. A prison record reduces the likelihood that they'll find jobs.

9. Being out of work increases the likelihood that they'll commit crimes...and so they'll be burdens to society, in one way or another, all their lives.

The damage done by growing up in this kind of lifestyle may be hard to reverse completely, but Dr. Schauss found that some symptoms of trashiness--notably the tendency to impulsive violence--can be corrected when and while even "hard-core" prisoners eat their vegetables. I'm serious. In Diet, Crime, and Delinquency he listed specific macronutrients that are consistently found to be deficient in impulsively violent people, and offers some tentative guidelines for correcting these imbalances, noting that bigger bodies need more nutrients.

("Diet, Crime, and Delinquency? Sheesh, Pris, that book is thirty years old. Could you recommend anything that contains more recent research?" Sorry, I'm not aware of any close matches for this specific focus, but if you click on this Amazon link you'll see newer books on the general topic of nutrients, learning disorders, and mental illness. One book that's quite specific--and may or may not be helpful, because people with low-grade brain damage due to malnutrition probably can't read it--is Joan Mathews Larson's Seven Weeks to Emotional Healing.)

I think this is actually what's in Michelle Obama's mind when she preaches about how much of what everyone should eat, and I salute her for caring and trying, but I wish she'd chosen more of a scholarly or teacherly approach rather than the naggy one that arouses so much hostility. It is true that fats and simple sugars deplete some of the nutrients the brain needs most. What's not true is that anybody can lay down the nutritional law for every other body.

According to the Reuters report, what the local authorities in Meridian, Mississippi, are trying is an approach that may work for the rest of the community but is guaranteed not to work for teenage sufferers from the Trashiness Syndrome. Kick'em out of school to facilitate learning for other students, then, since most of these kids don't have a parent at home, immediately throw them into jail to keep them from becoming nuisances in town. Every smaller kid who's ever been punched or shoved by a trashy teenager, not to mention every teacher who's ever been threatened by one, is delighted to see Bad Boy Bob hauled off in the paddywagon. Will Bob get adequate nutrition, rehabilitation, even reality-based counselling? Not likely.

At my school Bad Boy Bob was a mean, sneaky, scrawny little borderline albino, but, nationwide, he's perceived as most likely to be a big Black guy. The darker his skin, the heavier his eyebrows, the fuller his lips, and of course the bigger and burlier he gets, the more likely people are to believe that (a) he dunnit (whatever "it" was), (b) for unworthy reasons, (c) because he's evil, and (d) he should get either death or life at hard labor, depending on their philosophy about such things.

This is disgusting. I can't blame federal agents for being disgusted to see it in Meridian, Mississippi, but I also see that it's only part of what they're seeing. "Black and disabled"? What's that supposed to mean? Teachers are gunning for wheelchair-bound students? Meridian cops arrest every blind person they see? Duh...they mean, specifically, disabled by brain damage. Brain damage is independent of race. Brain damage is not, however, independent of family income. Low-income parents are less likely to practice a healthy lifestyle themselves or teach it to their children.

So we're talking about a problem of brain damage that is disproportionately likely to happen to poor children. So the solution is not, as may well occur to these school administrators, to make sure they expel equal numbers of students from each ethnic group.

Here's the alternative that worked for the school in my home town: in-school suspension.

Students should know that being suspended or expelled from school is punishment, not a vacation.

Students who have earned suspension or expulsion should be suspended or expelled, for the good of their classmates.

Students who have earned suspension or expulsion are likely to need some form of adult supervision; they shouldn't be sent out to roam around town and cause more trouble.

So, at my school, these offenders were sent to a detention room and made to do busywork. They knew that was a punishment, all right.

Unfortunately my school's system for dealing with the truly brain-damaged students was to keep holding them back, so they never got into high school...no system is perfect. In-school suspension would not teach Bad Boy Bob the lesson he needs, because he's not capable of learning it. In-school suspension would keep Bob from interfering with regular classes at school, without burdening society by putting him in jail.

Can anything actually help Bad Boy Bob? I think so, but it can't be guaranteed or forced to work. Bob still has to choose to help himself. Rehab can help him break the worst habits but he has to choose to stick with good ones after he's gone through withdrawal.

What can help would be to expose Bob to true stories about guys like him who've changed the patterns of their lives by choosing healthier lifestyles. Ideally, these guys, after they've grown up and proved that the change is real, would be the ones telling their stories. Former convicts and delinquents who've successfully returned to society would go on TV, appear at sports events, and occasionally visit a school to rap about what's worked for them. If anything is likely to help Bob, it would be a good role model.

For the schools in Meridian, Mississippi, I recommend Gate City High School as a role model.