School hardening policies—such as the presence of police and security, metal detectors, and harsh discipline codes—contribute to a criminalization culture in schools and students being pushed out of classrooms and into the school-to-prison pipeline. For Black girls, this criminalization culture causes serious additional harms.
School policies that include harsh punishments, automatic out-of-class time and police involvement for discipline contribute to pushing young people out of classrooms and into the criminal legal system. These punitive practices disproportionately affect Black and other children of color, students with disabilities, young people experiencing poverty and children from communities that have been historically marginalized. Urgent change is needed to end school pushout and dismantle this school-to-prison pipeline.
