October 29, 2014
YLC on Harsh Discipline for Truants
The Center for Public Integrity interviewed Staff Attorney Sue Burrell in connection with its investigation of school discipline and push out of Black and Latino youth in California’s education system. Sue spoke about the system’s misguided truancy sweeps that feature a COP’s-like show of force as the system’s solution to youth with persistent attendance problems. Youth Law Center co-sponsored legislation that now prohibits the incarceration of youth for violation of court orders to attend school, but other kinds of punitive practices persist in some jurisdictions. The Center for Public Integrity investigation explores the ways that such practices contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.
Center for Public Integrity article