The return....Blog Post #2!

The names jesse for those who don’t know. In my first blog post I first introduced my topic which is the School to prison pipeline a fancy name for the process in which school’s harsh policies kick kids out of school on the the street then into jail or even straight into jail and through the criminal system. the pipeline is the reason for the many incarnations of youth even as young as ten. If you missed my first blog there is a link to it at the bottom of this blog but enough of that… on to blog number 2!

BLOG POST # 2

For my original  research I chose to do an interview with the Philadelphia Community Youth Court’s Intake coordinator Ms. Kimberly Stevens. Her job is to look over the referrals and decides whether or not the person referred should go through youth court. The results from my research is also at the bottom of the blog if you wanna go and check out her answer it’s right there. Doing this interview informed me on some of the factors that strengthen the school to prison pipeline. One of the factors is of course the schools but what I’ve learned from my interview was that It was 75% referrals that PCYC gets come from schools. It might not sound like It was a big “ah- ha” moment but allow me to delve deeper. If 75% of referrals come from schools around philly then that means that the policies in place are the reasons that students are get referred out of school and to the police or just kicked out of school period. Also This means that maybe about 20% come from the actual police and the last 5% come from youths just making a bad decision or being in the wrong place and the wrong time. Now think If PCYC wasn’t in place, All of those kids would be in jail either from school or from doing something on the street and all of them would lose their chance to live their life to the fullest.

By doing this interview it allowed me to further my understanding of the school to prison pipeline. By doing this I have now seen how people see or education system in philly. After doing this additional research I feel like I finally know enough about this topic to have an opinion on it. That opinion is that this Pipeline needs to stop for youths to truly live their lives and show that they aren’t the problem but the solution. I’ve seen and heard so many things about we get kick out because we are bad students but what people fail to remember is that we are kids and what do kids do? We make mistakes, but with the certain policies in place we are not allowed to learn from those mistakes and are quickly punished for what happened. People in high places feel as though we are the problem and give up on us but never realized that they were talking at us and not with us to fix the problem. They are so quick to say the problem when in fact we are the solution and the brighter future if they gave us a chance. 

Another thing that I realized with my research is that with everyone that is one our side there are 5 on the other side already counting us out and they are winning by using the pipeline. In my first blog I said that they opened up 2 new prisons worth 400 million dollars but closed down 26 schools as well. If this wasn’t a clear sign that they already scratch out our education I don’t know what is. They rather invest in the business of incarceration than invest in our education. This is why I want to help in any way I can to break this pipeline even if I have to do it little by little.

There isn't much I’m left wondering about This issue. The only thing that could possibly come to mind is who was the first person to think that They would get more out of prisons than the youth’s education. Other than that I’m already thinking on what to do for my agent of change  part for blog post #3. Actually let me rephrase that I know what I’m going to do for my agent of change.  I will volunteer with the Philadelphia Community Youth Court(PCYC) every friday or whenever else they might need me so that I can be a change and help break this pipeline for not just mine but all of our futures. Well thats all for now look out for my big conclusion in blog #3.

Tally-ho!( That sound much cooler in my head before I typed it…. somehow?)

Here is the link to my first blog:

blog post #1   

link to my annotated bib:

Annotated Bib

link to transcript of interview: