Launched by Maryland local Mckayla Wilkes, Schools Not Jails is a nonprofit organization that claims to be “aggressively grassroots” in its approach to ending the school to prison pipeline. This organization was launched in 2020 alongside two of Wilkes’ former campaign staffers, Carlos Childs and Deash Yeatts-Lonske. This organization has maintained its completely volunteer-run functionality ever since. Taglined on the website, through advocating to end the school-to-prison pipeline, Schools Not Jails aims to “invest in communities, not incarceration.” These volunteers all have diverse backgrounds that have unified to end the trend of public school students being overpoliced and criminalized, leading to an early entrance into the criminal justice system. There are psychiatrists, teachers, parents, and students involved in the organization who have rallied behind this cause. Alongside Wilkes, Childs, and Yeatts-Lonske, these volunteers are aiming to end a crucial, devastating pipeline into the prison industrial complex.
This school-to-prison pipeline that Schools Not Jails focuses on is a pervasive issue, one that feeds into mass incarceration and how the United States has the largest incarcerated population. Many public schools switched to zero-tolerance policies in the 90s, and thus students began facing suspensions and expulsions for acting out in school—all in an attempt to calm any violence or violations. Yet this plan didn’t work; instead, students have become policed in classrooms, and out-of-school suspensions are only increasing while juvenile crime is decreasing (Vox, “The school-to-prison pipeline, explained”). Discipline has since been outsourced to the police officers in these public schools who are called school resource officers (SRO), and this has fed into racialized policing. According to the ACLU, “police in schools arrest Black students for disorderly conduct more than six times as often as their white classmates” (“Safe and Healthy Schools Lead With Support, Not Police”); Black students are targeted by school policies and these SROs, leading to them being suspended and expelled at higher rates. And once students are suspended, they are more likely to drop out of school or get arrested (Vox). This damaging cut-and-dry response to behavior in schools does not leave grace for students with disabilities, students with rough home lives, or students with mental illnesses. Instead of receiving any mental or emotional support from the public school system, students are faced with criminal repercussions. This pipeline creates a discouraging cycle of policing in schools, and students are essentially fed into the prison industrial complex.
Wilkes’ own experiences with this pipeline are the reasoning behind the launch of this organization. During her campaign for Congress, Wilkes mentions in an interview with Maryland Matters how this organization grew organically from her own passion and experience. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Wilkes lost her aunt; she then suffered from depression that went undiagnosed, leading to her “grief turning into rebellion.” The court system didn’t see her mental struggles or trauma and rather placed her in juvenile detention for acting out—they didn’t provide adequate mental support, believing the incarceration system would be a solution. Yet it didn’t help, and Wilkes recognizes that this school-to-prison pipeline only further obscures the futures of America’s youth, especially when it specifically targets marginalized communities.
A unique feature of Schools Not Jails’ advocacy to end this pipeline is their focus on the youth: as this pipeline directly implicates the future of America’s youth, they’re letting students run advocacy for the organization. This youth advocacy is entirely run by students, and it is for students. Anyone in middle school or high school can apply to work for their youth organizing, a program in which students form a “hub” at their school, promote research on the topic, and join advocacy efforts alongside providing “student-to-student support networks.” Essentially, Schools Not Jails allows the students themselves to advocate for each other and their own future—an essential component in enacting long-lasting change.
Overall, Schools Not Prisons is working on saving the lives of students in America and ending mass incarceration one step at a time. With transparency and being volunteer-run at its core, this organization is fighting to invest in the communities, not cops. Holding elected officials accountable is at the heart of their mission. To get involved with them, their website includes a volunteer form and a list of candidates they support to make a change during the election cycles.
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