School To Prison Pipeline

The school to prison pipeline is defined as a failure in the school system which does not address or even worsens an individual’s struggles. These struggles, in turn, causes compounding problems that eventually lead to imprisonment. For individuals with Autism, the system normally originates with a failure to address these individuals struggles with social interactions.
Individuals’ with Autism problem reading nonverbal cues and problems with joint attention can lead the police to assume noncompliance when these individuals are involved with a crime scene. Situations like this happen when a police officer confronts an individual with Autism by motioning to get away from something or pointing out something for an explanation. Not understanding that the police officer is trying to tell them something, the individual with Autism fails to respond. The police officer than assumes intentional noncompliance because it appears as though the individual with Autism is ignoring them. A situation made worse by the lack of eye contact and robotic almost bored sounding tone that the individual with Autism is using. The police officer …show more content…
This forms a permanent record which details multiple accounts of apparent disrespect for authority, unwilling to follow directions, and indicate a tendency toward general misdemeanors in the classroom. The police seeing this recorded will be further confirmed in their assumption that the individual was intentionally being disrespectful and resisting arrest. To the officer, the permanent record confirms that arrest and maybe even jail time is a proper response to the individual because they appear to be internally causing problems. Arrests such as this than build a case against the individual in the future cementing them into the school to prison