Clinical Professor of Law, Andrea Lyon, and law student, Katie Kizer ('12), spoke to a full classroom of students about how the school-to-prison pipeline and "gang" classification laws create oppression. Linda Uttal, from the Juvenile Justice Division of the Cook County Public Defender, also addressed the impact of the pipeline. The Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) sponsored the discussion as part of its monthly panel series. The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the national trend of criminalizing, rather than educating, children in this country. The speakers related their own experience of how children are criminalized and suggested possible reforms.
Uttal illustrated the effect of the pipeline through arrest statistics. From 2003-2009, total arrests of juveniles by the Chicago Police Department decreased by 27%, while arrests of juveniles in Chicago Public Schools decreased only 1.3%. Of those arrested, African-Americans make up 84%. Zero-tolerance policies account for this discrepancy because school officials referred over 8000 students to law enforcement for simple assaults and battery.
Professor Lyon argued that we need to have more forgiveness for youthful indiscretion instead of instantly criminalizing these youth. “The public view of juveniles is that they are born bad,” said Lyon. “We need to change our language in how we talk about juveniles. When people hear ‘juvenile,’ they hear ‘criminal.’” Professor Lyon pointed out that while crime is generally down, crime reporting is up 600%. Thus, people perceive more crime to be occurring when, in fact, less crime is occurring. Professor Lyon spoke about how the juvenile justice system used to hold transfer hearings on whether it was in the best interest of the juvenile to transfer them to an adult facility. Now, automatic transfer laws eliminated these hearings, resulting in many juveniles being automatically transferred to adult facilities. Professor Lyon believes that many juveniles learn how to be criminals from their experience in adult detention facilities. Thus, we should only transfer a very small percentage of juveniles, instead of automatically transferring them.
Professor Lyon also argued that race plays into this system, which creates an underclass of black youth. People view black kids who misbehave as “criminals,” yet they view white kids who misbehave as just “screwing up.” Professor Lyon suggests that we need to recognize our own prejudice and how this affects the view of black teenagers who break the laws. She believes we should spend more money on health care and school lunch programs than the approximately $25,000 per year we spend on incarcerating children who break laws.
Finally, Katie Kizer (’12) spoke about her experience clerking with the Cook County Public Defender as a 711-licensed student last summer. During one of her cases, Kizer argued in court that a Chicago gang classification law was unconstitutional. She argued that the law violated an individual’s freedom of association and the Eighth Amendment status doctrine, which prohibits criminalization based on status. Kizer brought this experience into her senior writing seminar and is currently writing an article on the unconstitutionality of gang classification laws.
The Center for Public Interest Law will further explore the impact of race on incarceration in its upcoming symposium on February 29-March 1. The symposium is titled, “Neighborhoods and the Legacy of Segregation in Chicago: A Discussion about Historical and Present Racism in Housing, Education, and Incarceration.” Check the CPIL calendar for more details. CLE credit will be available for the event.