Preventing the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Public Health Approach for School Psychologists, Counselors, and Social Workers

183 Pages·2023·2.039 MB·English

by  Charles Bartholomew

Preventing the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Preventing the School-to-Prison Pipeline is the first book written to provide
school psychologists and other K–12 mental health professionals with
knowledge and strategies intended to help them disrupt the criminalization
of historically oppressed learners in today’s classrooms. A phenomenon
of the United States’ intersecting education and criminal justice systems,
the school-to-prison pipeline is the process by which school staff punish
already marginalized or at-risk students—primarily Black youth—in ways
that enable a lifetime of targeting by police, court, and carceral operations.
Exploring the unmet needs of students with mental, emotional, and
behavioral health disorders, the effects of implicit and explicit bias,
adverse school and court policies, and other biopsychosocial factors, this
powerful book offers a preventative, public-health approach to providing
clinical care to vulnerable students without compromising school safety.
School psychologists, counselors, and social workers will come away with
urgent and actionable insights into advocacy, collaboration, preventive
interventions, alternative discipline measures in schools, and more.
Charles Bartholomew is a certified school psychologist and a licensed
psychologist in the State of Georgia, USA.

Preventing the
School-to-Prison Pipeline
A Public Health Approach for
School Psychologists, Counselors,
and Social Workers
Charles Bartholomew
Designed cover image: Getty images
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Charles Bartholomew
The right of Charles Bartholomew to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or repro-
duced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or reg-
istered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bartholomew, Charles (School psychologist), author.
Title: Preventing the school-to-prison pipeline : a public health
approach for school psychologists, counselors, and social workers /
Charles Bartholomew.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022049490 (print) | LCCN 2022049491 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032254906 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032256511
(paperback) | ISBN 9781003284383 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: School-to-prison pipeline—United States. | School
discipline—Social aspects—United States. | School violence—United
States—Prevention. | African American youth—Education—Social
aspects. | School mental health services—United States. | School
psychology—United States.
Classification: LCC LB3012.2 .B37 2023 (print) | LCC LB3012.2
(ebook) | DDC 371.50973—dc23/eng/20221220
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049490
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049491
ISBN: 978-1-032-25490-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-25651-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-28438-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003284383
Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Access the Support Material: www.routledge.com/9781032256511
This book is dedicated to my parents, who knew very little about books
except that they could not read them. My parents and their children
were all born into the peonage system, which continued for almost
one hundred years after being outlawed by the U.S. Congress in 1867.
It continued to flourish in the South and made millionaires from the
cheap labor of former slaves. For generations, my family was paid too
little to escape poverty or the indebtedness to the plantation stores,
too poor to leave the plantations to seek gainful employment in other
parts of the country, and too afraid to challenge the status quo that
continued to reap benefits from the remnants of an alliance between
government power and slave-based agriculture and Jim Crow laws. In
the sugar cane fields outside of New Orleans, federal troops teamed up
with French planters in 1811 to fight slave rebels, culminating in the
largest slave revolt in American history. This “unholy alliance,” as
Rasmussen (2011) called it, would come to define the young American
nation as a slave country in the years leading up to the Civil War. My
parents were born about one hundred years after this rebellion but
within the same repressive community. No words or acts of gratitude
can ever be enough to thank them and the countless brave white,
black, brown, and red men and women who were willing to sacrifice
everything (including their lives) so the ideals of America could be
realized and a man like me could be literate and free!

Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xv
SECTION I
The School-to-Prison Pipeline 1
1 Funneling Children Into the Prison
Industrial Complex 3
History of the School-to-Prison Pipeline 4
Schools and Juvenile Courts—A Precarious Alliance 6
Rehabilitation, Prevention, and Mental Health Promotion 10
Disproportionate Impact on African American Youth 13
2 The Prison Industrial Complex 18
Iatrogenic—A Cure That Makes Problems Worse 18
Changing the Dysfunctional Narrative 21
Court-Level Practices 22
The Costs and Consequences of Incarceration 24
vii
viii Contents
SECTION II
How Adverse Practices “Fuel”
the Pipeline 31
3 Adverse School-Level Practices 33
Declining School Funding 33
Funding Equity 34
Racism and Resegregation of Schools by Race and Class 38
Zero Tolerance Disciplinary Policies 42
Increased Utilization and Federal Funding of Police Officers
in Schools 45
4 Unmet Needs of Youth With Mental, Emotional,
and Behavioral Health Disorders 49
Mental Health in the United States 49
Prevalence of Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health
Disorders in Youth 52
Trauma 54
Unmet Needs of Youth with MEB Disorders 55
Striking Disparities and Greater Disability Burden on African
Americans 56
Very Young Children 58
5 Explicit and Implicit Bias—Threats to
the Fabric of Ethical Practice 61
Prejudice, Discrimination, and Explicit and Implicit Bias 62
Why Does Implicit Bias Matter? 66
Implicit Bias and Educators/Teachers 67
Implicit Bias and Mental Health Providers 68
SECTION III
Transformative Practices 75
6 The Biopsychosocial Approach
to Behavioral Healthcare 77
The Biopsychosocial Model: A Novel Approach
to Behavioral Health Care 78
Biopsychosocial versus Traditional Approaches 80
Behavioral Health Care Assessment 81
Behavioral Health Care Assessment and the DSM-5 83
Contents ix
7 The Comprehensive Behavioral Healthcare
Assessment for Children and Adolescents 88
SECTION IV
Prevention: A Moral and Ethical
Imperative 109
8 The Promise of Prevention 111
Prevention Psychology 111
Prevention and the Public Health Model 114
Risks and Protective Factors 115
Multiple Factors Contribute to the Development
of MEB Disorders 118
Proactive Screening of Behaviorally At-Risk Children 120
The Preventive Aspect of the Biopsychosocial Approach 121
Prevention Requires a Paradigm Shift 122
9 The Public School—The Front Line
of Prevention 126
Every Student Succeeds Act 126
Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions
and Supports 129
Overlap Between SWPBIS and the Public Health’s
View of Prevention 130
Collaboration 131
SWPBIS, Collaboration, and Schools 133
10 What Should School-Based Mental Health
Professionals Know? 137
Mental Health Providers in the School Setting 137
SWPBIS, School Counselors, Psychologists,
and Social Workers 138
Effective School–Community Partnership to Support
School Mental Health 142
Equity-focused SWPBIS Reduces Racial Inequalities
in School Discipline 144
ESSA, SWPBIS, NASP Practice Model,
and the School-to-Prison Pipeline 144