Seen But Not Heard: Personal Narratives of Systemic Failure Within the School-to-Prison Pipeline

The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) involves harsh discipline practices and exclusionary processes that disproportionally effect students of color by excluding them from K-12 education and increasing the likelihood of their involvement with the criminal justice system. To curtail these unjust practices and end the negative effects of the STPP, much of the academic literature provides insight into the causes of the STPP and proposes solutions to this problem. However, the voices of those who have experienced the STPP are largely missing from the literature. Specifically, the perspective of academically capable but historically unsuccessful incarcerated adults is largely unknown. This paper uses first-hand narratives developed using evocative autoethnographic methodology to describe the K-12 experiences of currently incarcerated college students. The STPP literature and two developmental theories (Bronfenbrenner (1979); Maslow (1971)) frame the narratives that explore A) interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences within the STPP; B) the complex interplay ofthe systems the authors interacted with; C) unmet needs that prevented educational attainment; and D) unanswered questions such as: "Who could I have been if someone had intervened?" This article concludes with questions that challenge readers to become engaged in social justice actions that can prevent current and future K-12 students from becoming oppressed and controlled by the STPP.