Introduction

Prison School ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizbet Simmons
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
African American Boys ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Core ◽  
System P ◽  
New Public

This introductory chapter begins with a description of the new public school at the Orleans Parish Prison, opened by the criminal sheriff in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2002. Dubbed by locals as “the Prison School”, the school enrolled a group of African American boys who had previously been removed from regular public schools, most for nonviolent disciplinary offenses. The students were taught by inexperienced and uncredentialed teachers, and were surveilled and disciplined by the sheriff's deputies. The chapter then sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine the educational and correctional experiences of locals who protested the establishment of the school, as well as the experiences of two Prison School students. At the core of this book is an overarching concern about the ways in which urban youths are burdened by the long arm of the criminal justice system.

Public Schools in a Punitive Era

Prison School ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizbet Simmons
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Economic Strategies ◽  
War On Crime

This chapter first charts the complex dynamics that have pushed students from school and pulled them toward the criminal justice system, setting up the terms of a black prison diaspora that are maintained throughout the book. It then argues that harsh school disciplinary policies, emerging from the punishing culture of the War on Crime era, curtail youth academic achievement and accelerate incarceration risk in the African American community. It describes how the concentrated effect of punishment has a destabilizing effect on the African American community and the American democratic project as a whole, while benefiting larger social, political, and economic strategies in a neoliberal and postindustrial context.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne Pitre Soileau
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
The Internet ◽  
White Children ◽  
Play Elements ◽  
Jump Rope ◽  
South Louisiana ◽  
Changing Society

This chapter covers the timeline from 1960 when New Orleans integrated its public schools, to 2011, the age of computers and the Internet. Integration had an immediate impact on children and their folklore – African American and white children began to communicate on the playground, sharing chants, jokes, jump rope rhymes, taunts, teases, and stories. Through the next forty-four years, schoolchildren of South Louisiana were able to conserve much traditional schoolyard lore while adapting to tremendous social and material changes and incorporating into play elements from media, computers, smartphones, and the Internet. As time passed African American vernacular became trendy among teenage whites. Black popular music became the music of choice for many worldwide. This is a story about how children, African American and “other” have learned to fit play into their rapidly changing society.

Prison School

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizbet Simmons
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
African American Boys ◽  
Socioeconomic Disparity ◽  
War On Crime ◽  
Prison Populations

Public schools across the United States have turned to the criminal justice system as a gold standard of discipline. As public schools and offices of justice have become collaborators in punishment, rates of African American suspension and expulsion have soared, dropout rates have accelerated, and prison populations have exploded. Nowhere, perhaps, has the War on Crime been more influential in broadening racialized academic and socioeconomic disparity than in New Orleans, Louisiana, where in 2002 the criminal sheriff opened his own public school at the Orleans Parish Prison. “The Prison School,” as locals called it, enrolled low-income African American boys who had been removed from regular public schools because of nonviolent disciplinary offenses, such as tardiness and insubordination. By examining this school in the local and national context, this book shows how young black males are in the liminal state of losing educational affiliation while being caught in the net of correctional control. This book asks how schools and prisons became so intertwined. What does this mean for students, communities, and a democratic society? And how do we unravel the ties that bind the racialized realities of school failure and mass incarceration?

Undereducated and Overcriminalized in New Orleans

Prison School ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizbet Simmons
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
African American Men ◽  
Incarceration Rate ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Students ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
War On Crime ◽  
Out Of School

This chapter looks closely at New Orleans to show how punitive school disciplinary measures endorse the War on Crime, compounding the academic problems of African American students within the city's historically dysfunctional school system. It draws a picture of the dismal educational and disciplinary conditions in the public schools of New Orleans across two generations of African American men and shows their role in extending correctional vulnerability. The educational experiences of these men help explain how Louisiana gained the highest incarceration rate in the world. In Louisiana and nationally, the correctional system is filled with individuals who have dropped out of school. In 1997, almost 75 percent of state inmates lacked a high school diploma. Extreme school disciplinary policies have added to that group students who have been pushed out of school.

Hissène Habré on Trial

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Sharon Weill ◽  
Kim Thuy Seelinger ◽  
Kerstin Bree Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Justice ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
The Core ◽  
Rules Of Procedure ◽  
Significant Achievement

This introductory chapter provides a background of the trial and conviction of Hissène Habré in 2015–2016, which is the most significant achievement global criminal justice has enjoyed in the past decade. The 2016 judgment of the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) found Habré guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and torture—including several counts involving sexual violence committed by Habré's agents and Habré himself. The judicial achievement of the EAC is particularly meaningful in the current climate, where there is a ‘backlash’ against international criminal justice. The chapter then offers a brief overview of the structure and procedure of the EAC. The EAC was a hybrid tribunal applying international criminal law doctrine and governed by Senegalese procedure, ie, civil law tradition. This is why victims were able to participate as parties before the EAC, a development that many cite as critical to the capacity of international justice institutions to meaningfully address victims. The EAC Statute defined the core crimes and the penalties. Most of the rules of procedure remained undefined by the Statue, and here the Statute specified, in Article 16, that whatever is not included in the Statute shall be governed by Senegalese law.

A Demographic Paradox: How Public School Students in New Orleans Have Become More Racially Integrated and Isolated Since Hurricane Katrina

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (9) ◽  
pp. 818-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Kotok ◽  
Brian Beabout ◽  
Steven L. Nelson ◽  
Luis E. Rivera
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
School Level ◽  
Demographic Shift ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
School Students ◽  
Public School Students ◽  
Level Data

Following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans public schools underwent a variety of changes including a mass influx of charter schools as well as a demographic shift in the racial composition of the district. Using school-level data from the Louisiana Department of Education, this study examines the extent that New Orleans public schools are more or less racially integrated, racially segregated, and concentrated by poverty almost a decade after Katrina. The study utilizes exposure indices, inferential statistics, and geospatial analysis to examine how levels of school integration and segregation have changed over time. Our findings indicate that though a greater share of New Orleans schools are considered racially diverse than prior to Katrina, a greater share of minority students are now attending dually segregated schools, where over 90% of students are classified as minority and are receiving free/reduced lunch.

scholarly journals Disclosing the Design of an African American Educational Technology: Bridge: A Cross Culture Reading Program

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Young
Keyword(s):  
Educational Technology ◽  
African American ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
Reading Program ◽  
Cross Culture ◽  
School Students ◽  
Context Analysis

Produced in 1977, Bridge: A Cross Culture Reading Program could have transformed what we presently know as urban education. However, Bridge met with the disapproval of parents, communities, and school districts. The execution of a truly transformative curriculum died as an experimental project implemented in urban school districts. This article documents the transformative nature of Bridge as an educational technology that could have better educated African American youth. Bridge was designed as an intervention reading program that sought to improve the reading levels of black junior and senior high school students in America’s public schools. The program was normed for “inner city” black students in grades 7-12 who were reading between 2nd and 4th grade levels. A text and context analysis and interviews with the designers are offered to provide details surrounding the construction of Bridge: A Cross Culture Reading Program. This is the story of its design, designers, and dormancy.

Supporting African American Student Success Through Prophetic Activism

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diedria H. Jordan ◽  
Camille M. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Educational Leaders ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
African American Student ◽  
School Students ◽  
Public School Students ◽  
Outreach Programs ◽  
Local Schools ◽  
American Students

This article describes how African American students’ success can be improved via the increased support of Black churches and their partnerships with public schools. Findings and implications from a comparative case study of two North Carolina churches that strive to educationally assist African American public school students are detailed. Both churches have outreach programs in local schools, and their activities indicate the value of faith-based partnerships embodying “prophetic activism” that benefits broader communities and empowers African Americans overall. We draw upon the study’s findings to recommend partnership strategies for church and public educational leaders.

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