Texas ’school-to-prison pipeline’
p2pnet view P2P:- A Texas sheriff and local magistrates created a “school-to-prison pipeline” by funelling truant students through the juvenile justice system, says a class action.
“Hidalgo County violates the constitutional rights of truant teenagers by jailing them for their inability to pay fines from missing school, a class action claims in Federal Court”, says the Courthouse News Service.
Since January 2009, some 150 teens “served time in Hidalgo County jail that may be attributed to unpaid fines for failure to attend school or other school-related misdemeanor offenses that are not supposed to be punishable by jail time,” says the story, going on >>>
The policy purportedly applies to teens aged 17 and older, but the class claims many teens are ticketed “long before they turn 17, the age when adult criminal responsibility attaches in Texas.”
Lead plaintiffs Francisco De Luna and Elizabeth Luna, both 18, say they spent 18 days in the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Facility for truancy tickets they received when they were only 13 and 14 years old.
The students demand an order halting truancy bookings and a declaration that the practice is illegal and unconstitutional,says the story.
They’re represented by Lisa Graybill (right) of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas, it says.
(Cheers, RW)
… and identi.ca
Courthouse News Service – County Sued Over ‘School-to-Prison Pipeline’, July 27, 2010
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July 28th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
This is so true, but Hidalgo County, is not the only county in Texas that is racking up the fines for students missing school. Brazoria county does the same thing, and if the student is under 17, they fine or jail the parents. These fines can reach up to $1000.00 per missed day of school, some parents can leave the court room, owing $20,000 to $30,000 dollars. The school is in on this little racket also, if a student is even 15 minutes late to class, this is counted as being absent for the day. So what I’m saying is your child can be on the school grounds all day, and can still be fined or jailed. Most school systems now have a police force on campus, student are now ticketed, and fined for many different reasons, from chewing gum to cell phone use. The most used term now, concerning school rules is “Zero Tolerance”. “When you are treated like a convict, you will grow up to be a convict”, and the Texas school system is producing their share of convicts, that Texas tax payers will have to take care of, in furture years.
July 28th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
“The most used term now, concerning school rules is “Zero Tolerance”.”
It looks to me like there is 100% tolerance for corruption. I recently watched Capitalism a love story and they had a similar case: “Teens in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. were given outrageous jail sentences because a corrupt judge was getting kickbacks from a local private prison.” Whenever you make it profitable for the state to jail or harass people, it will. I still remember years ago seeing a news report about some cop who staked out a “known drug highway”. He would pull people over, search them, and if they had more than what he thought was a reasonable amount of cash on them declare it drug money and take it. He could do that thanks to the forfeiture laws which were passed during the 80’s, “war on drugs”. Thanks to RICO, the cops can take your stuff, declare it’s from drug profits, and YOU have to prove that it isn’t to get it back.