If you are a black elementary school student, you are six times more likely to be suspended than your white friends if you live in Rhode Island. That is just one of many findings recounted in a new ACLU report on the school-to-prison pipeline.
According to the organization, “significant and persistent racial disparities exist” in Rhode Island’s education system — and elementary school students are not exempt. Between 2004-2012, 17,000 suspensions were issued in the state’s elementary schools. Although black students only received 28 percent of those suspensions, they make up 9 percent of the kids in that age group. On the flip side, white students were suspended 0.7 times less frequently than would be expected for their population size.
Similar trends follow students into their high school years as well. There, black students are still two times more likely to be suspended.
These disciplinary patterns set the stage for a racially uneven justice system in the state. Black males in the state are 9.3 times more likely than their white counterparts to spend time in juvenile detention. When looking at Rhode Island’s black population, there were “331.8 black arrests per 1,000 residents compared to just 36.3 non-black arrests.” In 2010 alone, 30 percent of the state’s prison system was black, even though black people only constitute 6 percent of the general population.
Indeed, the impacts of harsh disciplinary actions in schools are well-known. Although the ACLU’s report did not explore student interactions with police, high suspension rates are still problematic. If a student is suspended, the likelihood that he or she drops out of school increases from 16 percent to 32 percent. Nationally, one-third of all black males in middle or high school is suspended, rising 12.5 percent between 1970-2010.