Restorative discipline and the school-to-prison pipeline

Unless you have children, are a teacher or school administrator, or feel you were mistreated by the education system during your school-aged years, you may not think much about the disciplinary actions used within our school systems. However, from a societal perspective, it’s important to understand that a common recurring theme within educational disciplinary action is the usage, and over usage of suspension and expulsion as punishment (Monahan et al., 2014). Studies have shown that the misuse of suspension and expulsion can and does lead children toward a life of criminalization and institutionalisation (Monahan et al., 2014). This phenomenon is known as the school-to-prison pipeline (Monahan et al., 2014), and it fundamentally influences crime rates in Canada. Even the phrase ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ sounds inherently damaging to our children for obvious reasons, but the main reason society should care about this phenomenon is because it is forcefully filtering today’s young people into the criminal justice system. There are other options. Introduced through the concept of Restorative Justice, an idea called Restorative Discipline was conceived (Hass-Wisecup & Saxon, 2018). Restorative Discipline, when implemented with intention, collaboration, and consistency, vastly reduces the school-to-prison pipeline by allowing children to make mistakes, learn from their mistakes, understand the concept of reparation, and be empowered to make amends (Hass-Wisecup & Saxon, 2018). This study highlights the significant gap in restorative justice and restorative discipline literature, research, and practices within Canada. This study will analyze various school Codes of Conduct from across Canada, delve deeper into the meaning and understanding of the school-to-prison pipeline, and explain restorative discipline practices in action. Further, this study offers five recommendations that can be easily implemented on a day-to-day basis, for any school system and school personnel who may want to make a change.