A Good Start

The LA school district has decided to stop sending kids to juvie for minor infractions. This is a much better than the zero tolerance crap that has been pushed for the past few decades:

Students caught misbehaving in the nation's second largest school district will be sent to the principal's office rather than the courthouse as part of sweeping disciplinary reforms announced Tuesday by Los Angeles schools.

Under the new policy, police officers at Los Angeles Unified School District won't arrest or cite students for low-level offenses like possessing alcohol or marijuana but will instead refer students to administrators or counselors — a shift that educators and justice officials say will prevent students from becoming mired in the criminal justice system.

The decriminalization of student discipline marks the latest rollback to "zero tolerance" policies that were instituted in the 1970s and 1980s and intensified in the wake of the Columbine school shooting. School districts from California to Florida have instituted so-called restorative justice measures, which aim to address the underlying reasons for misconduct rather than mete out harsh punishments. The Obama administration in January issued recommendations favoring conflict resolution over arrests and citations.

The school to prison pipeline is a deeply wrong, and it good that school districts are beginning to recognize this fact.