Detroit Youth Voice march to break 'School to Prison Pipeline' 39 Gallery: Detroit Youth Voice march to break 'School to Prison Pipeline'

DETROIT, MI-- In 1994 the state passed

giving rise to zero tolerance policies in districts across the state.

But organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and Detroit Youth Voice, an activist group run by young people, say Detroit — and other districts — have zero tolerance suspension policies that no longer target only guns.

The policies are too broad and result in too many unnecessary suspensions for frivolous violations, like not having and ID or not abiding to the dress code, says Youth Voice member Cheyenne Walker, 19, who attends Cody High School Detroit Institute of Technology.

These policies, they claim, contributed to what the ACLU has coined the “school to prison pipeline.”

Youth Voice is also concerned about the disproportionate spending of tax dollars, about $40,000 per prisoner (The number they used; the most recent state reports indicate the average is about $33,000) compared to $8,000 per student.

Finley and nearly 100 supporting the message began marching south from Cass Park in Detroit about 1:30 p.m. Saturday to protest the systemic education and incarceration problems.

They were taking their protests to the Wayne County Jail, nearly a mile away in downtown Detroit.

At the front of the procession young people carried a purple banner with “Break the school to prison pipeline” at the top.

Before commencing, participants knelt on the sidewalk and created signs with slogans like, “Roy Roberts end zero tolerance,” “End the new Jim Crow,” and “Schools and jobs, not jails.”

Some wore symbolic plastic handcuffs on their wrists.

“The school to prison pipeline is a system set up to take kids from school to prison because they don’t have the resources they need to be successful in life,”said Walker.

She said zero tolerance policies started to combat guns and weapons, “but now the schools are starting to use it as everything, if you don’t have your ID, wrong uniform, basically just petty things.”

The state Board of Education addressed the issue last year and asked districts to take a second look at their zero tolerance suspension policies.

"Researchers have found no evidence that zero tolerance policies make schools safer or improve student behavior," the board said in a resolution passed in June. "In fact, studies suggest that the overuse of suspensions and expulsions may actually increase the likelihood of later criminal misconduct.