Across the United States, arrest rates for young people under age 18 have been declining for decades. However, the proportion of youth arrests associated with school incidents has increased.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, K-12 schools referred nearly 230,000 students to law enforcement during the school year that began in 2017. These referrals and the 54,321 reported school-based arrests that same year were mostly for minor misbehavior like marijuana possession, as opposed to more serious offenses like bringing a gun to school.
School-based arrests are one part of the school-to-prison pipeline, through which students—especially Black and Latin students and those with disabilities—are pushed out of their schools and into the legal system.
