Why the School to Justice Pipeline?
Posted on January 9th, 2024
What sets Advocates for the Voiceless apart from other firms and organizations: We do not just assist with reentry or early intervention. We understand that all level of the school to prison pipeline deserve access to justice. Advocates for the Voiceless recognized the limited number of attorneys committed to this kind of work, here are some the reasons we do what we do:
Did you know?
- According to CDC In the US, around 61 million, or 1 out of every 4 adults, live with at least one disability.
- According to a 2016 study done by the Bureau of Prisons, almost half a million people with disabilities end up locked up in state prisons on a given day — accounting for 40% of male state prison populations nationwide and 50% of women’s state prison populations.
- Maryland State Department of Education student arrest data indicates that between 2021 and 2022, there were more than 2187 school-based arrests, nearly 30% of which were special education students.
- According to Ready to Read Literary Statistics: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface wi th the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. More than 60 percent of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate. Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." Over 70% of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.
- In Fiscal Year 2019. 1,550 youth were in DYRS' custody. These numbers include both youth ordered by the DC Family Courts to be committed to DYRS and those ordered by the Family Court to be detained or held overnight at YSC or in youth shelters.