Issues > Juvenile Justice

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Mississippi Prevention of "Schoolhouse to Jailhouse" Coalition

The Mississippi Schoolhouse to Coalition includes educator, community, civil rights, legal, and public policy groups dedicated to using cost-effective and humane ways to prevent the funneling of Mississippi's children from its schools and into the juvenile justice system.

Our children are shackled by poverty. In Mississippi*, 23.9% of schoolchildren live in poverty, and the ratio of African-American to white children living in poverty is approximately 3 to 1. In Mississippi, 64.2% of schoolchildren are eligible for free or reduced price lunch.

Our legislature is more focused on punishment than education. Annual per pupil spending is unequal, ranging from as low as $4,584 in Benoit County to as high as $9,979 in DeSoto. By comparison, the state spends between $35- and $50,000 each year to keep a child in training school. This is more than it costs to house an inmate at Parchman, the state's maximum security prison.

Our children have become accustomed to official abuse. According to the U.S. Dept. of Education, 9.8% (48,627) of Mississippi schoolchildren were subjected to corporal punishment during the 1999-2000 school year-- the highest rate in the country.

The Mississippi Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Coalition is working to transform our state into one that builds on the strengths of young people, families, and communities to ensure that children are given the greatest opportunities to thrive.

What's Happening to Mississippi's Children?

Mississippi's Youth Courts handle all proceedings involving delinquent children and children in need of supervision (except for cases involving the felonious use of a deadly weapon or an act punishable by life imprisonment or death). The state Department of Human Services Division of Youth Services reported 22,789 youth court proceedings in 2000 and 21,496 in 2001. Over 98.68% of the dispositions each year involved children between the ages of 10 and 18, which amounts to one disposition for every 17.60 children in that age group in 2000 and one for every 18.66 in 2001.

According to those same DYS reports, African-American children were involved in 62.71% of all reported dispositions in 2000 despite comprising only 44.61% of the relevant statewide population.

A 2001 study by the Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center found that between 66% and 85% of juveniles in the state's training schools and regional detention centers met DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for a mental disorder.

According to DYS statistics, approximately 1 in 10 youth court dispositions result in commitment to one of the state's two juvenile training schools at Oakley and Columbia. Findings released by the U.S. Department of Justice pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act in July, 2003, detail abusive disciplinary practices, staffing and physical plant deficiencies, and fundamentally inadequate medical, dental, mental health, educational, and rehabilitative services at those facilities. These findings form the basis of the complaint filed against the state on December 18, 2003.

We know how to fix it. The most revealing fact about the DOJ's 2003 findings letter is its remarkable similarity to the final judgment rendered in Morgan v. Sproat, a 1977 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi detailing constitutional violations at the Oakley Training School.

On September 11, 2003, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore admitted over two decades of non-compliance with the Morgan v. Sproat judgment by the state in testimony before the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. Moreover, General Moore opined that the training schools represented a "system whose time has come and gone," and challenged the legislature to explore alternatives to such a "flawed model." He noted that the state spends between $35,000 and $50,000 each year to keep a child in training school, more than it costs to house an inmate in the maximum security unit at Parchman. By contrast, the state spends only $5,908 per pupil on public education.

*Figures in this document are compiled from the 2000 U.S. Census, Mississippi Department of Human Service Division of Youth Services annual reports for 2000 and 2001, Mississippi Dept. of Education annual reports, and U.S. Dept. of Education Statistics.

For more information about the Coalition or its work, contact Ellen Reddy or Sheila Bedi at (601) 948-8884.