Racism, Violence, and Health of Youth of Color on the School to Prison Pipeline: Unpacking Systemic Determinants to Prevent Disparities

Social movements like #BlackLivesMatter influence not only the national discourse about populations traditionally neglected, such as those impacted by poverty, police brutality, gun violence, and sexual assault, but also bring awareness to the structural racism that dictates whose lives are worthy of racial, social and economic justice. These differences are noted across social domains: individual, family, peer, school, and community. Racial disparities in legal outcomes are evident across communities, especially when there are differences in race, power, and privilege. Specifically, in historical cases like Rodney King, and Latasha Harlins and more current cases like Brock Turner and Stephon Clark highlight dramatic differences questioning the structural and systemic factors that impact the overall quality of life of young people of color. As such, while African Americans only make up 13% of the United States, they account for 27% of arrests and one third of incarcerations. At the school level, 70% of African American youth experience school-related arrests and suspended/expelled three to four times the rate of their White counterparts. These factors beg the question: How does social work reinforce these disparities by focusing primarily at the individual level and potentially reinforcing the structural, systemic, economic and racist policies, practices, and interventions? This roundtable seeks to challenge the field of social work by applying tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to youth serving systems. The discussants will focus on three CRT tenets: 1) Endemic nature of racism, 2) Interest convergence/materialist determinism, and 3) Intersectionality to generate societal and individual transformations with an eye toward another critical tenet needing further focus in social work: privileging voices of color. The facilitators will use their applied research and practice with communities to offer strategies to improve the quality of life for youth engaging with universal, selective, and indicated systems of support. This roundtable addresses the urgency that social workers, educators, and other researchers need to give voice to populations traditionally neglected to conduct richer, more meaningful studies.

Using illustrative examples, the discussants will address the following topics across the range of systems of support: 1) Universal: Reimagining community based program evaluation to promote economic and racial equity; 2) Selective: School-based supports to reduce social and health disparities –and; 3) Indicated: Structural & Systemic factors and recidivism of Black young adults. The roundtable participants will deliver short presentations on these topics followed by a 30 minute structured discussion. Session attendees will leave this roundtable discussion with: a) concrete understanding of racism and the structural and systemic factors impacting system-involved youth of color; b) strategies to inform and culturally tailor individual and structural level interventions for economic well-being (ban the box, employment re-entry programs, etc.); and c) techniques for establishing rigor and quality in social work research to increase uptake of race conscious interventions that prevent social and health disparities and promote healthy equity for youth of color.