The School-To-Prison Pipeline

Youth Mentor Programs and School Focused Resources

Running Rebels
Running Rebels is a mentoring organization that aims to engage, mentor and guide youth in Milwaukee.

100 Black Men
With chapters in Milwaukee and Madison, 100 Black Men works to mentor and develop young people into future leaders by surrounding them with a positive network.

Heal the Hood
A Milwaukee community organization offering events and mentorship, encouraging neighbors to get together to heal hearts through words and actions.

TRUE Skool, Inc.
TRUE Skool is a Milwaukee based program with a mission is to engage, educate, and empower youth and communities through creative arts and hip hop culture.

Mentoring Positives
Mentoring Positives, based in Madison, is committed to building strong, trusting relationships, and positive attitudes and life skills in youth through mentoring and social entrepreneurship.

We Will Rise
We All Rise: African American Resource Center, Inc. is a non-profit organization in Green Bay, Wisconsin offering culturally specific, holistic healing that exists to serve the African American community. 

Black Youth Alliance-WI
Black Youth Alliance-WI, a community organization in the Green Bay area, is committed to teaching youth healthy relationship skills, Black history and culture.

Urban League of Racine & Kenosha
The Urban League of Racine and Kenosha (ULRK) is an organization committed to uplifting and providing direct services and economic empowerment through entrepreneurship, education and job training, housing and community development, health and quality of life programs, workshops and counseling.

City Year – Milwaukee
City Year challenges the education status quo by working to create environments where young people feel like they belong in order to fulfill their potential.

YWCA La Crosse
YWCA La Crosse’s restorative justice program works in collaboration with local middle schools, using an alternative discipline model to keep students in school and out of the justice system by training students to facilitate restorative circles.

Sesame Street in Communities
Sesame Street in Communities offers hundreds of bilingual multimedia tools to help kids and families enrich and expand their knowledge during the early years of birth through six. Resources are provided around everyday moments and daily routines as well as serious topics like trauma and incarceration of a loved one.

Information on Trauma-Informed Care

Not Enough Apologies: Trauma Stories
Produced by PBS Wisconsin, a documentary exploring how service providers across Wisconsin are working to be responsive to trauma in an effort to change the trajectory for affected children.

WisContext Series on Trauma-Informed Care in Wisconsin
PBS Wisconsin’s WisContext explores trauma-informed care and how health professionals, educators, and caregivers are working to transform Wisconsin’s human services and justice systems in the hope of providing better outcomes for traumatized individuals/communities.

Further Reading

“The School-To-Prison Pipeline is Getting Worse for Black and Brown Girls”
A Guardian article exploring how Black and Latinx girls in the U.S. are disproportionately punished and assaulted by school administrators for simple infractions.

“A Battle for the Souls of Black Girls”
Discipline disparities between Black and white boys have driven reform efforts for years, but The New York Times investigates how Black girls are arguably the most at-risk student group in the United States.

Black Women for Wellness Report on Black Girls in High School
Black Women for Wellness provides a list of resources on how Black girls are affected by the school-to-prison pipeline.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander examines how the targeting of Black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color allows the U.S. criminal justice system to function as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness.

Pushout
Author Monique W. Morris, Ed.D. exposes a world of confined potential and supports the growing movement to address the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures.

PUSHOUT (documentary)
Inspired by the book of the same name by renowned scholar Monique W. Morris, Ed.D., PUSHOUT is an exploration of the harsh and harmful experiences confronting Black girls in schools.

Being Bad: My Baby Brother and the School-Prison Pipeline
Author Crystal T. Laura profiles the educational experience of Black males, the on-the-ground reality of zero tolerance, the role of media in constructing Black masculinity, and the relationship between schools and prisons.