Carceral Colonialisms: Schools, Prisons, and Indigenous Youth in the United States

Abstract

In this chapter, we attempt to open conversations on the school-prison nexus and indigenous youth by tracing the history of colonization from boarding schools to the modern school to prison pipeline, focusing on a statistical analysis of school discipline in Arizona schools. The attempted assimilation and colonization of Indigenous youth in the United States has moved from boarding school policy to the modern network of zero tolerance and school discipline policies that form the “school to prison pipeline” as students are pushed out of classrooms and in to mass incarceration. Although the school to prison pipeline has been documented and analyzed in many communities of color, the extent and effect of the schoolprison nexus for Indigenous youth in the United States has been under-explored. We found that schools with a predominantly non-white student population, particularly predominantly American Indian and Alaska Native schools, reported higher rates of school discipline. Furthermore, reports of Indigenous students being disciplined for purported dress code violations when wearing traditional Indigenous hair styles signifies the ways in which colonization permeates the educational system in the United States. These destructive, disruptive, and colonial educational practices must be stopped.