Chapter 6: Leading Restorative Justice Efforts for Equity in Secondary Schools

This chapter provides a review of equity-focused disciplinary practices aimed at decreasing the school to prison pipeline. Retributive disciplinary policies, including zero tolerance, have been especially devastating for youth of color and youth receiving special education services (Anyon et al., 2014; Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002; Mallett, 2017; Shankar-Brown, 2015). Black and Brown youth are overrepresented in the degree to which they are funneled into the juvenile justice system due to minor school infractions (Anderson & Ritter, 2017; Hughes et al., 2020), and juvenile arrests are connected to increased high school dropout rates (Hirschfield, 2018). In the past two decades, restorative justice has been touted as a remedy for schools trying to achieve greater equity in disciplinary outcomes. Restorative justice “seeks to repair the damage done to relationships in the wake of crime or other wrongdoing” (Davis, 2019, p. 29). Astutely, Davis and others note that the principles of restorative justice can be traced to ancient times and were adapted by the juvenile justice system in the United States to provide offenders with a rehabilitative focus as they repaired the damage caused by their crimes (Pavelka, 2016).