Session: The Role of Prevention in Interrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Race Disparities in Risk and Protective Factors in Youth Serving Public Systems (Society for Prevention Research 26th Annual Meeting)

Public systems offer a prime opportunity for prevention science to intervene to prevent behavioral health problems and interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and achieve racial equity for youth. The school to prison pipeline refers to the increased risk for academic failure and exclusion from school faced by students of color, especially African American students, that leads to justice system involvement. Our panel focuses on opportunities for prevention in public systems to prevent escalating risk using a social determinants perspective to identify structural and systemic risk and protective factors. We examine the possibilities for prevention at the universal (school), selective (school mental health), and indicated (juvenile justice system involved youth) levels.

Schools are typically the first public system where youth manifest behavioral health problems. Positive school climate can serve as an important protective factor, as it captures relationships with adults at school and students’ sense of belonging. School climate is also a prevention intervention target, with many evidence based interventions targeting school climate. The first paper explores racial differences in risk for academic achievement, racial disparities in school climate, and the role the school climate can play in reducing disparities in achievement.

Schools are increasingly offering school based mental health services as a second tier prevention strategy for students at risk of academic failure, behavior health problems at school, or juvenile justice system involvement. The second paper explores the extent to which school level risk and protective factors and student race, gender and mental health diagnosis are associated with access or retention in mental health services.

Once students are in the juvenile justice system, mental and behavioral health services serve to prevent continued justice system involvement. Many of these youth face significant mental health challenges, which can lead to treatment barriers and increased mental health disorder severity. The third paper explores disparities by gender and race in psychological distress and suicidality of justice system involved youth, and reports on the mental health burden for these youth.

Collectively, our panel provides further evidence that prevention has an important role to play to increase protection and decrease risk across public youth serving systems.. These systems have a critical role in responding to the additional risk that youth of color face which continues their disproportionate representation in the school-to-prison pipeline. Identifying areas of racial disparities and specific risk factors provides intervention targets for future prevention involvement.