"Built on a multilayered foundation starting with the transatlantic slave trade and continuing with the brutality of human slavery, prison convict leasing, mass incarceration of people of color exploited by the prison-industrial system, and the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), the criminalization of the behavior of Black girls, specifically as it manifests in the educational system, appears to be the next step in the long history of systemic abuse, oppression, and marginalization of Black people in America." Source: Wilson, Vanessa M. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools Leader’s Guide, 2020 p.7
The criminalization of the behavior of Black Girls and the policies which undergird the school to prison pipeline as a public health issue which traumatizes young girls and creates adverse childhood experiences which have serious health ramifications for these girls as they enter adulthood.