This really should be a George Carlin punch line, but is scarily quite real. Mississippi: the Red State that imprisons young kids for acting up at school. Below is the link:
A couple of choice quotes from the article:
“The system established by the City of Meridian, Lauderdale County, and DYS to incarcerate children for school suspensions ‘shocks the conscience,’ resulting in the incarceration of children for alleged ‘offenses’ such as dress code violations, flatulence, profanity, and disrespect.” The Justice Department findings letter noted.
Describing the “school-to-prison pipeline” the Justice Department findings letter noted of the alleged abuses by the police, “By policy and practice, [the Meridian Police Department] MPD automatically arrests all students referred to MPD by the District. The children arrested by MPD are then sent to the County juvenile justice system, where existing due process protections are illusory and inadequate.”
This is a waste of taxpayer money and an insult to the parents and children who are required to send their children to these “schools”. It is also unconstitutional on multiple grounds, abusive, counterproductive and un-American to an unbelievable level.
Oh, and as it chances, there is a for-profit, privately-owned prison in Meridian (one of five in the state). It would be interesting to see if anyone in the MPD or on the local School Board had a financial interest in this school-to-cell scam, now, wouldn’t it?
Mr. B & C
bluntandcranky 
[…] And in Meridian, MS, according to the US Justice Department, children enter the school-to-prison pipeline once the school district refers them to the Meridian Police Department which “automatically” […]