Disrupting the carceral state through education journey mapping

Abstract

The School-to-Prison Pipeline is an alarming trend of funneling children of color out of schools and into incarceration. Yet the focus on the Pipeline neglects the ways society is imbued with a commitment to criminalizing unwanted bodies. In this empirical article I foreground a spatial analysis, making connections to the socio-spatial dialectic, exploring the nature of the Pipeline within a carceral state, and establishing who is vulnerable to state violence. Next I frame the work through Disability Critical Race Theory and the methodological tool of Education Journey Mapping, investigating both the social and spatial processes through the dimensions of mapping. Finally I document findings, making visible the socio-spatial education trajectories of incarcerated young women of color. The purpose of this article then, is to explore the social and spatial mechanisms that funneled girls of color with disabilities into the carceral state, and ways the girls resisted the state violence.