Story: “Changing Directions: Community-based programs redirect the school-to-prison pipeline”

I wrote an article about Austin, Tx, the school-to-prison pipeline, and community-based programs. It was published today in The Austin Chronicle!

I started working on this story in January of 2013, while I was planning my master’s report. My research continued in the fall of 2013, when I took a graduate seminar, “The School to Prison Pipeline,” and monitored a variety of news outlets on this issue. My initial goal was to discover the solution to this problem and blow everyone’ s mind with this new angle. Subsequently, my focus lead me to community-based programs in Austin and showcasing what is happening on the ground to protect youth from the criminal justice system. From November 2013 through April 2014, I interviewed plenty of individuals, visited schools and program centers, added a lot of PDF research files to my hard drive, and found an angle that still spoke to my initial goal. I am grateful and very appreciative of everyone who shared their story with me, provided a resource, edited my paper, and exposed my article to a broader audience.

Click below to read the full article.