How one UNL professor is tackling school-to-prison pipeline, which is at heart of Lied Center play | Education

Anna Deavere Smith’s play “Notes from the Field” is an ambitious work, both in its scope of characters — all played by Smith — and the topic it explores: criminal justice and education.

Using the stories of real-life educators, parents, students and administrators, Smith — a dramatist and renowned TV and film actor — sheds light on the school-to-prison pipeline, the idea that disadvantaged youth are disproportionately pushed out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system.

Smith sums it up at the beginning of the play, which she will perform at the Lied Center for Performing Arts on Wednesday night: “It’s impossible to talk about the criminal justice system … without talking about education.”

It’s a nexus Kristen Blankley, a law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has studied extensively. As a mediator with Project Restore, a local initiative that offers rehabilitative alternatives to youth referrals, Blankley has worked to combat the school-to-prison pipeline through the lens of restorative justice.

The idea is to reframe the dichotomy of victim and offender, to offer rehabilitative — rather than punitive — solutions, through dialogue, reconciliation and real-life remedies.

In offering those alternatives, Blankley and others hope to cut down on youth recidivism —  and ultimately divert another young person from ending up in the school-to-prison pipeline.

“We’re trying, especially with these young people, to show the consequences, and by showing those consequences break that potential trajectory,” Blankley said.

Programs such as Project Restore, which works with Lincoln Public Schools students, have shown success in that regard, too, Blankley said. A recent three-year review of youth restorative programs across Nebraska showed that recidivism rates dropped from 18% to about 12%, a figure replicated in Lancaster County as well.

LPS sparked debate when it expanded its school resource officer program in 2018, adding six officers to the district’s 12 middle schools. Critics say that the program contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affects students of color.