What Illinois’ Ticket Crackdown Means for Black Students

School or prison (Photo Credit: Sanket Sathe/Getty Images). By Quintessa Williams This article was originally published on& Word In Black. When a 16-year-old high school student in Illinois was suspected of damaging a fence, school authorities had options for how to deal with the situation, ranging from in-school detention to suspending the student from class.& However, according to ProPublica, instead of issuing a suspension or detaining him after class, they sent him to the school’s resource officer. That officer, in turn, gave the student a ticket—ordering him to pay a $200 fine for the property damage. There was just one problem: the Illinois attorney general had ruled it illegal to ticket students, but only told one district. As a result, officers statewide continued to ticket kids with costly fines —especially Black students.& The incident in Township High School District 211 is just one example of school-based ticketing, a controversial tool schools use to control student behavior. However, critics say it disproportionately targets Black students, increases absenteeism, and presents another entry point into the school-to-prison pipeline. And now the practice is under even more scrutiny: along with the Illinois attorney general’s determination that these policies violate state law, another student in...