Peculiar Parallels

In California, where I live, a person convicted of a crime and sentenced to time in state prison gets housed according to a points system that sorts people into four “security levels,” with gradually more restrictive limits on their movement, autonomy, and access to human connection. Annually, each person incarcerated in the California state prison system can expect to have a state agent assess their number of points, according to a standard rubric, and generate a report that dictates the security level of their housing for the next year. Thus, points on the rubric have significant implications for the material conditions of an incarcerated person’s life.

from “Improving California’s Prison Inmate Classification System” (2019)

I don’t mean to be dramatic, but a child enrolled in the California school system can also, at least semi-annually, expect to have a state agent assess their number of points, according to a standard rubric, and generate a report that ultimately dictates significant implications for the material conditions of that child’s life.

I’m not equating grades and prison housing rubrics, but we do see the same pattern of outcomes for the people they measure. That is, both systems disproportionately relegate poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous folks into the lowest ranks, sorting them into shittier and shittier circumstances.

In both institutions, state agents depend on points systems to efficiently sort the citizens…