Digitizing the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Pasco County’s At-Risk Youth Program

This research report by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund provides an in-depth overview of the “At-Risk Youth Program” created by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office in Tampa Bay, Florida. The Pasco County sheriff’s office relied on a “rudimentary, person-based predictive policing system” based on inherently biased criteria to identify young people who were “destined to a life of crime” and then subjected them to police surveillance and encounters. In the report, the LDF recommends prohibition of school-based police surveillance technologies and urges counties to shift their funding to investment in restorative justice programs and other supportive services.