In New Haven, Connecticut the pipeline from school to prison is shorter than you might think.

More About Book ‘Em: Undereducated, Overincarcerated

After successfully exposing injustices at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in their 2004 documentary, CJTS: At What Cost? youth filmmakers at Youth Rights Media have turned their attention and their cameras-to uncovering the school to prison pipeline. In the face of No Child Left Behind and public outcry about the statewide “Achievement Gap,” YRM media makers pose and explore an important but seldom asked question: how are laws, policies and institutional procedures pushing youth out of the classrooms and closer to jail cells?

In June 2005, 13 youth media makers premiered Book ‘Em: Undereducated, Overincarcerated to a standing room only audience at New Haven’s Little Theatre. The film, which includes interviews with students, teachers, administrators, attorneys and researchers, discusses truancy laws, zero tolerance policies, the overuse of school suspensions, and the role of police officers in schools.

The award winning film has garnered significant press, including coverage in the Hartford Courant, the New Haven Register, the Norwalk Hour, local television news outlets, and on CPTV’s Front and Center with Ray Hardman. In March, the film will broadcast nationally as the juvenile justice feature for Open Transmission youth media showcase on < ahref="http://www.freespeech.org/fscm2/genx.php?name=home">Free Speech TV.