Giving Compass' Take:

• Dr. Monique Morris talks with The Aspen Institute about the integral role schools must play in decriminalizing Black girls, starting with policies that serve--not punish.

• Why must decriminalization start early? How do current policies limit Black girls' opportunities to forge their own identities? What can you do to push for school policies in order to decriminalize Black girls?

• Watch a video from The Aspen Institute about the current criminalization of Black girls in American schools.

Shades of Freedom, from The Aspen Institute Criminal Justice Reform Initiative, is a new podcast amplifying and uplifting promising efforts aimed at reducing mass incarceration, and looking at the ecosystem of related inequalities that surrounds and perpetuates incarceration.

This podcast will feature people working on changing the justice system, from policymakers to activists, and from returning citizens to systems leaders. Discussions will be wide-ranging, on the school-to-confinement pipeline, to alternatives to incarceration, to policing, to sentencing, to prosecutorial reform, to incarceration, to reentry — and how these topics intersect with other community systems (such as education, health, housing and more). Today’s world seeks more than reform of the justice system; it demands transformation, and guests on Shades of Freedom will offer insights on the challenges and solutions in front of us.

The episodes will look at different aspects of the criminal justice continuum, and the first episode examines the role that school policies and practices can play for Black girls in creating an entrée to the justice system.

One piece of dismantling and rebuilding the justice system starts with our schools, which, unfortunately can become an onramp to the criminal justice system for Black girls, who in increasing numbers are subject to criminalization.  How did we end up with schools that are based in fear, rather than love, and how is that leading towards the adultification and criminalization of Black girls in particular.

So much of how we've come to understand Black girlhood has been through contrived narratives that are not really constructed by them.

Listen to the full podcast about decriminalizing Black girls with Dr. Monique Morris at The Aspen Institute.