A Texas sheriff and local magistrates created a “school-to-prison pipeline” by funelling truant students through the juvenile justice system, says a class action. “Hidalgo County violates the constitutional rights of truant teenagers by jailing them for their inability to pay fines from missing school, a class action claims in Federal Court”, says the Courthouse News Service . Since January 2009, some 150 teens “served time in Hidalgo County jail that may be attributed to unpaid fines for failure to attend school or other school-related misdemeanor offenses that are not supposed to be punishable by jail time,” says the story, going on > > > The policy purportedly applies to teens aged 17 and older, but the class claims many teens are ticketed “long before they turn 17, the age when adult criminal responsibility attaches in Texas.” Lead plaintiffs Francisco De Luna and Elizabeth Luna, both 18, say they spent 18 days in the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Facility for truancy tickets they received when they were only 13 and 14 years old.

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Texas ’school-to-prison pipeline’