Our Children Deserve Care, Not Criminalization: Conscious Cinema Presents Preschool to Prison
Preschool to Prison Documentary
Oct 24, 5:30pm
Join us Saturday, October 24, for a powerful documentary and community conversation about racial justice, early childhood education, and the future our children deserve.
You’re invited to join us for the next Conscious Cinema community film experience!
Every child deserves to be loved, nurtured, protected, and given the opportunity to thrive. Our children deserve schools that recognize their brilliance, celebrate their curiosity, respect their individuality, and respond to their needs with patience, compassion, and care.
But what happens when the very institutions entrusted with educating our children begin treating normal childhood behavior as a threat?
What happens when a child's frustration is labeled aggression, their curiosity is interpreted as defiance, or their need for additional support becomes grounds for exclusion?
And what does it mean when these experiences begin as early as preschool?
These are some of the urgent questions we'll explore at our next Conscious Cinema community screening on Saturday, October 24, 2026, from 5:30–8:30 PM at BLU Art & Wellness Gallery in Downtown Long Beach.
The Film: Preschool to Prison
Our featured documentary, Preschool to Prison, is an Emmy Award-winning film directed by Dr. Karen Baptiste and produced by Empress Films.
The documentary examines how the school-to-prison pipeline can begin with children as young as two years old, disproportionately affecting Black and Brown children, particularly those with disabilities.
Through personal accounts from families and insights from education experts, civil rights advocates, and behavioral specialists, the film exposes how systemic racism, implicit bias, and punitive disciplinary policies can transform developmentally appropriate childhood behaviors into disciplinary emergencies.
Rather than receiving the guidance, emotional support, and educational resources they need, children may experience suspensions, expulsions, physical restraint, and other harmful disciplinary responses.
For children already navigating racial bias, disability discrimination, trauma, or limited access to resources, these early experiences can have lasting consequences for their relationships with school, their sense of belonging, and their educational opportunities.
The film challenges us to recognize that the school-to-prison pipeline is not simply about what happens when young people enter the juvenile justice system. It is also about the decisions, assumptions, policies, and practices that shape how children are treated long before they reach adolescence.
When Childhood Is Criminalized
Young children are still learning how to communicate their needs, regulate their emotions, navigate relationships, and understand the world around them.
They make mistakes. They become frustrated. They test boundaries. They need adults who can help them develop the skills to manage difficult emotions and situations.
These are normal parts of growing up.
Yet research has documented racial disparities in school discipline, including the disproportionate suspension and exclusion of Black children from early childhood educational settings.
One contributing factor is adultification bias, which can cause adults to perceive Black children as older, less innocent, or more responsible for their behavior than their peers.
When children are viewed through these distorted assumptions, their needs can be overlooked and their behaviors misunderstood.
Children with disabilities may face additional barriers when schools lack appropriate accommodations, behavioral supports, and inclusive educational practices.
Preschool to Prison asks us to confront these realities and consider what must change.
What if we responded to children's behavior with curiosity instead of judgment? What if we invested in their development instead of their punishment?
From Awareness to Action: Why Conscious Cinema Matters
Conscious Cinema is more than a film screening.
Created through VERB Community, Conscious Cinema is a free, Black-centered social justice film series that brings people together to watch, reflect, learn, and build collective power through film, community dialogue, and political education.
We believe storytelling has the power to challenge assumptions, deepen empathy, reveal systemic injustices, and help communities imagine new possibilities.
But awareness alone is not enough.
Our goal is to connect what we see on the screen with what we experience in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and everyday lives. Each screening creates space for meaningful conversation, shared learning, relationship-building, and collective action.
Previous Conscious Cinema gatherings have explored mass incarceration through Ava DuVernay's 13th and restorative justice through CIRCLES: A Restorative Justice Project.
With Preschool to Prison, we're turning our attention to the earliest years of childhood and examining how educational systems can either reinforce injustice or become powerful places of liberation, belonging, and opportunity.
Building Schools and Communities Rooted in Care
This screening also connects to our broader commitment to liberated parenting, early childhood development, and community-centered approaches to education.
Through initiatives such as the Parents & Practitioners for Liberation (PPL) Learning Lab, we are exploring how parents, caregivers, educators, advocates, and community members can work together to affirm Black childhood, strengthen relationships, challenge harmful systems, and create environments where children and families flourish.
We believe the responsibility to nurture and protect children extends beyond individual families.
It belongs to all of us.
When schools, families, community organizations, and public institutions work together, we can create alternatives to exclusionary discipline, advocate for equitable resources, and develop more compassionate responses to children's needs.
That's the kind of conversation we hope to inspire through this film.
Join the Conversation on October 24
We invite parents, grandparents, caregivers, educators, students, early childhood professionals, advocates, community leaders, and anyone who cares about children to join us.
Following the screening, we'll engage in a community conversation exploring questions such as:
How do racial bias and adultification shape the way Black children are treated in schools?
What does developmentally appropriate discipline look like, especially in early childhood?
How can parents and caregivers advocate for children experiencing unfair disciplinary practices?
What would it take to replace punitive policies with approaches grounded in relationship-building, healing, accountability, and care?
How can we work together to create the schools and communities our children deserve?
You don't need to be an educator or policy expert to participate. Your experiences, perspectives, questions, and ideas are valuable.
Event Details
Conscious Cinema: Preschool to Prison
Saturday, October 24, 2026
5:30–8:30 PM
BLU Art & Wellness Gallery
580 Pine Avenue
Downtown Long Beach, CA 90802
Admission: FREE | Open to the Community
Learn more about the series and upcoming screenings at verbcommunity.org/consciouscinema.
Our Children Are Worth Fighting For
The school-to-prison pipeline is not inevitable. It is shaped by decisions, policies, priorities, and systems that people have the power to change.
Our children are not problems to be managed or threats to be controlled. They are human beings full of potential, deserving of safety, joy, belonging, encouragement, and opportunity.
When we protect their childhood, we invest in their future.
When we challenge systems that criminalize their behavior, we create opportunities for healing and transformation.
And when we come together to learn, reflect, and organize, we help build a community where every child has the opportunity to thrive.
Join us. Bring someone who cares about our children. Let's turn powerful stories into meaningful conversations and collective action.
Conscious Cinema: Stories that move us to act.
