Cradle-to-prison Pipeline

https://la1992pastandpresentspring2018.blogspot.com/

https://la1992pastandpresentspring2018.blogspot.com/

      Black youth are about four times as likely as their white peers to be incarcerated1. The cradle-to-prison pipeline targets the criminalization of low-income children and children from minority races. The Children’s Defense Fund began the cradle-to-prison pipeline in attempt to dismantle the system that is endanger so many children. CDF began in 1973 with the mission “Leave No Child Behind. Through the cradle-to-prison campaign the CDF has studied the effects of being raised in a “criminalized environment from which the obstacles to escape are formidable”1. CDF focuses on a variety of factors that play a role in determining whether or not children enter the prison pipeline. Some of these factors are limited access to health care, underperforming schools, broken child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and a toxic youth culture that praises pimps and glorifies violence. Once released from prison “criminalized youngsters” go back to the same communities that are ill equipped to rehabilitate these young adults, often creating a cycle. 

      The cradle-to-prison pipeline arises out of the continuous systemic issues of poverty, criminalization of black bodies, and racism that sparked the violence, looting, and chaos that overtook the city of LA in 1992. Communities of poverty are often racial profiled and criminalized, facing violence from both police and outside forces (i.e. gangs). The stereotype came before the statistics. Society painted men of color as criminals and women of color as ‘welfare queens’, instilling fear in white communities. The police feed into this stereotype as they increased patrol in black communities leading to a higher patrols and higher arrest rates.

A depiction of Michelle Alexander's book, "A New Jim Crow",
as well as the cradle-to-prison pipeline. 

-- Mia Buak

sources:

1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1955386/
http://www.childrensdefense.org