Juvenile Delinquency in The United States - Cradle To Prison Pipeline

Cradle To Prison Pipeline

This term refers to the population of boys and girls who live in conditions that cause them to be channeled into prison from birth. The pipeline suggests that there are factors such as a lack of parental supervision, poverty, and a lack of education that makes these people helpless and unable to change their situations. Though this idea might not be appealing to the those that believe crime is solely the failure of a rational choice decision, this phenomenon has caught the attention of many Americans. This pipeline, so to speak, disproportionately affects minority children living in under-served community, such as Blacks and Latinos. According to the Children's Defense Fund, 1 out of every 3 Black boys and 1 out of every 3 Hispanic boys are at risk of becoming delinquents in their lifetime, and therefore at risk of being sucked into this pipeline in which prison is the only option at the end of the tunnel. Of course some people that are affected by the pipeline commit crimes and are imprisoned when they are older, say 20. However, if the delinquency cause by the pipeline were to occur before the age of eighteen, the boy/girls would then become juvenile delinquents. Keeping in mind the existence of the male phenomenon, one can safely say that the pipeline affects more boys than girls. The Children's Defense Fund has created a campaign to try to halt the spread of this phenomenon that is ruining the lives of so many poverty-stricken families and minorities. The campaign is called the 'Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign' and was launched in 2008 in Washington DC, at Howard University. Howard University is a historically black university. The campaign argues that the US government spends more money on incarcerated people that on each child in the public school system. Their vision is that if this budgeting were reversed, the number of juvenile delinquents would greatly decrease. The ultimate goal of this campaign is to increase support for preventive measures and resources that children need to stay on the right path. Some of the programs this campaign includes increasing early childhood education and guidance, as well as increasing health and mental health coverage and counseling. To date, many states have responded to this campaign by forming coalitions and holding conventions in which they formulate ideas and tactics to dismantle the pipeline.