Stories
Baby Eric
Eric came into the world already in the Pipeline to Prison before taking a single step. Read more
Stories
Christopher
Christopher was removed from three schools and frequently suspended from a fourth for hitting teachers and fighting with other children. Read more
Related Initiatives
Action Alert
Secure the Future - Invest in Every Child
In the richest nation on earth, 9 million children are without health coverage and more than 13 million live in poverty. We must demand that our leaders commit to helping children as a condition of our vote.
Related Staff
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Dr. Bert L'HommeEducation Policy Director and lead coordinator for the Cradle to Prison Pipeline® Crusade |
Recent Videos
Interview with Marian Wright Edelman on the Cradle to Prison Pipeline® Campaign
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Cradle to Prison Pipeline® Campaign
Nationally, 1 in 3 Black and 1 in 6 Latino boys born in 2001 are at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime. While boys are five times as likely to be incarcerated as girls, there also is a significant number of girls in the juvenile justice system. This rate of incarceration is endangering children at younger and younger ages.
This is America's pipeline to prison — a trajectory that leads to marginalized lives, imprisonment and often premature death. Although the majority of fourth graders cannot read at grade level, states spend about three times as much money per prisoner as per public school pupil.
CDF's vision with it's Cradle to Prison Pipeline campaign is to reduce detention and incarceration by increasing preventive supports and services children need, such as access to quality early childhood development and education services and accessible, comprehensive health and mental health coverage. Emphasis must be shifted for the sake of our children and our nation's future.
Youth PROMISE Act
CDF President Marian Wright Edelman testified for a hearing on the Youth PROMISE Act before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the House Committee on the Judiciary on July 15, 2009. The Youth PROMISE Act (H.R. 1064/S.435), which has bipartisan support and over 225 cosponsers, shifts the policy paradigm from ineffective punishment and incarceration to evidence-based prevention and intervention to address juvenile delinquency. The Youth PROMISE Act is a helpful response to the pipeline to prison crisis because it takes major steps to substitute the pipeline to prison with a pipeline to successful adulthood for many of our youths. For more information on this bill, visit Representative Bobby Scott's webpage on the Youth PROMISE Act.
Key Immediate Action Steps
Tens of thousands of youth are being funneled down life paths that often lead to arrest, conviction, incarceration and even death. The urgent challenge for each of us and for our nation is to prevent this waste of our children's lives and our nation's capabilities.
Find out ways you and your community can step up and take action.
Video: CDF President Discusses Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign
In this new video, Harvard University's Charles Ogletree's talks with CDF President Marian Wright Edelman about her work in ending America's pipeline to prison. She discusses the social and economic conditions that have created this system where millions of children are born without hope for a better future.
Innovative Solutions to Dismantling the Pipeline in Texas
The American Leadership Forum Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter has produced a report, Dismantling the Cradle to Prison Pipeline in Houston and Texas: A Study of Solutions, that documents promising approaches that are effectively shutting down the pipeline by focusing on prevention and early intervention. These programs create a more positive future for young people and save taxpayers by avoiding the costs of incarceration. The report and accompanying power point presentation can be found on the American Leadership Forum’s website.
National/California Cradle to Prison Pipeline Summit
In February 2009, CDF and several co-conveners held a two-day National/California Cradle to Prison Pipeline Summit in Sacramento, California. The nearly 500 attendees shared promising approaches and developed community action plans to stop the funneling of thousands of children down a pipeline to prison. Since the launch of the Cradle to Prison Pipeline campaign in 2007, CDF has continued to raise public awareness about this crisis, catalyze action at the local, state and federal levels to form "Cradle coalitions,” and help train the next generation of leaders committed to dismantling the pipeline through events like this. Learn more about this most recent summit and upcoming events.
Promising Models for Reforming Juvenile Justice Systems
As Congress gears up for reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), CDF President Marian Wright Edelman looks at several promising approaches across the country that are changing the juvenile justice paradigm from punishment and incarceration as a first resort to prevention, early intervention and rehabilitation that put children onto a path to productive adulthood in her weekly Child Watch® Column, "Promising Models for Reforming Juvenile Justice Systems."
Learn More about the Pipeline in Your State
Access state-level data on the various issues related to the Pipeline including poverty, health care, early childhood education, education, child welfare, juvenile justice system and incarceration, and community violence with CDF's Cradle to Prison Pipeline state factsheets. These factsheets also provide action steps needed to protect and reroute children from the pipeline.
Protect Children, Not Guns 2009 Report
The latest edition of CDF's annual report, Protect Children, Not Guns 2009, finds an increase in firearm deaths among children and teens for the second year in a row, after a decade of decline prior to 2005. Using the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDF’s report shows that 3,184 children and teens were killed by firearms in 2006, a 6 percent increase from the previous year. In addition to the latest data on child and teen gun violence, the report outlines a series of action steps that individuals can take to help diminish the threat of gun violence to our communities. These recommendations provide practical approaches to reducing the number of child and teen gun deaths.
America's Cradle to Prison PipelineSM Report
This report documents an urgent national crisis at the intersection of poverty and race. The report includes an overview of the major factors behind the Pipeline, photographs that show the faces of children in the Pipeline, case studies describing how the Pipeline affects children, calls for the hard work and persistence needed to build a transforming movement, descriptions of some promising approaches to help keep children out of the Pipeline, and research tables and state-by-state data of key child indicators. Learn more and download the report.
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