Cradle to Prison Pipeline
The Cradle to Prison Pipeline
The cradle to prison pipeline is a campaign that calls all states to stop spending unnecessary money on the effects of the problems resulting from children being arrested, convicted, incarcerated and death; instead placing taxpayer money on the causes of these issues in order to deter the consequences all together. In Texas, the average cost of sending a student to school for one academic year is approximately $7,246 while sending a child to jail for that same one year is $67,890. The current statistics of children ending up in a correctional facility are: a black boy 1:3, a latino boy 1:6, a white boy 1:17 and a black girl 1:17, a latino girl 1:45 and a white girl 1:111. In this astonishing breakdown the Youth Advisory Committee determines that a child can't be expected to achieve any high level of education when they are confronted with various problems stemming from poverty, lack of medical care, and abuse and neglect. In a message to the 81st Legislature, it was asked that for once children be made a priority and ensure that valuable taxpayer dollars be invested in ending child poverty, children be given accessible health coverage, affordable mental health services, provide high quality development programs, protect them from abuse and neglect and finally invest in prevention and early intervention. Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman has spoken on behalf of the Youth Promise Act which focuses on straying away from the idea of ineffective punishment and incarceration and refocusing its attention on preventing and intervening on juvenile delinquency. This particular act tries to substitute the current pipeline to prison to a new innovative notion of a pipeline of success. In the Youth Promise Act, we are provided with a pyramid concept of Key Immediate Action Steps that need to be taken in order to alleviate youth problems. In this concept, individuals make up the upper portion of the pyramid.
The cradle to prison pipeline is a campaign that calls all states to stop spending unnecessary money on the effects of the problems resulting from children being arrested, convicted, incarcerated and death; instead placing taxpayer money on the causes of these issues in order to deter the consequences all together. In Texas, the average cost of sending a student to school for one academic year is approximately $7,246 while sending a child to jail for that same one year is $67,890. The current statistics of children ending up in a correctional facility are: a black boy 1:3, a latino boy 1:6, a white boy 1:17 and a black girl 1:17, a latino girl 1:45 and a white girl 1:111. In this astonishing breakdown the Youth Advisory Committee determines that a child can't be expected to achieve any high level of education when they are confronted with various problems stemming from poverty, lack of medical care, and abuse and neglect. In a message to the 81st Legislature, it was asked that for once children be made a priority and ensure that valuable taxpayer dollars be invested in ending child poverty, children be given accessible health coverage, affordable mental health services, provide high quality development programs, protect them from abuse and neglect and finally invest in prevention and early intervention. Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman has spoken on behalf of the Youth Promise Act which focuses on straying away from the idea of ineffective punishment and incarceration and refocusing its attention on preventing and intervening on juvenile delinquency. This particular act tries to substitute the current pipeline to prison to a new innovative notion of a pipeline of success. In the Youth Promise Act, we are provided with a pyramid concept of Key Immediate Action Steps that need to be taken in order to alleviate youth problems. In this concept, individuals make up the upper portion of the pyramid.