CPP_report 2007_FINAL (a-22) 9/6/07 3:21 PM Page b A Report of the Children’s Defense Fund America’s Cradle to Prison PipelineSM CPP_report 2007_revised (a-21) 10/10/07 12:15 PM Page c About the Children’s Defense Fund he Children’s Defense Fund’s Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and suc- T cessful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. CDF provides a strong, effective voice for all the children of America who cannot vote, lobby or speak for themselves. We pay particular attention to the needs of poor and minority children and those with disabilities. CDF encourages preventive investment before children get sick or into trouble, drop out of school or suffer family breakdown. CDF began in 1973 and is a private, nonprofit organization supported by foundation and corporate grants and individual donations. We have never taken government funds. We exist because each day in America: 4 children are killed by abuse or neglect. 5 children or teens commit suicide. 8 children or teens are killed by firearms. 33 children or teens die from accidents. 77 babies die before their first birthdays. 192 children are arrested for violent crimes. 383 children are arrested for drug abuse. 906 babies are born at low birthweight. 1,153 babies are born to teen mothers. 1,672 public school students are corporally punished. 1,879 babies are born without health insurance. 2,261 high school students drop out. 2,383 children are confirmed as abused or neglected. 2,411 babies are born into poverty. 2,494 babies are born to mothers who are not high school graduates. 4,017 babies are born to unmarried mothers. 4,302 children are arrested. 17,132 public school students are suspended. © October 2007 corrected printing by the Children’s Defense Fund All rights reserved. ISBN: 1-881985-49-0 © Photographs by Steve Liss, 2005, reprinted with permission. CPP_report 2007_revised (a-21) 10/10/07 12:15 PM Page i America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline SM A Children’s Defense Fund® Report America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline SM i CPP_report 2007_revised (a-21) 10/10/07 12:15 PM Page ii Acknowledgments CDF commissioned two nationally distinguished journalists, Julia Cass, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and co-author of the award winning book, Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J.L. Chestnut, Jr., and Connie Curry, prize winning author and documentary filmmaker of The Intolerable Burden, to document more systematically what we were hearing from advocates, families, young people and child advocates across the nation. Julia Cass traveled to Ohio, and Connie Curry to Mississippi to conduct in-depth interviews with children and families trapped in the Pipeline to Prison and with a wide range of professionals committed to dismantling it. We chose Cincinnati, Ohio, and Sunflower County, Mississippi, for geographic balance and diversity and because both are states with longstanding CDF offices. Mississippi is a southern, predominantly rural state with a legacy of segregation and poverty. Ohio is a northern Midwestern state with a history of migration of Southern Blacks and Appalachian Whites to work in urban areas. Although the stories are different in these two states, the challenges and frustrations of children and families are largely the same. Julia Cass’s writing gives life to the children in the Pipeline and urgency to the cause of ending it. Steve Liss’s powerful photographs on the cover and in Chapter 2 on juvenile detention and poverty are poignant illustrations of children in or at risk of entering the Cradle to Prison Pipeline. CDF thanks a team of advisors to the Cradle to Prison Pipeline® initiative whose sup- port, wisdom and expertise were invaluable. They include Carol Biondi, Carlton and Elizabeth Jones Bradshaw, Geoffrey Canada, James Comer, Edward Cornwell III, Inger Davis, Peter Edelman, Ron Ferguson, Angela Glover Blackwell, Winifred Green, Maya Harris, Donna Lawrence, Gary Orfield, Malika Saada Saar, Sandy Trujillo and Roger Wilkins. We are grateful to these and many other experts and advocates who are working in effective ways on a piece of the Cradle to Prison Pipeline who helped inform us as did a range of Black and Latino community and systems leaders who attended Best Practices Institutes at CDF Haley Farm over the past several years. We also thank the many young leaders who attended CDF’s “Beating the Odds: Dismantling the Cradle to Prison Pipeline Symposium” at Georgetown University Law School. Their brave struggles, thoughtful ideas and heroic examples are infused throughout this report and inspire all of CDF’s work. As always, this report was a CDF team effort. Morna Murray and Jill Morningstar led CDF’s early efforts to develop the report aided by Jonathan Stahler and Jadine Johnson. We are deeply grateful to MaryLee Allen, Karen Lashman and Susan Gates for their guidance and leadership and to members of CDF’s policy staff for the completion of this report. CDF’s research team, Janet Simons and Paul Smith, provided much of the data included in the report as they so ably do for all CDF publications. CDF-Ohio and CDF-Mississippi staff provided great assistance with state-level research, reporting and outreach. And CDF communications staff, Casey Aden-Wansbury, Anourack Chinyavong and Elizabeth Alesbury, produced and published this report. ii Children’s Defense Fund CPP_report 2007_revised (a-21) 10/10/07 12:36 PM Page iii CDF Board of Directors Carol Oughton Biondi Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Robert F. Vagt, Chair Commissioner Chair, Department of President Emeritus Los Angeles County African and African Davidson College Commission for Children American Studies Davidson, NC and Families Harvard University Los Angeles, CA Cambridge, MA Laura Wasserman Movie Music Supervisor Angela Glover Blackwell Winifred Green Los Angeles, CA Vice Chair President Founder and Chief Southern Coalition for Reese Witherspoon Executive Officer Educational Equity Actress PolicyLink New Orleans, LA Los Angeles, CA Oakland, CA Dr. Dorothy Height Deborah Wright, Esq. Reverend Kirbyjon Caldwell President Emerita and President and Chief Senior Pastor Chair of Board Executive Officer The Windsor Village – National Council of Negro Carver Bancorp, Inc. St. John’s United Methodist Women, Inc. New York, NY Churches Washington, DC Houston, TX Ruth-Ann Huvane Board of Directors Geoffrey Canada Child Advocate Emeritus Vice Chair Los Angeles, CA President and Chief Lisle Carter, Jr. Executive Officer William Lynch, Jr. Chair 1973-1986 Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. President Bill Lynch Associates, LLC New York, NY Laura Rockefeller Chasin New York, NY Leonard Coleman, Jr. Hillary Rodham Clinton Katie McGrath Cendant Corporation Chair 1986-1992 New York, NY Child Advocate Los Angeles, CA Maureen Cogan Leslie Cornfeld, Esq. Director Ivanna Omeechevarria Howard H. Haworth Mayor’s Task Force on Child Advocate Child Welfare and Safety Alexandria, VA David Hornbeck New York, NY Chair 1994-2005 Wendy Puriefoy Marian Wright Edelman President James Joseph Founder and President Public Education Network Chair 1993-1994 Children’s Defense Fund (PEN) Marylin Levitt Washington, DC Washington, DC Charles E. Merrill, Jr. James Forbes, Jr. J. Michael Solar, Esq. Solar & Associates, LLP Senior Minister Emeritus Leonard Riggio The Riverside Church Houston, TX New York, NY Donna E. Shalala Thomas A. Troyer, Esq. Chair 1992-1993 James Forman, Jr. Partner Associate Professor Caplin & Drysdale Susan P. Thomases Georgetown Law School Washington, DC Co-Founder, Maya Angelou Charter School Washington, DC America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline SM iii CPP_report 2007_revised (a-21) 10/10/07 12:15 PM Page iv Table of Contents Mission of the Children’s Defense Fund and Why We Exist Acknowledgments . ii CDF Board of Directors . iii Foreword A Call to End Adult Hypocrisy, Neglect and Abandonment of Children and America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline. 1 • Are We Part of the Problem or Solution? • The Cradle to Prison Pipeline and the Dangerous Intersection of Poverty and Race • Key Immediate Action Steps to Protect and Rescue Children from the Cradle to Prison Pipeline • CDF’s Next Steps • How This Report Is Organized • Dedication to Mrs. Mae Bertha Carter • A Parent, Community and National Audit Part I Chapter 1 – An Overview of Key Factors Contributing to America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline® Crisis . 13 • Eric and Frankie: Children Born into the Pipeline • Pervasive Poverty and Racial Disparities • A Need for a Comprehensive Continuum of Support from Birth to Adulthood • Case Study Findings in Ohio and Mississippi: A Guide for Action • An Ounce of Prevention Is Most Cost-Effective in Long Run • 2015 Millennium Development Goals: A Policy Agenda for Dismantling the Pipeline iv Children’s Defense Fund CPP_report 2007_revised (a-21) 10/10/07 12:15 PM Page v Table of Contents Chapter 2 – Faces of Children at Risk of or in the Pipeline by Photographer Steve Liss . 23 • Poverty • Race • Single Parents • Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Need Support • Unmet Health and Mental Health Needs • Criminalizing Children at Younger Ages • Homelessness • Girls in the Pipeline • Substance Abuse • Juvenile Detention • Child Gun Deaths • Intergenerational Transmission of Violence • Need for Community Supports, Role Models, Mentors and Positive Alternatives to the Streets Part II Case Studies of Children in or at Risk of the Pipeline in Ohio and Mississippi by Julia Cass and Connie Curry . 99 Part III: Afterword The Next Movement: Saving Our Children and Youth and Our Nation’s Future and Soul . 183 Part IV: Appendices Examples of Promising Approaches to Help Children Avoid and Escape the Pipeline . 187 Selected Research on Risk Factors Contributing to the Cradle to Prison Pipeline . 205 Selected 50-State Data .