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This article explores the cradle-to-prison pipeline, where children of color face disproportionate risk of entering the criminal justice system. It discusses the contributors to this pipeline and proposes restorative juvenile justice as an alternative approach.
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Thwarting the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline:Systemic Change through Restorative Juvenile Justice Aliyah Vinikoor September 18, 2009
What is the “cradle-to-prison pipeline”? Rather than embarking on a path to college and success, from birth children-of-color are funneled down a path toward prison. Institutional racism and poverty conspire to place these youth at disproportionate risk than whites. The entry-points to the cradle-to-prison pipeline are many and every further step into its realm magnifies its impact upon youth’s lives.
Statistics: • Nearly 2 million juvenile justice cases are handled each year • Children of color are overrepresented in the system overall by a 2:1 ratio—despite comprising only 1/3 of American youth • A Black boy born in 2001 has a one-in-three chance of being imprisoned in his lifetime; a Latino boy one in six • Youth of color face “cumulative disadvantage” once in the system: • Black youth are 4 times more likely to be in juvenile detention • 77% of juveniles sent to adult prison are African American
95% of NYC youth detained in state facilities are Black or Latino - NYC Department of Juvenile Justice
How did we get here? The juvenile justice system was born out of the notion that youth are fundamentally different from adults and thus deserve differential treatment. In response to the spike in juvenile crime during the 1970s and 1980s, however, state policies universally shifted from a rehabilitative to a retributive model. This coincided with other punitive policy shifts such as the dismantling of the welfare system and the expansion of the prison-industrial-complex. Many localities began reflexively incarcerating young people presenting little or no public-safety risk. Indeed, many in juvenile justice are simply high-need—youth failed by every other societal system: economic, educational, mental health.
What feeds the pipeline? Macro-level contributors Micro-level contributors
Retributive youth justice policies (i.e. criminalizing at a younger age, imposing harsher sanctions, and jailing in adult facilities) Neighborhood policing strategies (i.e. racial profiling) Schools: poor education, “zero-tolerance” policies The dismantling of the welfare system and its impact on under-resourced communities Poverty, especially extreme poverty Poor family functioning Lack of health care for mothers and children Childhood trauma and mental health issues: 92% of juvenile offenders are contending with serious past trauma Foster-care involvement Juvenile-justice involvement Macro-level contributors Micro-level contributors
“The most dangerous place for a child to grow up today is at the intersection of race and poverty.” -Marion Wright Edelman
Outcomes: • Taxpayers spend an average $200,000 annually per child in detention • In New York City, 81% of young males and 46% of young females recidivate within 18 months • Many youth become gang-involved, or solidify affiliation, while in facility • Youth re-enter their communities and families with lasting trauma and barriers to employment & educational opportunities • Communities of color become further targeted, marginalized, stigmatized, and fractured
73% of incarcerated adults have been involved in juvenile justice
Rather than ensuring public safety and the welfare of our children, our juvenile justice system is a leading perpetrator of violence.
Restorative justice is a participatory process by which stakeholders in a particular offense collectively deal with the problem and its implications for the future.
Restorative Juvenile Justice: • In both theory and practice attempts to repair harm to a community • May take many forms, such as peace circles, victim-offender mediation, or youth court • Is currently used most often as a back-end solution to youth crime • Has its roots in indigenous approaches to justice: it is anti-oppressive in nature and can redress historic inequities • As a relational model, better fits the developmental needs of youth • Better serves the needs of victims • According to research, is more cost-effective, prevents reoffense at higher rates, and more humanistic than retributive or rehabilitative justice models • Is wholly in concert with social work values
Why now? • Lawmakers are exploring more cost-effective juvenile justice solutions • States are increasingly redirecting public resources for juvenile institutions into evidence-based alternatives • Violent crime is actually trending down • Institutional responses to crime are increasingly inappropriate, while the public is increasingly supportive of alternatives • The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act is up for reauthorization this year • President Obama and others must be pressured to make restorative justice a focus
With our skills, ethics, broad access to youth, and presence across systems, social workers are uniquely positioned to advocate for and facilitate such programs
How can social workers get involved? • Advocate for the elimination of bias across justice systems • Develop and implement more community-based alternatives to juvenile incarceration • Work to ensure that restorative justice practices operate systemically to truly dismantle the cradle-to-prison pipeline
Dismantling the pipeline requires a concomitant shift in our violent culture. Since our back-end interventions are only effective if they reverberate with the broader social environment, restorative practices must be systematically employed on the front-end to truly redress institutional racism.
Social Workers: Moving restorative justice from back-end to front-end Early Prevention: • Focus on early intervention: advocate, support, and work for preventive measures that target child poverty and service gaps (i.e. education and comprehensive health & mental health programs) • Help communities nurture extant assets and marshal resources: broker connections, shore up local institutions, dismantle barriers to services • Integrate non-violent approaches into the total lifespan of a child—in the home, school, and community
Moving restorative justice from back-end to front-end (cont.) School Social Work: • Integrate non-violent approaches into the total lifespan of a child—in the home, school, and community • Incorporate alternatives-to-suspension in schools: formalize restorative justice responses to student conflict • Promote non-violence in school curricula and emphasize empathy and connection in the classroom
Moving restorative justice from back-end to front-end (cont.) Collaboration: • Collaborate between youth-service systems to address co-occurring problems • Implement a “system of care” treatment model that provides holistic, efficient, and socially-just services to youth who are at-risk • Institute more “community justice centers” that offer immediate and community-based wraparound services
Moving restorative justice from back-end to front-end (cont.) Community Organizing & Advocacy • Agitate for system-change: Fight alongside communities to end the pipeline and demand community-determined alternatives • Political education: Shift focus of public discourse to root causes and explore how the current system affects our youth and broader society • Persuade lawmakers to establish meaningful alternatives to our overreliance on prisons • Empower youth to employ restorative practices and serve as peer mediators in schools, facilities, etc. • Incubate restorative justice responses in social work schools and develop them throughout our praxis
Summary • Our current system doesn’t work—it’s costly, inhumane, counterproductive, and racist • Youth involved are those who have been failed by every other system • We need a new response to crime that values responsibility and healing rather than punishment • Restorative justice, as a community-directed intervention, can be employed on both the front-end and back-end to foster what prevents crime and violence: hope, agency, and connection • Social Workers are charged with helming this movement to end the cradle-to-prison pipeline by intervening at every entry-point
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from Birmingham City Jail, 1963
Questions? Aliyah Vinikoor aliyahjv@gmail.com
