Profile of a Juvenile Delinquent Baby Eric

Eric came into the world on April 26, 2004, in Cincinnati , Ohio , and already is in the Pipeline to Prison before taking a single step or uttering a word. In early May, when he was two weeks old, he was a tiny brown bundle lying across the lap of his 19-year-old mother in the Winton Terrace housing project on the north side of the city. She was staying temporarily in a unit rented by one of her sisters because the electricity and gas had been turned off in her aunt’s house, where she had gone with Eric and his brother, 19-month-old Tae, when she left the hospital. She doesn’t have a phone or child care or access to a car so "it's kind of hard to do anything." The closest store is ten blocks away. She said she would like to finish high school and get a job. She liked school but "I had a lot of problems. I was running away all the time. I wasn’t getting along with anybody," she explained, describing ongoing fights between her and her siblings and her mother, who once called the police to take her to juvenile detention. She lived with the boys’ 26-year-old father until he punched her in the stomach when she was eight months pregnant with Eric. She called the police and he went to jail. “He didn’t get as much time as I thought because his lawyers said he had some kind of mental illness.” He does not have a job and has been in jail before.

At two weeks old, Eric should have all possible futures open to him in America , a culture that believes life outcome is determined by the individual alone. In reality, this infant boy already is not in the trajectory that leads to college or work; he's at the beginning of the pathway to prison—or, if not incarceration, a life on the margins. If Eric is imprisoned 18 years from now, no one is likely to look at the risks he faced in his early years or the disadvantages of his childhood circumstances. He will be another bad youth to be punished for his criminal acts. It will be too late then to think of what could have been done back when Eric lacked stimulation and proper nurturing at two weeks old or when he began having behavioral or emotional problems at school or when he fell behind, got suspended and dropped out, or when he received little positive attention or guidance from the adults in his community. It will be too late then to realize that interventions known to make a difference might well have neutralized the risks and put him on the path to a productive life.                                        
                               www.childrensdefense.org

                         
Children come into this world as blank pages knowing only how to cry, sleep eat and eliminate.  We as mothers with first contact, has the awesome responsibility of meeting those  needs with love, patience, understanding and putting good information on those blank pages, we call our babies. 

We have just used our dollars and vote to elect a president, who stand for change and taking the country in a new direction. Those changes needs each of us stepping up and doing whatever we can to make America a better place. And GMW is starting with saving our children.

I feel guilty each time I hear of the magnitude of some of the problems our children are facing such as, the cradle to prison pipeline illustrated by the (CDF) children defense League.The cost implications of such an epidemic are serious. In America- a child is abused or neglected every 36 seconds, more than 880,000 children a year.

1.    A child or teen is killed by firearm about every three hours-almost eight a day and every day 192 children are arrested for violent crimes. And every day 383 children are arrested for drug abuse.

2. In America a child is abused or neglected every 36 seconds, more than 880,000 children a year; and a child is born into poverty every 36 seconds i

3.  Every day 4,302 children are arrested and every day 2,261 high school students drop-out. 

By dismantling the pipeline all of America will benefit from the strong self sustaining workforce; decrease crime rates and lower taxes through a reduction in the prison population and lower rates of recidivism. We created the pipeline, and we have the power, knowledge and will to dismantle it. 

1.      The average cost of a mentoring program is $1,000 a year

2.      The annual per child cost of a high quality after-school program is $2,700. .

3.      The cost of providing a year of employment training for unemployed youths is $3,448.

4.      The average annual per child cost of Head Start is $7,326.

5.      The cost for an average year of public education in the United States is $7,246 per pupil.

6.      The average cost of incarcerating a child is $67,890 a year.