Dismantling the pipeline

The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) recently published America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline, a report on "an urgent national crisis at the intersection of poverty and race": the high lifetime risk of Black and Latino boys going to jail.

Poor children of color are the canaries in America's deep mines of child neglect and racial and economic injustice. At critical points in their development, from birth through adulthood, millions of these children confront a multitude of disadvantages and risks including poverty and its many stresses....These accumulated and convergent risks form a Cradle to Prison Pipeline, trapping these children in a trajectory that leads to marginalized lives, imprisonment and often premature death.

The report's proposed steps to help these children include:

• A fundamental paradigm shift from the first choice of punishment and incarceration to early intervention and sustained child investment
• Health and mental health coverage for every child and coverage of pregnant women
• Quality Early Head Start, Head Start, child care and preschool so that every child is school-ready
• Creating an ethic of achievement and high expectations for every child

The report was released at a summit held at Howard University last month.

According to its website, CDF is a private, nonprofit organization that provides a voice for the children of America, particularly poor and minority children and those with disabilities, and encourages preventive investment for these children. CDF was founded by Marian Wright Edelman in 1973.


America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline (pdf, 244pp/6.6MB)

Breast cancer and early puberty

The younger girls are when they get their first periods, the greater their risk of breast cancer later in life. In fact, first menstruation (menarche) before age 12 raises breast cancer risk by 50 percent compared to menarche at age 16.

The Breast Cancer Fund recently published their report reviewing current scientific literature on the timing of puberty and examining "the nutritional, psychosocial and environmental factors that contribute to its timing." The report's author, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., writes:

We know that endocrine disrupting chemicals are a possible cause of early puberty but we also know that exposure to these chemicals in utero or early in life can also lead to low birth weight and obesity, which are themselves possible causes of early puberty.

Key findings include possible risk factors of early puberty:

• depression
• eating disorders
• suicide attempts
• early alcohol abuse
• violent victimization
• teenage sexual activity
• lower academic achievement

Dr. Steingraber recommends particular actions to protect the young:

• Combat childhood obesity by promoting breastfeeding early in life and supporting school-based healthy school lunch and obesity prevention programs for older children
• Support efforts to improve access to healthy foods in urban, low-income areas
• Eliminate fetal exposures to toxic chemicals in our everyday lives
• Support the phase-out of endocrine disrupting chemicals
• Support organic agriculture at home and in schools

The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls: What We Know, What We Need to Know
(August 2007, 73pp/pdf, 1.3MB)

Advocate's Guide
(August 2007, 9pp/pdf, 1MB)

Children's health insurance

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has published a report on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), as Congress considers its reauthorization this year. SCHIP was established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, P.L. 105-33 (pdf), Title IV, Subtitle J, chap. 1 (111 Stat. 552 et seq.), which provided funding for SCHIP from 1998 to 2007.

According to the report, SCHIP provides medical coverage to children in families with income that is low but too high for Medicaid. It is federally and state funded and administered by the states within federal guidelines. In 2006, SCHIP covered 6.7 million children, at a cost of $4.8 billion in federal funds.

CBO lists possible changes to SCHIP for Congress to consider in reauthorizing the program:

• Intensifying efforts to enroll uninsured, eligible children
• Redefining the target population
• Changing the allocation formula for state funding
• Modifying the rules for redistribution of unspent funds
• Changing state matching rates
• Modifying benefits states are required to provide

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (pdf, 31pp/1.9MB), May 2007

Juvenile justice in Congress

Anticipating that Congress will consider the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has prepared a report on the subject.

Originally enacted in 1974, P.L. 93-415, JJDPA was last reauthorized in 2002 by the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, P.L. 107-273 (pdf), Division C, Title II, Subtitle B. As CRS reports, juvenile justice is primarily the domain of the states. JJDPA created the federal agencies and grant programs to assist states' juvenile justice systems, and established core mandates for states to receive grant funding.

CRS sees the following as potential issues in JJDPA's reauthorization:

• Rehabilitation versus accountability
• Expanding or modifying the core mandates
• Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Block Grant
• Overlap in grant programs
• Coordination of federal efforts

Juvenile Justice: Legislative History and Current Legislative Issues, CRS Report RL33947 (pdf, 37pp/204kB, from Open CRS), April 2, 2007