Over the last three decades, politicians from Capitol Hill to local city councils have generated law enforcement polices and practices based on the mantra that we have to “get tough on crime.”
Over the last three decades, politicians from Capitol Hill to local city councils have generated law enforcement polices and practices based on the mantra that we have to “get tough on crime.”
The impact of that approach to law enforcement has made our nation the biggest jailer on the planet. With 2.3 million people behind bars, many for nonviolent drug offenses, America incarcerates more of its people than any other country in the world. African-Americans constitute one-third and Latinos one-fifth of our imprisoned population. This is madness!
But I’m gratified to report that rational Congressional legislators–229 in the House of Representatives alone–are supporting the bipartisan Youth PROMISE Act (H.R. 1064) that calls for a fundamental shift in child policy and practice away from the too frequent first choice of punishment and incarceration and toward prevention and early intervention and sustained child investment. There is also a companion bill in the Senate (S. 435).
On July 15, I testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in support of the Youth PROMISE Act because I’m confident that it will be a powerful tool for dismantling the pipeline to prison. Hundreds of thousands of children and youths are being funneled into the pipeline each year at younger and younger ages. It’s a national disgrace that at-risk children are more likely to enter the pipeline to prison than they are of receiving the help they need to finish high school.
The lack of health and mental health care is a crucial factor in putting children at risk. Because many pregnant women do not receive prenatal care, one in 12 babies in the U.S. is born at low birthweight.
These babies are at greater risk of having problems than normal birthweight babies. Black babies in the U.S. are more likely to be born at low birthweight than babies in 100 other nations including Botswana. Children are in great jeopardy if they don’t receive routine health care including the standard vaccinations against communicable childhood diseases. These and other unmet health needs such as early hearing or vision loss turn into deficits and developmental delays that often go undiagnosed and untreated causing children to start school with deficits that affect learning. Many fall behind before or in kindergarten and first grade and never recover.
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