Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline Q&A

Young men of color are disproportionately more likely to find themselves entangled in the criminal justice system. “African American children represent 32% of children who are arrested, 42% of children who are detained, and 52% of children whose cases are judicially waived to criminal court,” despite only making up 14% of the population (NAACP). While the numbers outline the disparities themselves, they don’t tell the full story of how these children ultimately find themselves in these positions to begin with.  

The cradle-to-prison pipeline is defined as the embodiment of the “cumulative impact of multiple factors—beginning before birth and persisting through childhood, adolescence, and the teen years—that disproportionately diverts youth from communities of color toward incarceration,” (Cradle2Prison). It encompasses everything from the quality of healthcare you receive at your conception, to the quality of education you receive in your youth, to the structurally racist factors that ultimately lead to your incarceration and even death.  

In September of this year, I sat down with a friend of mine to discuss the collateral effects of mass incarceration, how he found himself caught in the cradle-to-prison pipeline, and how he now works to disrupt the pipeline for the youth in his community.  

Tony: “I’ve lived in Lawrence essentially my whole life. I was raised in a single-parent household for the majority of my childhood. Growing up, we were struggling. We were constantly just on the hunt for stability… I’d go to school and see all the fads all the kids had in elementary school. I would obviously ask my mom for that stuff when we’d be at the store, and it would always be, ‘do you have xyz type of money cuz we can’t afford that right now.’” 

The cradle-to-prison pipeline is unique from other forms of structural racism because of it’s encompassing of all facets of inequality starting from even prior to when one steps foot into schools or even the world. When mapping out a general cradle-to-prison pipeline, patterns emerge. The constant hunt for stability described by Tony is one such pattern. Then Tony’s step-dad entered his life. 

Tony: “My mom started dating another man who’s also African American like me… I was super stoked ‘cuz I was like ‘Heck yeah I have a dad, we can go play fetch and stuff now at the park, it’s gonna be great!’ Then I noticed, wow he's not making the right choices, however I still see him bringing money home. I still see him hanging out with his friends getting drunk having fun… I almost saw freedom when I looked at his actions.” 

Alina: “That’s also a role model for you.” 

Tony: “Exactly, it was my father figure, like I said biological dad never was really there for me. However, as much as he might have screwed up, my stepdad was always at my football games. He was always at my orchestra concerts.” 

It was around this time that Tony and I were able to start our first real jobs together working as servers for a retirement home in town. We made $7.25 an hour with a cap at 19 hours a week. So, around sophomore year of high school Tony also began to deal drugs. 

Alina: “I also think there needs to be something said about what it looked like. You were one of the only Black kids in a sea of white children all looking to you to be the plug.” 

In Lawrence, KS, Black residents are four times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession, even though the two groups use the drug at about the same rates (ACLU, 2013). 

Tony: “No absolutely… And I was aware of it too. Like I said I just didn’t care. I was making money, I could go out with my friends, I felt that freedom I saw in my stepdad when I saw him making bad decisions and through that I kind of felt that same freedom. For the first time in my life, I had no one telling me we couldn’t afford this, because it was my money… I felt untouchable, until… Until I found out that was absolutely not the case whatsoever.” 

Around his sophomore year of high school, Tony’s stepfather was arrested again. This time he would be sent away for years. 

Tony: “My stepfather dealt with more instability than I have in my life… it’s very easy to see how pushed into the lifestyle he was. He’s been gang affiliated, he’s also from a split-up home, he was raised by his grandma who wasn’t even actually his grandma, just a friend of a friend of a friend type situation, ya know. But since he’s been around probably 15, he’s been in and out of jails, in and out of prisons… All of which to say my stepdad had a pretty bad hand dealt to him with, not to say that justifies any of his actions, it’s simply the reality of the situation.” 

Alina: “Yeah I also think that’s what we’re here to talk about is those hands that are being dealt and the uneven distribution of bad hands, and why those are specifically getting passed down through families?” 

Tony: “Incarceration teaches you to develop habits, and so do a lot of the decisions, the things that are put in front of us even before the point of incarceration, such as the influences you grew up with, your home life in general, your support systems, things like that… I strongly believe a big part of the cradle-to-prison pipeline has to do with mental illness... There’s a lot of studies and research that shows mental [illness] has been skyrocketing in younger generations. My theory is that it’s not skyrocketing, it’s always been there, it’s just… wasn’t acknowledged especially in minority communities, especially in Black communities… If you tried to acknowledge it, all of a sudden you were gay or all of a sudden you were being a punk… And it adds, it compounds and eventually it explodes. I say all this because that’s what happened to my stepdad a year or two being out of prison.” 

After struggling with alcoholism and mental health issues and becoming increasingly violent as a result, Tony’s stepfather was arrested part-way through Tony’s sophomore year of high school for attempted murder.  

Alina: “I didn’t know any of that stuff was happening to you at the time.” 

Tony: “I’ve always been good at not showing how much things are truly affecting me.” 

The National Alliance on Mental Illness tells us that Black men are less likely to seek treatment for mental health services, “and when they do, they are more likely to receive inadequate care” (2023). Instead of addressing his trauma or attempting to seek treatment, Antonio made making money his priority.  

Tony: “More than wanting materialistic items or like financial gain, the thing I was always looking for was stability. And that’s why I do things like my friends would invite me over for a weekend and I’d end up staying for like four days.” 

Alina: “And I think that’s also a trauma response like you’ve had things taken from you, you’ve had people taken from you.” 

Tony: “Right. And now I had more money than I knew what to do with. I was doing stupid stuff like grabbing ten of my friends and taking them to like fancy restaurants. It was bad. On top of that I was also smoking a lot, my judgement was severely impacted at this point in life. Obviously, my grades suffered. A big catalyst for things playing out in my life, [was what happened with] solo/small ensemble state contest...”   

Tony and I became close because of our mutual love for the violin. At this point in time, when high school students were preparing their college applications, musicians like Tony were preparing for the state orchestra competition where receiving a high score could make the difference between accessing higher education or not. After months of auditioning just to be selected to compete at state, Tony got two of his ensembles approved. The next week, school and all related activities were cancelled due to Covid. Tony never applied for his orchestra scholarship.  

Tony: “It was just crushing… And after that, I didn’t care, I basically became my stepdad for about a year and half.” 

In 2020, Tony was pulled over on k-10 while driving with a buddy. They had marijuana in the trunk of their car to smoke with friends later.  

Tony: “The first thing [the officer] does before looking at [my registration and ID] is he pulls me out of the car and pats me down… Then he ran my license and registration after he puts me in [his police] car and [said]: ‘Wow! You don’t have any warrants!’… I was in jail for about 23 hours. However, it’s probably like the longest 23 hours I’ve ever dealt with. Just because like on top of like the fact I was in jail which already sucks, I felt the pressure of letting down my mom, letting down my teachers, all the mentors I’ve had in my life who knew I could do better.” 

It wasn’t until after getting out of jail and completing probation that Tony began to re-examine the culture that brought him to that point.  

Tony: “Before I got arrested, I was super angry at the world… past my dad and stuff, like I said I had really bad depression, I wasn’t handling well at the time…. While I was in jail, I was telling my story to a security guard, and they were like ‘Yeah sounds like another white cop that’s trying to meet a quota to me’ and I was like ‘Damn, y’all work for this organization and think that. That is crazy.’ And that really sunk in. I got out and I was even more mad at the world, because on top of all the pre-existing feelings I never dealt with, I was now faced with the fact that all the money I had saved up is gone because now I have court fees, and lawyers to pay for. State mandated drug testing that I had to pay for… And I had also just started a new job, so I was just like terrified I’d get fired. It was just a lot... For like the duration of my probation essentially, if I wasn’t just shouting at the clouds, I was just waking up in the middle of the night from nightmares... I would get these nightmares where I’d be at a party and someone would pass me a joint and I would smoke it and I’d wake up in a cold sweat, I have a drug test in the morning. I just felt like my life was quite literally at the mercy of the government. And, it took me right back to that feeling as a kid of feeling powerless.” 

It was around this time that Tony realized that the feelings of powerlessness he felt as a kid and now as an adult weren’t the result of one bad apple, one racist experience, or one factor of his identity, but the systemic culmination of political and economic factors.  

Tony: “I always had known there was a problem, I just had never taken the steps to address it. And so, after probation I started working [as a Behavioral Health Specialist] and I quickly learned, just from working with the kids and also interacting with the staff, and just hearing so many different stories, I realized I had the power to be the role model I never had as a kid… Not to say there aren’t days where I’m just shouting at clouds because there absolutely are. However, when those days come, I feel less alone, and I also feel more driven, because it makes me feel like my job needs to be that more important to me.” 

Ulices Rodriguez, Dan Losen, Director of the CCRR at The Civil Rights Project at UCLA, describes the dismantling of the cradle-to-prison pipeline as a slow, “gradual process”. He goes on to say that one such way we can begin to replace the pipeline we see today is by “undoing some of the structures, the ways we do business, the ways we distribute resources”. In Midwest schools, we can still see the residual effects of de jure segregation in our communities where Black teachers were forced out of their positions to mitigate the appearance of “white flight” in our public schools. Part of Tony’s work now is undoing that systemic harm simply by being in the school. For some of these kids, it’s their first time being comfortable enough to ask for help through the school system from someone who looks like them. By working through a local mental health center, Tony feels like he’s able to impact the same system he found himself in from a position of power he once believed to be unattainable.  

Tony: “It’s important for them to have Black role models.” 

Today, Tony now shares the tools he’s gathered in his escape from the cradle-to-prison pipeline with his youth clients in hopes of mitigating the factors that often pull children into the pipeline in the first place.  

Tony: “I feel like Master Splinter handing my Ninja Turtles their weapons, having them dawn their shells for protection… It’s my job to teach these kids that they can be better than I ever had a chance of being.”