Baugh: The foster care-to-prison pipeline

Nelson Mandela once said that a society’s soul should be judged by the way it treats its children. In the United States, the soul of our society would be judged harshly, particularly because of the way we treat wards of the state.

In recent years, attention has been given to America’s children in the “School-To-Prison Pipeline.” Zero-tolerance policies, the criminalization of adolescence and the pushing of disadvantaged children out of the classrooms have fed a number of youthss into justice systems — many of them foster youths. Home and state systems, like group homes, foster care and youths institutions, set children up for emotional and relational trauma when children are uprooted from their biological families and have multiple home placements.

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