Commentary: Breaking the pipeline to prison - CNN.com: "(CNN) -- One of the most dangerous threats facing black America right now is quietly stealing our children at a young age.
Incarceration is becoming the new American apartheid, and poor children of color are the fodder.
So many poor black babies in rich America enter the world with multiple strikes against them: born without prenatal care, at low birthweight and to a poor, and poorly educated, teenage single mother and an absent father.
At crucial points in their development after birth through adolescence, more risks pile on, making a successful transition to productive adulthood significantly less likely and involvement in the criminal justice system significantly more likely.
This is America's pipeline to prison, a trajectory that is funneling tens of thousands of youths down life paths that lead to marginalized lives, imprisonment and, often, premature death.
Nationally, one in three black boys and one in 17 black girls born in 2001 is at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime.
It's time to sound a loud alarm about this threat to American unity and community, act to stop the growing criminalization of children at younger and younger ages, and tackle the unjust treatment of minority youths and adults in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems with urgency and persistence.
