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Womb-to-Prison Pipeline
By The Philadelphia Inquirer, | February 27, 2025
Stoneleigh Fellow and Inquirer Journalist Samantha Melamed continues her ongoing series on youth justice in Philadelphia with an article outlining the many factors underlying the correlation between a young person’s child welfare involvement and the likelihood of their arrest.
Denaisa Hansberry learned at a young age to run away from danger.
Removed from home at age 10 and placed in kinship care, she ran from an abuser.
Sent to group homes, she ran from conflict.
Placed in foster care, she ran from petty torment — the foster mother who, as she remembers it, punished her for complaining about a pizza dinner by placing her on an all-soup diet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
But when she was on the run, danger would find her.
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