ABSTRACT
This chapter describes from a child-developmental perspective the sequence of adverse experiences that await a great number of black children conceived today by adolescents or adults in urban ghettos. It explains the stages of child development, identifying hazards present in each for persons born to members of depressed black urban communities. The chapter also explains at each step the role our laws—that is the rules of life that our representatives create, with our explicit or implicit support—play in causing children to be subject to these hazards, effectively imprisoning children from birth in the toxic world of their parents. Existing programs targeting the children, such as Head Start and Nurse-Family Partnership, are also ineffectual in keeping them out of the cycle. Medical professionals and advocates for women and children place great emphasis on pre-natal care, because pre-natal life is of great developmental importance.
