The Foster Care to Prison Pipeline: What It Is and How It Works

Fostered or Forgotten is a Teen Vogue series about the foster care system in the United States, produced in partnership with Juvenile Law Center and published throughout National Foster Care Month.

Twenty-two-year-old Bronx native Randy, who asked us to use only his first name for anonymity, entered into foster care when he was 10, moving through 13 placements and three boroughs of New York City during his time in the system. When he was 14, Randy got into a fight with another boy in his foster home: “The foster parent was quick to call 911 instead of mediating and resolving the issue,” Randy tells Teen Vogue.

It was his first arrest and neither of the boys were seriously injured, but Randy was incarcerated for 14 months in juvenile detention.