-The Road to Hell: Rural West Virginia Girls Foster Care-to-Prison Pipeline

• In Event: Institutional Failures

Abstract

Thought there is a growing empirical literature on the foster care-to-prison pipeline, so far, there is a conspicuous dearth of rigorous research on the experiences of rural girls. Informed by feminist perspectives on females' pathways to crime and deviance and using data derived from in-depth semi-structured interviews with over 40 rural girls incarcerated in West Virginia penal institutions, the main objective of this article is to present new qualitative data on the ways in which rural girls in the foster care system are funneled into the prison system.

Authors

• Walter DeKeseredy, West Virginia University

• Mackenzie Freeman, West Virginia University

• Elizabeth Moberly, West Virginia University

• Beth Currence, Libera

• Jessie Haring, Libera

• Donna Selman, Illinois State University