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The book opens with a description of the two key sites in my study: El Valle Juvenile Detention and Legacy community school. I describe the focus of the project and the questions I address. Here, I emphasize how these two institutions and wraparound services shape the pathways of my participants and how these young women navigate these interlocking entities. I then discuss why understanding these new educational and penal connections is important, especially the role they play in the lives of the Latina girls in my study. In this chapter I introduce the term wraparound incarceration, which I coin in the book. I draw on previous research on intersectionality, the school-to-prison pipeline, life course theory and work on gender and crime to situate my own intellectual contributions. The chapter ends with a discussion of the major components of the book, providing readers a “map” of what to expect in the text. Finally, I introduce my primary respondents who will lead off and end every chapter in this manuscript. This introduction as a whole reminds the readers of the importance of studying the processes that lead this growing group of girls into the juvenile justice system.

For girls in El Valle and Legacy, incarceration is a central component of their lives. However, once kids turn 18, the violations that previously landed them in juvenile detention now lead directly to adult prisons. I identify the key turning points that lead girls in my study from detention to college, gainful employment, or the larger California prison system. I also reveal the key moments in girls’ development when they are ready and willing for positive change. Unfortunately, many youth are so entrenched in the criminal justice system that when they become ready for change, exiting the criminal justice system becomes impossible. I inform scholars understanding of young women and criminal desistance, as well as the institutional and interpersonal factors that prevent these youth from exiting the criminal justice system. This final section sheds light on the key factors that educators and criminal justice agencies can look for when attempting to make positive interventions in young peoples' life trajectories. It also sheds light on the shortcomings of wraparound services and further verifies my argument that these services resemble wraparound incarceration.

In this chapter, I draw on feminist criminology and research on gender and crime to demonstrate how abuse and neglect in the home led the young women in my study to their first contact with the criminal justice system. I pay attention to how home instability is shaped by gendered, racialized, and class-specific challenges. First, I discuss the multiple types of abuse girls experience in the home. This mistreatment led the young women in my study to begin dating at an early age; this new behavior resulted in more abuse at the hands of family members, who viewed their behavior as inappropriate and a violation of “proper” behavior for young Latinas. As this abuse continued, most of the young women in my study began using controlled substances. Soon, they ran away from home. Once on the street, they experienced a new set of challenges, which included finding housing, staying safe, and avoiding physical and sexual abuse. By this point their initial drug use had usually turned into full-blown drug addiction. Drug use and abuse were key factors contributing to first girls’ arrest.

The conclusion revisits the major themes of book. It also highlights the larger implications of these findings for young people in the United States. New partnerships between education and penal facilities and wraparound services as a whole do not help young people stay away from the criminal justice system. Despite the positive intentions of these new services, law enforcement and education administrators inadvertently undermine their goal of helping youth by exposing them to further criminalization. Instead these new services break down social bonds between adults, institutional actors, and other young people that would help the girls in my study begin a more positive life-course. This is reflected in their failed attempts to finish probation, return to traditional school and leave the criminal justice system altogether. I revisit this clear disconnect between the well-intentioned goals of education and corrections administrators with negative outcomes young women must negotiate as they try, and often fail, to stay out of secure detention. I also remind the reader how this process has a set of challenges that are unique to Latinas’ intersecting identities.