Joe Biden: “Clearly, most of the 39 million children in this baby boomerang will never turn to crime and never turn to drugs. But…”

“Clearly, most of the 39 million children in this baby boomerang will never turn to crime and never turn to drugs. But equally clear, we will have a rising number of at-risk children, at-risk children who are at risk to turning to drugs, at risk of being the victims of violence, and at risk of turning to crime. Let me offer two more figures to indicate the size of the problem we face in the next 10 years. Seventy-seven percent of women with high-school-age children are working moms--77 percent. And all told, about 14 million school-age children have working moms. In all likelihood, this means that these 14 million children will be leaving school after school, unless they come from affluent families, with no supervision after school until mom gets home. That is not a criticism of moms working, it is a criticism of our failure to recognize the demographic change as well as the social change that has taken place in America. For the rising number of at-risk children, I believe we have to discuss what has become a dirty word among Washington politicians, even though it is a word I hear over and over again from prosecutors and police chiefs and people in the juvenile justice system and what their solution to the violent problem is. It is prevention--prevention. We must keep as many of these at-risk children as possible away from drugs and crime in the first place.”