Susan Vivian Mangold, professor emerita in the UB School of Law, will speak about the impact of the foster care and justice systems on women and girls at a Women’s History Month event on March 13.

Mangold, currently chief executive officer of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia — the first non-profit, public interest law firm for children in the country — will speak at 7 p.m. in the community room at St. Joseph University Parish, 3269 Main St., adjacent to the South Campus.

Her talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Social Justice Concerns Committee at St. Joseph University Parish.

“Women and adolescent girls have unique needs and experiences in our foster care and justice systems,” says Mangold, who served on the UB law faculty for more than 20 years, including a stint as vice dean for academics. “Seven out of 10 girls who age out of foster care will be pregnant before age 21. Women are the fastest growing population in prison,” she says, noting the number of women who are incarcerated has grown more than 700 percent since 1980.

“Approximately 60 percent are mothers of children under 18. Over half have never been convicted of a crime, but are languishing in jail, separated from their families and communities, because they cannot afford cash bail,” she says.

“Racial inequity, economic injustice, and gender and LGBTQ discrimination all play a role in how teenage girls and women experience these systems that were not created with them in mind.”

Co-editor of West Publishing’s casebook “Children and the Law: Doctrine, Policy and Practice” (sixth edition, 2017), Mangold is a graduate of Harvard College, where she co-chaired the Big Brother/Big Sister Program, then founded the Cambridge Youth Enrichment Program, now known as the Summer Urban Program.

After graduation, she took a job as program director at a Girls Club. Mangold says the experience of working with girls involved in the child welfare system led her to Harvard Law School with the intent of becoming a children’s attorney. During law school, she was executive director of Harvard Legal Aid and co-founder of the Children’s Rights Project.