Go To Jail Go Directly To Jail (and be branded for life)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Juvenile + Criminal Justice

Minnesota’s former Supreme Court Chief Justice has stated that 90% of the youth in the Juvenile Justice system have passed through Child Protective Services and that “The difference between that poor child and a felon is about eight years”.

Marion Wright Edelman calls this the pipeline to prison & from this volunteer CASA guardian ad Litems perspective it is absolutely true. No other industrialized nation treats its children and juveniles so harshly.

The simple truths below now define our communities and our nation – share them with your legislators (really – if you don’t share this with them they may never know).

Charging juveniles as adults

Privatized Detention Centers (why judges sometimes go to jail)

Ten Cents An Hour

Never Vote Again (stay away)

King Pin Laws

Women In Prison (shackled while giving birth?)

The Face of 12 Year Olds In Jail

Prozac, Children, Juveniles & the Criminal Justice System

Brutal Truths and Worst Practices (America’s injustice System)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Juvenile + Criminal Justice

One out of 28 American children has a parent in jail or prison – 60 percent of inmates are people of color (only 30% of America’s population are people of color). There are twelve time more drug offenders in state prisons than there were in 1980.

25% of American youth are charged in adult courts & many ten or twelve years old children are tried as adults. About ten thousand juveniles are housed in adult prisons and jails every day. 2/3 of those youth suffer from mental health issues and half that number have multiple and serious diagnosis.

Seven of ten of these youth have seen someone killed or severely injured and three of ten have attempted suicide. My first visit to a CASA guardian ad-Litem four year old was at the suicide ward of Fairview hospital in Minneapolis. The thoughts of killing yourself start young in at risk youth. Jeff Weise had been talking and writing about it before he killed his grandfather and fourteen others before killing himself.

And we wonder where the violence on our streets and in our schools comes from.

Black men born in 2001 have a 33% chance of incarceration and black youth are five times more likely to be arrested than white youth.

2/3 of America’s prisoners recycle within 3 years of being released Our recidivism rates are soon to exceed 70%.