Aqilah David & Alexandria Rivera, The Philadelphia Citizen •
We are youth advocates who were incarcerated at the ages of 14 and 15 — and we don’t want the juvenile legal system to do to others what it did to us and our peers. When a person under 18 comes into the justice system, they must be treated not as an adult, but as a child, a kid.
The national housing crisis and related epidemic of homelessness have reached the US Supreme Court. On April 22, the Court heard arguments in City of Grants Pass v. Gloria Johnson, a case with high stakes for youth and adults experiencing homelessness. The case, likely to be decided this month, will determine the constitutionality of a city criminalizing homeless people, for sleeping in public with a blanket, in an effort to push them out of town.
