Recent news

While National Foster Care Month reminds us of the unique situation of youth who are removed from their families and placed in foster care, it is also important to think about how strongly youth in foster care just want to be treated like “average” kids. 

Far too often, the foster care system creates barriers to youth having the “normal” experiences of adolescence. Most people don’t realize that in many states, foster youth cannot date, go to sleepovers, work, or participate in extracurricular activities.

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was signed into law in 2003 to protect our country’s bloated prison and jail population from sexual abuse, and in particular, to address the widespread sexual assault and rape of youth housed in adult facilities. More than a decade later, however, youth are still being raped, waiting for the protection they deserve in facilities nationwide.

The movie Kids for Cash chronicles the devastating effects the juvenile justice system can have on youth. Many people who see the film—from parents to experts—invariably ask one question: “If this film is meant to depict the devastation done to children in the justice system, why are there no kids of color represented in the film?”

Unaccompanied homeless youth and youth from foster care encounter many barriers to higher education. These vulnerable young people contend with histories of abuse, neglect, trauma, and frequent educational disruption caused by mobility. They struggle without parental care or other adult support, and frequently lack the basics that most of us take for granted, like shelter and food. Higher education is their best hope for a better life.

The Luzerne County "kids-for-cash" case has been called the “most egregious judicial scandal in U.S. history.” But not for the reasons most people think. The judges accepted $2.8 million in "finder’s fees” from the builder of the new for-profit detention center, and most Americans found that fact both shocking and repugnant. Yet something far worse was exposed in the shadows of the kids-for-cash story: America’s love affair with incarceration.