We are a hostile nation when it comes to our children.
Policies are the product of a state or nation’s values, beliefs and norms. Generally speaking, our policies on crime and punishment don’t place much value on our children.
We incarcerate more citizens — including our own children — than any other country in the world.
This hostility is not just measured by the number of arrests, but who we are arresting.
When I visit cities around the country to deliver assistance, their data is similar to what ours was when we began reforming our system. Take, for example, my county’s school arrests in 2003: 92 percent were for low-risk youth and involved affray, disorderly conduct and disrupting public school.
[For more of this story, written by Steven Teske, go to http://jjie.org/we-hide-the-ug...arsh-prisons/136117/]
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