© Copyright Human Rights for Kids 2024
Millions of children have experienced human rights violations in the U.S. criminal justice system over the past 50 years. This includes the more than 32,000 children – now adults – who remain incarcerated in prisons across the country.
Nearly 80% are children of color. America incarcerates more people for crimes they committed as children than the total number of people incarcerated in 80% of the rest of the world.
The mass incarceration of children as adults is one of the largest government-sanctioned human rights abuses in the world today.
We can and must do better.
The Human Rights Abuses Children Suffer
The severe harms that children face when placed in adult jails and prisons have been well-documented. They include physical and sexual violence, solitary confinement, lack of mental health treatment, lack of educational programming, and isolation from family. These forms of child abuse are human rights abuses and frequently follow children as they age and become adults in prison.
What makes these abuses all the more tragic is the fact that they are inflicted upon the most abused and neglected children in society. Research conducted by HRFK has found that more than 70% of children tried as adults were physically and emotionally abused and nearly 40% were sexually abused prior to their incarceration. More than 80% of these youth come from broken homes where they often witnessed domestic violence (50%), substance abuse (75%), and family incarceration (70%). If you care about victimized and abused children, you must care about the youth in the justice system because that’s where they end up when every other system fails them.
Hear the stories of the abuse and neglect experienced by people incarcerated since childhood.
Publications
Unheard: The Epidemic of Severe Childhood Trauma Among Girls Tried as Adults
This groundbreaking report is based on a first-of-its-kind survey that examined the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and severe childhood trauma among women who were tried and convicted as adults for crimes they committed as children. The report highlights how child sexual (84%), physical (84%), and emotional abuse (92%) are ubiquitous among girls who are tried in the adult criminal justice system, where their victimization is largely ignored. Most of the women surveyed in the report came from broken homes where parental separation, household incarceration, domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental illness were the norm.
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