Minority Youth and Pipelining in the U.S. Criminal Justice System

The goal of Victor Rios’ book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys aims to show the “failures of criminalization, the failures of using harsh, stigmatizing, and humiliating forms of punishment to ‘correct’ and ‘manage’ marginalized youth, as well as to highlight the consequences that these methods have on young people’s trajectories” (2011). Though Rios predominately examines Oakland, this process is unfortunately indicative of the minority youth experience throughout the U.S.  The idea that male youth of color are “criminalized and pipelined through the criminal justice system” is a disturbing result of persistent racism and ageism in the criminal justice system that shows up all over the place once you know how to recognize it.

March 20th of this year, the Supreme Court debated the cases of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbes, both of which involved juveniles (14 years old) convicted of murder of adults, ultimately calling into question the justice of juveniles convicted of murder being given mandatory life sentences in prison without possibility of parole. This isn’t the first time the Supreme Court has debated juvenile justice, according to this report on Colorlines, “the justices have previously ruled against imposing death sentences on juveniles and imposing life sentences on youth who aren’t convicted of murder” (Lee 2012). The idea of a 14-year-old serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole seems incredibly disturbing, especially when you think about young males who have been raised under an already hyper-criminalizing eye being pipelined directly into the prison system. With NO chance for redemption, what does this say about our expectations for the lives of youth convicted of crimes in the U.S.? Not to mention all the risks we at which we put youth in adult prisons (physical and sexual assault, etc.) Here are some statistics about juvenile males ALREADY serving life sentences without parole across the U.S., compiled by Colorlines:

It’s important to think about the disproportionate representations in these statistics too. What does that say about which boys specifically we’re seeing as unable to be rehabilitated, even at the the age of 14? Colorlines breaks it down even further. Here’s another interesting look that is a testament to the state of the criminal justice system in the U.S.:

Clearly, all youth are not being treated equally in the eyes of the law. And yet, they are expected to accept the “consequences of their actions” to the same degree as people twice their age, or more. So we can ask, what kind of justice is being served here?

Let’s go back to the beginning. Rios identifies sites of punitive control in his account of Oakland minority youth; one such example is schools. According to the New York Times, public schools are indeed one of the main sites of this criminalization of youth, particularly black youth, where they are disproportionately punished:

Although black students made up only 18 percent of those enrolled in the schools sampled, they accounted for 35 percent of those suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended more than once and 39 percent of all expulsions, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection’s 2009-10 statistics from 72,000 schools in 7,000 districts, serving about 85 percent of the nation’s students. The data covered students from kindergarten age through high school.

One in five black boys and more than one in 10 black girls received an out-of-school suspension. Over all, black students were three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.

And in districts that reported expulsions under zero-tolerance policies, Hispanic and black students represent 45 percent of the student body, but 56 percent of those expelled under such policies.

And here we can see the cycle: kids are disproportionately punished in schools because of preconceived notions about “violent” or otherwise “bad” youth (minority youth are marked as criminals from the start). Then those kids go on to be disproportionately convicted of crimes, and disproportionately imprisoned–in some places even without the possibility of parole. Without a fighting chance from the beginning, especially their schools of all places (what does this also say about U.S. educational institutions?), what realistic choice can these youth even expect to have about their futures? As Deborah J. Vagins of the ACLU notes in the NY Times article, “The harsh punishments, especially expulsion under zero tolerance and referrals to law enforcement, show that students of color and students with disabilities are increasingly being pushed out of schools, oftentimes into the criminal justice system” (Lewin, 2012).

The pipelining of minority youth into the criminal justice system is an undoubtedly huge, problematic cycle of issues resulting from countless structural inequalities. When considering poverty, education inequities, racial disparities, the inefficient juvenile justice system, inadequate healthcare (we could go on)… it is difficult to imagine a possible “solution” to this phenomenon. However, there is hope in the fact that the trend is recognized and beginning to be tackled from different angles. The Children’s Defense Fund has been facilitating a national campaign since September 2007 called the Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign, which seeks to

reduce detention and incarceration by increasing preventive supports and services children need, such as access to quality early childhood development and education services and accessible, comprehensive health and mental health coverage (“Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign,” 2012).

The campaign has facilitated the formation of coalitions in each state that regularly hold summits in order to “formulate action plans and form working groups to promote best practices, build community and confront policies that are contributing to the crisis in their state” (“Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign,” 2012). They also publishes tons of reports with helpful statistics on the crisis, and provide resources on youth and poverty, incarceration, and school disciplinary practices. They also raise awareness through media campaigns.

I’ll close with Edwin Desamour, whose story is the focus of an Washington Post editorial by Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund. As a 16-year-old in a poor and violent neighborhood in Philadelphia, Desamour was convicted of a homicide. He went to jail, where he realized how much he wanted to help the youth in his community avoid suffering his same fate. He was lucky enough to be determined “mature” enough to earn parole, and went on to found his own organization in the neighborhood where he grew up. Men In Motion In the Community (MIMIC) is an organization that works to not only make changes in young people’s lives but also to engage adults in with the young people in their community. Here’s a video of Desamour being interviewed by CNN:

The MIMIC mentoring model can be likened to those situations where Rios observed young men being able to navigate themselves out of the system of punitive control with the aid of a mentor who “made a significant difference in their ability to perform” (2011). As Rios notes, their ability to have “genuine caring relationships with adults who advocated for them and helped them develop their everyday resistance and resilience into social capital” then allowed them to “desist, complete high school, and attend college” (2011). These are the types of relationships MIMIC seeks to facilitate, by providing programming and activities for youth, as well as leadership development for adults.

Though the pipeline trend may be disturbing and overwhelming, it’s important to keep in mind the importance of individuals like Desamour. His story does so many things. It can inspire adults to step into the lives of youth being affected by many of the these cyclical issues, as well as demonstrate the potential of young people themselves to transform their communities–as long as they are not hastily written off as deserving nothing more than spending the rest of the days of their lives in prison for crimes committed as teens caught up in the vicious cycles of poverty, racism, and criminalization.

“Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign.” (2012) Children’s Defense Fund: Programs and Campaigns. Retrieved from http://www.childrensdefense.org/programs-campaigns/cradle-to-prison-pipeline/.

Edelman, M.W. (Mar. 15, 2012) “Giving jailed juveniles a second chance at life.” The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-life-without-parole-for-teenagers-cruel-and-unusual/2012/03/05/gIQAfZF1ES_story.html?tid=wp_ipad.

Lee, H. (Mar. 21, 2012) “As Supreme Court Listens, Here’s a Look at What It Means to Lock Kids Away for Life” Colorlines Blog. Retrieved from http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/juvenile_life_in_prison_without_parole.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+racewireblog+%28ColorLines%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Lewin, T. (Mar. 6, 2012) “Black students face more discipline, data suggests.” The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/education/black-students-face-more-harsh-discipline-data-shows.html?_r=2

Rios, V. (2011) Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys. New York: New York University Press.

The DREAM Act and Youth Activism: Countering a Culture of Fear

This past week in class, we heard from Daniel, an activist hard at work to open doors for the futures of undocumented students here at ASU. He spoke to us about his own story of being a highly successful student who came to the U.S. from Mexico, and later attended ASU and became personally affected by immigration reform when he lost his scholarships as an undocumented student. He became a major advocate for the passage of DREAM Act, the only way he could foreseeably return to and finish law school.

I have written before about “unintended” consequences, and how young people are disproportionately affected by racist immigration policy–the type of policy designed to inspire enough fear in immigrants to force them to “voluntarily deport themselves” or otherwise remain in constant fear that the government can and will do so for them. After Daniel’s moving talk, the need for more opportunities for young people who often have no choice in coming to the U.S. to have hope for their futures is undeniable. However,  the way the DREAM Act is currently being treated by politicians (in this election year) is another disturbing example of how fear is translated into any policy remotely concerned with immigration. In addition, we can see how the loaded rhetoric of “citizenship” is being invoked, and what happens when that rhetoric comes to a a head with the material reality of what citizenship means for people living in the United States. This is most recently evident in the case of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida who has recently garnered attention for his retooled version of the DREAM Act for Florida. Rubio is the only Hispanic Republican in the U.S. Senate, and he has historically opposed the DREAM Act.  Rubio’s new idea has been called “watered-down”–the DREAM Act without the dream–and it basically attempts to allow legalization without a clear path to citizenship–the implications of which are detailed here, in an article from The Hill.

A recent NY Times editorial describes the political move this way:

Take Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has recently been floating his stripped-down version of the Dream Act, a bill to legalize young unauthorized immigrants — Americans in all but name — who serve in the military or go to college. Mr. Rubio’s idea to make it palatable to his party is to offer them legalization without citizenship. “You can legalize someone’s status,” he says, “without placing them on a path toward citizenship.” He warns that if Dream Act youths became citizens, they could — horrors — someday sponsor family members to enter legally. This idea is nothing more than some newly invented third-class status — not illegal, but not American (2012).

A Washington Post editorial by Greg Sargent agrees, and brings to mind the huge disparity between effective U.S. policy and politics:

If the only version of the DREAM Act that Congressional Republicans can bring themselves to support is one that doesn’t offer a path to citizenship to young immigrants in America who go to college or serve in the armed forces, then that seems more likely to epitomize the GOP’s Latino problem than to fix it (2012).

Major factors to consider here include, of course, the “Republican need for the Hispanic vote” and the fact that Rubio is being considered as a Vice Presidential candidate by Mitt Romney. However, it’s disturbing how quickly such an issue that can have a huge impact on the realistic opportunities for the futures of so many young people can be tossed around for political gain. It’s a testament to the way U.S. politics have a tendency to conveniently overlook the people who are being affected by the policy they are creating and implementing in favor of how far ahead said policy will put them in the race. We’ve seen this time and time again in cases of minority rights–and it’s important to remember how age factors into the equation.

Despite the current state of the DREAM Act, I think it’s important to highlight how this particular piece of reform has become a sounding board for Latino youth to reclaim their voice in a movement that has become almost entirely about adult politicians. The push for the passage of DREAM Act has allowed youth a particularly salient platform for activism, giving a human face to the seemingly monolithic and political “issue” of “immigration reform.” The way that young people have not allowed their voices to go unheard is inspiring, and Daniel’s story was a wonderful example. ASU has been the site of much of this youth activism, as you can see in the video below from 2010:

DREAMers have also called out Sen. Rubio himself, increasing the visibility of their movement and standing their ground even in the most unfriendly environments, as we can see in this clip:

The DREAM Act has done something much more important than become a political tool, it has inspired a youth-led movement to change the conversation about immigration policy in the U.S. Young people seeking to shift the conversation has brought important issues to light that are extremely prevalent to, but rarely discussed in light of the politically-loaded discussions on immigration including education, separated families, and historical racism in the U.S.

The young activist movement has also taken creative approaches to raising awareness and working toward the movement’s goals. One such example is the DREAM Ride, a 50-mile bike ride from Orange County to Los Angeles to celebrate the passage of the DREAM Act in California. The bike ride is just one part of the activism of the DreamTeam Los Angeles, which started to get California’s DREAM Act passed, and now serves as a broader base for young people working for immigrant rights. According to their website, DTLA “aims to create a safe space in which undocumented immigrant youth and allies empower themselves through education and shared experiences. Through these shared experiences, individuals develop as efficient advocates for their own rights and those of the larger immigrant community” (2009). Just one of many DREAM Teams, the organization offers scholarships, holds fundraisers, and hosts workshops in addition to sponsoring the yearly ride, and the website is a platform for young people to share their own stories and media of all forms–poetry, videos, art–it’s a a really incredible resource. Further drawing on my point from before, that young people are changing the conversation about immigration and the U.S., DREAMer Nancy Meza, an intern at the UCLA Dream Resource center, wrote this amazing piece for the Huffington Post‘s DREAM Activist Bloggers Series.

What continues to be missing is an honest conversation of the role U.S foreign policy and multinational corporations have in driving families from their countries through economic exploitation. Resorting to an inherently faulty logic that refers to immigrants as “good/bad” and “legal/illegal”.

Simply stating that a law is a law and therefore people must obey and follow does not equate to that law being just. We have to remember that in the history of this country, slavery was protected under the law, women have been denied the right to vote, Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps during World War II and LGBTQ people were placed in mental institutions as a result of their sexual orientation.

…

When a mother is looking at her hungry children in the eye, she doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for a visa. Instead, she will do everything in her power to feed her children, including crossing the border. She’ll work any and every job that comes her way to get through the day, but the reality is that she’ll face exploitation through from a militarized immigration policy that keeps her in fear and a source of cheap labor (Feb. 9, 2012).

Meza is making points that never emerge in politically-driven rhetoric of who does and does not get to be a citizen. She is one of many important voices that have been supported by a strong, creative, youth activist movement of proponents of the DREAM Act and immigrant/students’ rights. By declaring themselves boldly, “undocumented and unafraid,” young people are directly countering the culture of fear that is being created by the harsh immigration policy that continues to be passed throughout the country. While it has not been easy and continues to be a struggle, the movement for undocumented students’ rights is providing a foundation for youth activism that is hopeful, despite the seemingly dead-end political conversation about “immigration reform” that continues to drive rhetorical wedges during this election year.

“About” (2009). Official Website for Dream Team Los Angeles. Retrieved from http://dreamteamla.org/about-2/.

“A Dream Act Without the Dream.” (Mar. 27, 2012) The Opinion Pages. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/opinion/a-dream-act-without-the-dream.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper.

Meza, N. (Feb. 9, 2012) “Immigration Is Not Just An Election Year Issue, It Is A Reality Millions Of Undocumented People In The U.S Have To Face Every Day.” Huffington Post Latino Voices Blog. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-meza/immigration-a-reality-that-undocumented-people-face-every-day_b_1266007.html.

Sargent, G. ( Mar. 28, 2012) “Marco Rubio’s DREAM timing.” The Plum Line Blog, The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/marco-rubios-dream-timing/2012/03/28/gIQAuGBvgS_blog.html.

Youth, Justice, and Slacktivism

In a previous post, I shared an ad for an anti-sex trafficking campaign featuring male celebrities, which then stimulated some thinking that was followed up on in our presentation on youth affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. Anastasia, Leanara, and I also questioned the legitimacy of celebrity, consumer, and otherwise “slacktivist” campaigns as part of our presentation. We looked critically on how AIDS in Africa has become a  primary target These concepts tend to go hand in hand because this issue in particular has been seized upon by those in the spotlight. While we have definitely established that the AIDS epidemic is undoubtedly devastating to Africa in particular  [As of  2010: 68% of all people living with HIV resided in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to only 12% of the global population; As of 2010, 22.9 million children and adults are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and HIV/AIDS accounted for 1.2 million deaths of adults and children (UNAIDS, “World AIDS Day Report 2011″).] why has this issue in particular been such a rallying point for celebs and for consumerist campaigns? More importantly for the purposes of this course, why does this matter for children’s human rights and social justice?

The questions, like most regarding that of youth and justice (especially an issue as gigantic and with as many structural contributions as HIV/AIDS) are complicated to answer. As Meisha and Nick commented on my blog post from a few weeks ago, celebrity campaigns often lend resources, production value, and visibility to campaigns, but can possibly perpetuate the view that activism can only come in the form of Madonna-esque large-scale philanthropists. Of course there’s always the issue of cultural appropriation that inevitably comes into play with celebrity campaigns designed only to catch the attention of the public.

No need to go into more detail why campaigns like the one above (and quite a few others for this organization, you can check the link) for Keep A Child Alive is quite problematic. (And speaking of Madonna and problematic activism, check out this update on the situation with her organization in Malawi as of today, yikes!)

So if we can’t all afford to make documentaries like Madonna, could slacktivism be the answer? Opinions vary far and wide. Several bloggers on the Huffington Post have taken on the topic just in the past few weeks, and bring up a variety of often-cited points denigrating slacktivism. For example,  This post by Evan Bailyn argues in reference to the Kony 2012 viral video campaign from Invisible Children that, the “desire to act cannot be dismissed as slacktivism. In fact, it is a new and powerful type of activism, all the more so because it combines the efforts of millions of people.” Dennis McCafferty provides a contrasting view, characterizing slackivists as “people who are happy to click a ‘like’ button about a cause and may make other nominal, supportive gestures. But they’re hardly inspired with the kind of emotional fire that forces a shift in public perception” (2011).

A recent New York Times Op-Ed by David Carr provides a thoughtful critique:

It’s an important distinction in an age when you can accumulate social currency on Facebook or Twitter just by hitting the “like” or “favorite” button.

The ongoing referendum on the Web often seems more like a kind of collective digital graffiti than a measure of engagement: I saw this thing, it spoke to me for at least one second, and here is my mark to prove it.

But it gets more complicated when the subjects are more complicated. Hitting the favorite button on the first episode of “Mad Men” is a remarkably different gesture than expressing digital solidarity with kidnapped children in Africa, but it all sort of looks the same at the keyboard.

And here’s a roundtable of NYTimes bloggers taking on Kony specifically. I’d recommend taking a look at that, in addition to Amy’s discussion of Kony 2012 on her blog. This piece of internet activism has sparked such an important conversation about the nature of social justice activism!

Another HuffPo blogger, John Conway, calls slacktivism “the ultimate democratization of the mass media done on a tiered system,” the first tier being information-spreading, where action usually remains, and the second tier being the purchase of items in support of a cause, and the third tier are the “small group of people who have seen the message and are genuinely moved to take action.” This explanation is excellent for understanding how slacktivism might not be a bad thing after all. It is easy and convenient, and raises not only awareness but money–as long as people are “moved” enough to move into that second and third tier. The Product(Red) campaign is certainly a recognizable example of this philosophy.

Slacktivism most often comes back to merely being capitalism at its finest, in my opinion, by using a feel-good model cashing in on the desire to “change the world” by selling the idea of doing so by purchasing a product. (And diverting attention from the fact that companies like Nike, Gap, and Apple have all benefited from exploitative labor practices, among other problems with these corporations at the forefront of globalization…)

I think the connection to youth can be made in a variety of ways, from the youth affected by these issues of human injustice that we have been discussing, but also to the youth who are targeted (and being affected by) these ad campaigns themselves. Often slackivistim is made possible through new media–social networks, etc. Young people are the ones constantly using these resources–for better or worse, at younger and younger ages. Therefore, much of the Kony hype, for example, was perpetuated in this arena (middle and high-schoolers, etc.). However this also becomes a prime location for the spread of misinformation. (Would a sixth grader  take the time to research the Invisible Children organization or the history of violence in Uganda after watching Kony–before linking the video on their Facebook?) More importantly, if young people (particularly in the “Western” world where they have constant access to the Internet and other forms of technology) are only presented with slacktivism as the major mode of social justice, how will thoughtful engagement with these issues ever occur? Will buying a (RED) cell phone, iPod, or Starbucks frappachino eventually replace activism altogether for this age bracket?

In addition, the issues that these campaigns are rallying around often disproportionately affect children. We’ve seen celebrity and slacktivist campaigns against child labor, sex trafficking, AIDS, the list goes on. Children are really affected by whether or not these issues are being engaged with in a productive way. The not just “human” connection, but youth connection in particular could be a more useful starting point in terms of engaging young people in meaningful activism and education about these issues–more useful than a product-based campaign promoting an even more rampant consumerism that already exists in this generation, at least.

While I don’t think slacktivism can be labeled as 100% bad all-around, I do think it is important to look with a particularly critical eye at slacktivist efforts that target experienced so often and so deeply by children. It is unfair to place the hopes for these children’s deserved justice and relief from such lives as as sex workers and child soldiers in the hands of Facebook campaigns. While these types of campaigns might very well be beneficial for drumming up awareness, when it becomes merely fashionable for middle-schoolers to wear a Kony 2012 bracelet without knowing the “cause” they are “supporting” (because let’s not forget how trends, no matter how honorable in origin, are inevitably co-opted for purely capitalist gain), I don’t think anyone is helped.

 

Bailyn, E. (19 Mar. 2012) “The Difference Between Slacktivism And Activism: How ‘Kony 2012’ Is Narrowing The Gap.” Huffington Post IMPACT Blog. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-bailyn/kony-2012-activism_b_1361791.html

Carr, D. (25 March 2012) “Hashtag Activism and its Limits.” New York Times Blog. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/business/media/hashtag-activism-and-its-limits.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=media

Conway, J. (25 March 2012) “Notes on Slacktivism” Huffington Post IMPACT Blog. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-conway/slacktivism_b_1378247.html

McCafferty, D. (2011). “Activism v. Slacktivism” Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 54. 12.

“World AIDS Day Report 2011.” (21 Nov. 2011) UNAIDS. Retrieved from http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2011/november/20111121wad2011report/

Homeless Youth and Intersectional Identities

The video we watched in class (Part 1 and Part 2) called “Living Homeless: Hope in the Desert” was made by an ASU grad and focused on homeless youth here in Tempe. Part of what intrigued me about the video was the story from one of the featured youths for the reason he left home: he was Mormon, and he left home after he came out. That made me think of the importance of intersectional identities when considering homeless youth in the U.S.–particularly how they end up on the street.

Young people both leave and are forced out of their homes for many reasons. As Smith notes, “many of these young people are fleeing homes with numerous family problems, particularly those surrounded with conflict, violence, and rejection.” She also notes abuse, physical and sexual, as a major factor, and that “running away is seen as a resistance strategy and a coping mechanism for abuse” (2008). This victimization is already something that homeless youth have been exposed to by their own families before they even reach the street. The rejection they experience is something that profoundly shapes the development of their identities, particularly in this very vulnerable stage in their lives. “Feeling alone and physically and emotionally harmed, they decide to flee (or are kicked out or removed from) their disruptive homes. Yet with few positive relationships and a lack of social and financial resources, these youth end up on the streets” (Smith, 2008). The pressure of not being accepted or “trusted” at home as a result of a young person’s gay identity, is an important factor to take into consideration when thinking about homeless youth. And the identity facet of sexuality is compounded by class, race, religion, and other factors, making interventions for homeless youth affected by multiple layers of oppressive identity factors hard, but necessary to unpack in order to understand.

Intersectionality is a way to think about all of these identity factors intersecting and mutually reinforcing each other, ultimately accounting for “a system of interlocking oppressions.” We can’t simply pin one factor on why a young person ends up homeless; it’s not merely because s/he is poor, of a particular race, or from a religious background. It can be one, many, all, or more of these things. With so many oppressions already facing homeless youth, it is important to understand how sexual orientation and the oppressions already associated with this identity factor can impact the experiences of homeless youth.

PBS aired a special as part of their Need to Know series called “Feels like home: Helping homeless LGBT youth.” Here’s a video excerpt of one young man’s story in Minneapolis:

As the video notes, 20% of homeless youth are LGBT, so making available resources for this population is extremely pertinent. The program that the video highlights, Avenues for Homeless Youth, in Minneapolis, seems like a particularly good example of the importance of being attuned to homeless youths’ identity development. Specifically targeting homeless LGBT youth, the program places them in carefully-screened host homes. Through Avenues for Homeless Youth, young people are able to develop in accepting environments, where they can stay for extended periods of time experiencing not rejection and abuse, but helpful guidance. They are supported in ways beyond the mere financial and structural (though those are essential) to ensure independent development, ultimately allowing homeless LGBT youth to “stand on their own two feet,” as many of the advocates for homeless youth have emphasized. This program is community-based, also making it a really helpful model for other cities’ homeless youth programs. The crucial understanding of the many oppressions facing youth as they are enduring homeless can, I believe, be a guiding principle for programs like this. What do you think? Do you see the importance of intersectionality playing a role in solving some of the problems facing homeless youth in the U.S.? Can programs like the host home program at Avenues for Homeless Youth be helpful for doing so?

Iskander, M. (2012, January 13). Feels like home: Helping homeless LGBT youth. PBS: Need to Know, [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2012/02/14/cfp-allen-vietnam-playground-2.cnn.

Smith, H. (2008). Searching for kinship: The creation of street families among homeless youth. American Behavioral Scientist, 51, 756-771.

Food for Thought: Sex Trafficking Awarness Celebrity Campaign

Just an interesting image I thought I’d share in light of our discussions of sex trafficking. We haven’t really talked about celebrity campaigns in class, but they are an interesting sort of anomaly to me…

Cambodian Refugees and Child Sex Trafficking: Solutions in Education?

On February 13, the CNN Freedom Project featured a piece entitled “Hope for Vietnam’s Children of the Dump,” which seems particularly relevant to our discussions of human/child trafficking. The Freedom Project itself provides a wealth of facts about, resources on, and solutions to trafficking–making it a beneficial site to critically examine as a major source of public discourse on human trafficking. But we’ll save that critique for another time.

Though the video we watched in class showed how political unrest in Cambodia’s history led to domestic sex trafficking issues, this article adds another component to human trafficking there. Cambodian families fleeing the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s also ended up outside the country–in this case, in Vietnam. As the video below shows, the so-called (economic) “progress” of Vietnam is not accessible to many who live there. This is particularly evident for the 200 families–three generations– of Cambodian refugees who live and work on a trash heaps in Vietnam. The intersection of poverty and political instability in the lives of these refugees has put them in a place of desperation–exactly where the risk of human trafficking is the greatest.

Taking the problematic reporting here with a grain of salt for the time being, the extreme poverty these people live in goes without saying. It is confirmed by the report of the father offering to sell the Western reporters his “beautiful baby boy” (CNN, 2012). As Farr notes: “Trafficking is inextricably linked to poverty. Wherever privation and economic hardship prevail, there will be those destitute and desperate enough to enter into the fraudulent employment schemes that are the the most common intake systems in the world of trafficking” (Farr, 2004). Subsequently, it should come as no surprise that the people of this community are at great risk of being trafficked, particularly, with so many children living in the dumps, for the sex trade. Indeed, the article identifies the exact situation we have examined in multiple locales in class:

Human traffickers prey on these poor people’s desperation. Children are bought and sold here, some for as little as $100. The parents sell because they are tricked into believing that the buyer has good intentions, that their children will have a promising job and a promising future. They so badly want to help their sons and daughters escape poverty. Oftentimes, however, the children end up as sex slaves.

This account also  reminds us of one of the main factors contributing to the perpetuation of sex trafficking: deception and coercion. “The trafficker looks like your mom, (the trafficker) doesn’t look like a bad guy,” said Caroline Nguyen Ticarro-Parker, the founder of the nonprofit Catalyst Foundation (CNN, 2012). As she explains in the video, these individuals spoke to parents specifically, offering them money up front for the their daughters, with the promise that they would be given work, and even potentially be returned to their families in a few years.  This type of coercion is a trend among traffickers, as Engstom et al. note of Thailand, “traffickers…have employed increasingly sophisticated techniques to recruit girls from poor villages into the sex trade, emphasizing less deception and more financial incentives to their families” (2004).

Besides exemplifying a prime location of the situations traffickers prey on, as well as those traffickers’ methods for luring family members into selling their own daughters into the sex trade, the video has a valuable perspectives on creative solutions in particular locales. Particularly, those provided by education. In the case of the Catalyst School, its “main purpose is to prevent trafficking” (CNN, 2012). All of the initiatives of the school are informed by this specific objective. This makes it multilevel: giving the children cell phones (to call for help), increasing literacy rates (to be able to read signs in cities and report back to the school where they are, in the event they are taken), teaching students to run if strangers approach, and teaching parents the truth of what could happen to their children in the event they do sell them. The approach seems to be working: according to the article, “In 2006, before the school opened, more than 37 girls from the dumps were sold to traffickers by their parents, Ticarro-Parker said. In 2011, only four were sold” (CNN, 2012). The school is also making efforts to challenge cultural gender norms that put girls at greater risk to be trafficked. The video below talks about this and other beneficial outcomes of education more broadly, such as increased community awareness of trafficking risks, and increased happiness of children, who now aspire toward careers and a future beyond the dump. It also importantly identifies the fact that Catalyst has, over time, gained the support of local government officials. This is essential because “Trafficking is a reigonal problem and can only be addressed through bilateral and multilateral efforts” (Engstom et al., 2004).

Skip ahead to about halfway through, because the first half is mostly the same as the first video.

Catalyst seems to have a realistic approach to eliminating sex trafficking that could act as a model for other relief organizations. They are concerned with the material effects of poverty on children now, while trying to give them the tools needed to move beyond the immediate need for safety. They acknowledge the larger structural factors at work in perpetuating the sex trade, but also that their organization can potentially add to this epidemic. According to Ticarro-Parker,

“We’re not going to eliminate trafficking. We are not going to change this whole culture of girls feeling unworthy of themselves. But we’re going to change this group of girls. We’re going to change 200 girls. It’s going to happen, one girl at a time” (CNN, 2012).

What do you think about Catalyst’s model/method/approach? Do you think education can be helpful in contributing to the elimination of sex trafficking? Does it obscure the need more expansive solutions? Could this account be helpful for future work from a researcher perspective?

CNN Videos (2012, February 13). Children of the trash dump. [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2012/02/14/cfp-allen-vietnam-playground-2.cnn

Engstrom, D.W., Minas, S.A., Espinoza, M., & Jones, L. (2004). Halting the trafficking of women and children in Thailand for the sex trade: progress and challenges. Journal of Social Work Research and Evaluation, 5, 193-206.

Farr, K. (2004). Sex trafficking: The global market in women and children. Worth Publishing.

Unintended Consequences: Children’s Rights and Immigration Laws

There is no doubt this is a tumultuous time in American society for immigrant rights. States all over the country (Arizona obviously being one of them in a major way) are passing unarguably discriminatory immigration laws ultimately designed to inspire hate and encourage racial profiling. These laws have profound effects on immigrant families, communities, and particularly relevant to our discussion of issues of youth and justice, children of immigrants.

One particularly interesting case of the impact such laws was chronicled by an episode of This American Life, an NPR show of “mostly true stories of everyday people.” On January 27, TAL aired an episode called “Reap What You Sow” which under the broader theme of “people living with the unintended consequences of their decisions,” spends the first half of the show addressing people affected by the passing of HB56 in Alabama, the most sweeping immigration bill in the country (even beyond Arizona’s SB 1070). As the show describes:

It’s an example of a strategy called “attrition through enforcement” or, more colloquially, “self-deportation”–making life so hard on undocumented immigrants that they choose to leave the country. But as reporter Jack Hitt found, the new law has had lots of other unintended consequences (TAL).

You can listen to this particular act of the show here. It’s about 35 minutes long.

One of the things that struck me about this episode was the many and varied ways children, those born in the U.S. and otherwise, were specifically affected by this intrusive law. “Unintended consequences” seem to disproportionately affect children, who are not considered full citizens in the eyes of U.S. law to begin with. I think it adds much to the discussion of children’s rights. Particularly, what rights can children be guaranteed when their parents’ citizenship status takes so much out of their control? When governmental mandates ultimately aid in producing unhealthy environments for these children to be a part of?

The episode starts with a 12-year-old recalling how she and her classmates’ experience at a school assembly where they were told that Mexican immigrants were going to be taken out of school, but that they would be okay if their parents’ got deported because they would “go back with them to Mexico.” “Almost everybody was crying,” said Stephanie, an interviewed student whose best friend was forced to move back to Mexico because her family’s fear of deportation was so great. Children in schools are now enduring comments like, “I’m glad you’re all moving” and “We don’t want you here, you take our jobs” from other kids who were formerly their friends. The narrator describes a pep rally, where Latino students were sitting in the front, and other students started yelling “Mexicans move to the back!” (TAL).

This ostracism and undue stress placed on children, even as legal citizens, is merely regarded as an “unintended consequence” of this pervasive law. In the context of children’s rights, HB56 seems to actually violate the right established by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that requires “government action to support relationships that provide the foundation for children’s identities, enhance their growth, and offer them protection” (Melton, 2005). As part of their right to develop healthily development, one could argue, children should be able to live in such an environment where they are not tormented by classmates, and constantly in fear that they will be deported. Complicating this matter, of course, is the fact that the U.S. has refused to sign the CRC, so perhaps it is no surprise that such a law would be passed with such obviously detrimental effects on not only adults, but however “unintended,” their children quite extensively as well (Fernando, 2001). The video below from the ACLU highlights the “singling out” of children–despite their legal citizenship status–in schools.

Outside of the context of what is globally accepted as rights children are guaranteed–basically to freely develop as humans–the issue of eduction in the U.S. is seemingly an unspoken “child’s right” (arguably, for the “right” children). However HB56 seems to disallow children this right as well–both formally for children here illegally (the law which requires “public schools to determine the citizenship and immigration status of students enrolling; to require school districts to compile certain data and submit reports to the State Board of Education”) and informally as well. In addition to the students’ voices heard on TAL, we also hear a mother tearfully explain that she can no longer send her son to preschool because the risk of getting pulled over on the drive there is simply too great. “He’s not safe with me to take him to school. He’s going to be safe here, at home.” Of course parents have a right to protect their children, but if children (in the U.S.) have a “right” to an education, is the denial of that right in this way yet another “unintended consequence” of pervasive immigration law and its inevitable companion, racial and ethnic profiling?

As we have read, determining the rights of children, as well as if/how children should be considered as citizens are far from easy to establish. In the U.S., firmly entrenched racism and structural inequalities perpetuated by our very laws make these issues even more complicated.

Fernando, J.L. (2001). Children’s Rights: Beyond the impasse. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 575, 8-24.

Melton, G.B. (2005). Building humane communities respectful of children: The significance of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. American Psychologist, November, 918-926.