Archives for September 2016

A new Kansas statewide poll, commissioned by Kansas ACLU and Kansas Appleseed, shows that Kansans support community-based programs for youth.

Read more here.

National Voter Registration Day falls on September 27 th , kicking off a frenzied push by campaigns all across the country to make sure as many Americans as possible are eligible and prepared to vote.

One voter demographic in particular has received the most attention: millennials. Whether it’s the technologies campaigns are using to reach them, determining which candidates they prefer, or concerns about whether they’ll make it to the polls at all, much energy is spent on this a sizeable and largely untapped voting bloc. But thousands of young people have gone completely unnoticed in this conversation, despite the fact that they often have more at stake in our elections than virtually anyone else: young people in juvenile prisons.

Read more here.

We’re using the mnemonic, l-o-c-k-e-d u-p, to show some of the main characteristics of a youth prison in a series of articles, Locked Up: What is a Youth Prison? (L = Large; O = Old, Outdated & Obsolete; C = {Adult} Correctional Approach; K = Kids are locked up; E = Excludes Families). One of those characteristics is that a youth prison excludes families.

How do youth prisons exclude families?

“Overall, the experience we had was one of not feeling like the system really wanted us involved. All the rules they set up prevented true family participation.”

“When he was in the juvenile facility we could visit on Tuesday or Saturday and you got 20 minutes a visit. There were steel tables and steel chairs and you couldn’t even touch him.”

“Some parents do not have transportation. No one is offering transportation, so this creates a problem for [maintaining] a meaningful relationship with your child. You don’t get the opportunity to visit with the child or talk with the child; there is no relationship.”

Read more here.