By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, November 11, 2019 Research and the national conversation around racial disparities in school discipline have largely remained focused on the outsized disparate treatment that black students receive when compared with their white peers. Yet Native American youth face much the same disciplinary treatment in schools that black students do, according to a report from San Diego State University and Sacramento Native American Higher Education Collaborative (SNAHEC)...

Educational Trauma is the inadvertent and unintentional perpetration and perpetuation of harm in schools. The use of standards and the normal distribution or the bell curve to rank students and identify those at risk of developing problems later is born in the same theories and practices as eugenics. Eugenics practices thrive in schools and feed the school-to-prison pipeline, which is the most extreme example of Educational Trauma. This book ambitiously aims to open a feld of inquiry into...

By The Times Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2019 As California continues to burn, the state’s firefighters have spent day after day in the searing heat and ferocious wind, hiking toward the flames, cutting fire lines and protecting homes. It’s grueling, heroic work that saves lives and prevents more devastation. And sometimes, it’s done by prison inmates. Among the thousands of federal, state and local firefighters on the fire lines, there are also more than 2,500 prisoners...

By Michael Friedrich, CityLab, October 27, 2019 Standing before the congregation of the Progressive Community Church of Stockton, California, Eric Jones, the city’s police chief, apologized. It was July 2016, in the furious days after the police shootings of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Those were followed closely by the deadly ambush of police officers in Dallas, Texas, and in Baton Rouge after protests over the Sterling...

By Tom Hays, The Washington Post, October 24, 2019 A law enforcement think tank wants police departments dealing with a suicide crisis in their ranks to rethink how they make one of their toughest decisions: when to take guns away from troubled officers. The recommendation to review gun-removal policies is contained in a new report by the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum released in anticipation of a gathering of police chiefs this weekend in Chicago. It aims to help law...

By James King (WLA Guest), Witness LA, October, 20, 2019 I hear it all the time. “San Quentin is unique,” “If only we could take what’s happening here and reproduce it in other prisons,” blah, blah, blah. You know what? That was kind of overdramatic. Let me start again. I have yet to meet anyone here who doesn’t think San Quentin is the best prison in the state, and possibly on the country. As a person who has been here for nearly six years, I can confirm that the opportunities at this...

By Angelika Albaladejo, Capital & Main, October 16, 2019 Ingrid Archie thought she was doing everything right to protect her children. She got a restraining order against her abusive partner and moved into a domestic violence shelter with her kids. Then Archie got arrested for child endangerment. It had been only a month since she’d left the relationship and she was struggling to get back on her feet. She was stressed out and trying to run errands with her two youngest daughters. One of...

By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, September 13, 2019 An estimated 10 million US children have parents who are currently locked up, or who have previously been incarcerated. A bill currently on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, SB 394, seeks to reduce the number of parents and children separated by incarceration by boosting diversion. Children arguably suffer the worst consequences of mass incarceration. In 2014, a UC Irvine study found that having a parent behind bars can be more damaging to a kid’s...

Traumatic stress feels awful. Thankfully, there are small things we can all do to help relax a hyperaroused nervous system.

By Jack P. Shonkoff, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, October 2019 Background The separation of children from their parents and their prolonged detention for an indefinite period of time raise profound concerns that transcend partisan politics and demand immediate resolution. Forcibly separating children from their parents is like setting a house on fire. Preventing rapid reunification is like blocking the first responders from doing their job. And subjecting children to prolonged...

By Ellen Galinsky, Brookings Institute, October 23, 2019 The focus on “toxic stress,” ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), and trauma-informed care have been game-changers in the field of early childhood development. They have helped us recognize the symptoms of trauma, provide appropriate assistance to children, and understand that prolonged adversity in the absence of nurturing relationships can derail a child’s healthy development. Just look at the media’s and the public’s reaction to...

By Stell Simonton, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, October 21, 2019 Understanding how homeless youth are trafficked is important information for the organizations offering them services. That’s the conclusion of a report released today based on a 2018 count of homeless and runaway young people ages 14-25 in Atlanta. “Clearly, talking about trafficking is critically important,” said Eric Wright, chairman of the sociology department at Georgia State University, who led the survey and...