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Children’s rights as a unifying framework to remedy our failing youth justice system

Pediatric Research volume 94, pages 1874–1877 (2023)Cite this article

The United States (US) incarcerates a greater proportion of its youth than any other nation in a legal system that harms young people’s health across the life course.1 Black, Latino, and Indigenous youth receive inequitable treatment at every stage along the carceral continuum, whereas white youth have more chances to receive supportive care outside of the carceral system, which should be the standard for every youth.2 The overpolicing and harsh sentencing of youth creates profound lifelong health effects through a racialized erasure of childhood, particularly for youth of color, as revealed in Human Rights for Kids’ (HRFK) report, “Crimes Against Humanity: The Mass Incarceration of Children in the United States.” The report shows that more than 32,000 people reside in US prisons for crimes committed as children, with glaring racial/ethnic disparities.2 On a given day in the United States, more than 2,400 children under 18 are confined in adult prisons,3 which is a direct violation of international human rights law, including Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a treaty the US ratified in 1992.4 Article 10 mandates that anyone deprived of their liberty must “be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person,” and stipulates that all children who are incarcerated must be separated from adults. Related, Article 14 of the ICCPR states that for “juvenile” offenders, the state must “take account of their age and the desirability of promoting their rehabilitation”. The HRFK report highlights that thousands of children have received life and de facto life sentences, which can be considered a violation of the rehabilitative and tailored approach to children demanded by the ICCPR and other human rights treaties.

Instead of funneling our most marginalized children through a school-to-prison pipeline that violates children’s basic human rights, we must develop true safety nets—restorative, supportive systems that give every young person the chance to thrive. Children’s rights is an urgently needed framework for transforming youth justice and fostering health equity. Other nations have successfully applied children’s rights to youth justice. For example, Ireland’s sole youth detention center, Oberstown, utilizes a children’s rights approach to design and implement holistic, individualized rehabilitative services delivered to youth in a safe, secure environment aimed at optimizing the care, well-being, and development of each youth.5 In contrast, the US carceral system lacks a children’s rights frame and fails to meet the standards set forth by the ICCPR and children’s rights treaties. This essay explains the applicability of a children’s rights framework to pediatrics so that child health professionals can lead the way in confronting the impact of the youth justice system on children, especially youth of color, and ensuring child wellbeing.

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Fig. 1: Application of a children’s rights framework to inform a pediatric response to youth justice.

Data availability

The human rights treaties analyzed for this article are publicly available and can be found on the United Nations website [https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child; https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights].

References

  1. Barnert, E. S. et al. How does incarcerating young people affect their adult health outcomes? Pediatrics 139, 2016–2624 (2017).

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  2. Human Rights for Kids, Crimes Against Humanity: The Mass Incarceration of Children in the United States. May 2023.

  3. Sayer, W., Wagner P. Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023. Prison Policy Initiative. March 2023.

  4. UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, December 16 1966. United Nations. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights.

  5. Killkelly, U. et al. Annual Report 2021. Oberstown Children Detention Campus. July 2022.

  6. UN General Assembly, Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comments, United Nations. http://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the youth justice advocacy community for all of their efforts to protect and advance children’s rights.

Funding

E.B. effort was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (K23DA045747) and the UCLA Children’s Discovery and Innovation Institute. The information, content and/or conclusions are those of the authors and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by NIH, the U.S. Government, or our institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Elizabeth Barnert

  2. Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Scott Henderson

  3. CEO and Founder of Human Rights for Kids, Washington, DC, USA

    James Dold

  4. Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jonathan Todres

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  1. Elizabeth Barnert
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  2. Scott Henderson
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Contributions

E.B. and S.H. contributed to the drafting of the article. J.D. and J.T. served as conceptual experts and editors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elizabeth Barnert.

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Competing interests

E.B. volunteers on the Board of Directors of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) and on the Advisory Board of Human Rights for Kids. J.D. is the Founder & CEO of Human Rights for Kids. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

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Barnert, E., Henderson, S., Dold, J. et al. Children’s rights as a unifying framework to remedy our failing youth justice system. Pediatr Res 94, 1874–1877 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-023-02752-6

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