#FightforOurGirls Year Long Reporting Series by CSSP

Robert, having recently read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, (which is excellent reading for our trauma-informed community, by the way!) it is clear that your observation is correct- being born poor, and having any kind of mental health struggle (such as trauma) is enough to trigger a series of ineffective, even torturous, judicial responses that make bad situations worse regardless of race.

However, what I think this series will help elucidate are the ways in which this tendency to punish poverty and mental illness tends toward disproportionate targeting of minority groups. In part, this is a result of poverty itself being targeted against minority groups. I'm interested to see how CSSP addresses these kinds of structural issues. 

I think this is applicable to all girls, regardless of color. I met a young [white] woman, in New York State, who had been sent to the [up]state prison for [adult] women, as a juvenile, for the Status Offense of "Being in Danger of Becoming Morally Depraved". The fact that her home town is now where our National Women's Rights Memorial is located, ought give us pause for thought.