Save the Kids Official Statement – Incarcerated Youth

March 30, 2020

With the surging mortality rates in the global COVID-19 crisis, hospitals, schools, restaurants, and even spaces of worship have been placed on strict moratorium because federal guidelines implemented to create physical distance and by proxy–safety for denizens on US soil. Youth carceral institutions like juvenile hall and mandatory exclusionary “rehabilitation” camps have not shown any progress in mitigating outbreaks within their walls and are particularly susceptible by virtue of the close distance among incarcerated youth and outsider visitors, officers, and free personnel.

On behalf of STK, we ask that youth are released from all carceral institutions so that they can be reunited with their families during the universal quarantine. Outside of the epidemiological medical risk placed upon these children, there is also a mental health component related to the subjection of children in social isolation during a pandemic. Save the Kids unequivocally believes that the most humane, utilitarian, and medically sound decision is the release of incarcerated youth and allow them to be quarantined with their families during this precious moment in world history.

Arash Daneshzadeh
Director of Publications, Save the Kids
Editor, Transformative Justice Journal