The Childhood Trauma-to-Prison Pipeline: The Prosecution and Incarceration of Traumatized Children as Adults

This report from Human Rights for Kids details survey results from 2,200 individuals who were incarcerated as adults for crimes they committed as children. The findings from the report demonstrate the fact that “children tried as adults are often victims long before they became [system-involved],” discusses the intersection between childhood trauma and the legal system, and outlines recommendations to invest in prevention, trauma-informed care models, and policy and practice reforms.

From the conclusion:

“This report had its genesis in 2023, over two years ago, when HRFK administered its first ACEs surveys. In the interim, in addition to direct responses to our survey questions, we received hundreds of letters further detailing the horrors these children experienced. This was, for many of them, the first time these perpetually voiceless children were even asked about their suffering. Their traumas were routinely ignored (or inflicted) by the very people who should have cared for and sheltered them from the worst of the world. The systems that should have stepped in, failed to protect them, and when the worst happened, their chances for grace and compassion were denied. These children needed to be heard. Instead, collectively, we turned our backs on them, perpetuating the hell they were living, the hell that was all they ever knew. For some, this was the totality of their lives, for when we looked them up to see if they were still incarcerated, we found that they had died in prison.

This decision to simply throw away our troubled children, without hearing their stories and addressing the root cause of their behavior, is more than just callous ignorance. Waiving a child into adult court is a conscious decision that they cannot be redeemed, that their lives and their pain are not worth acknowledging, that they’re not worth the effort to try and save.

The message of this report stands in stark contrast: All children are worth saving. For the sake of our respondents, and all those who came before them and who will follow them, we owe it to them to try. This isn’t about excusing behavior or not holding children accountable for the harm they cause. Rather, it’s about acknowledging the impact that violence and unaddressed trauma has on a child’s behavior. This is the minimum that any morally just society should be willing to do. The most vulnerable children in our country deserve no less.”