A thoughtful article in Truthout today written by Henry Giroux, Locked Out and Locked Up: Youth Missing in Action From Obama’s Stimulus Plan, says, “Children have fewer rights than almost any other group, and fewer institutions protecting these rights.”

Giroux writes, “The notion that children should be treated as a crucial social resource … appears to be lost,” and asks, “What is one to make of a society marked by the following conditions:

• Almost 13 million children in America live in poverty – 5.5 million in extreme poverty.
• 4.2 million children under the age of five live in poverty.
• 35.3 percent of black children, 28.0 percent of Latino children and 10.8 percent of white, non-Latino children live in poverty.
• There are 9.4 million uninsured children in America.
• Latino children are three times as likely, and black children are 70 percent more likely, to be uninsured than white children.
• Only 11 percent of black, 15 percent of Latino and 41 percent of white eighth graders perform at grade level in math.
• Each year 800,000 children spend time in foster care.
• On any given night, 200,000 children are homeless – one out every four of the homeless population.
• Every 36 seconds a child is abused or neglected – almost 900,000 children each year.
• Black males ages 15-19 are about eight times as likely as white males to be gun homicide victims.
• Although they represent 39 percent of the US juvenile population, minority youth represent 60 percent of committed juveniles.
• A black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime; a Latino boy has a 1 in 6 chance.
• Black juveniles are about four times as likely as their white peers to be incarcerated. Black youths are almost five times as likely and Latino youths about twice as likely to be incarcerated as white youths of drug offenses.

Giroux writes, “Obama’s message of hope and responsibility seems empty unless he addresses the plight of poor white youth and youth of color and the growing youth-control complex. The race to incarcerate – especially youth of color – is a holdover and reminder that the legacy of apartheid is still with us and can be found in a society that now puts almost as many police in its schools as it does teachers, views the juvenile justice system as a crucial element in shaping the future of young people, and supports a crime complex that models schools for poor kids after prisons.”

Other excerpts:

• Instead of being viewed as impoverished, minority youth are seen as lazy and shiftless; instead of recognizing that many poor minority youth are badly served by failing schools, they are labeled as uneducable and pushed out of schools; instead of providing minority youth with decent work skills and jobs, they are either sent to prison or conscripted to fight in wars abroad; instead of being given decent health care and a place to live, they are placed in foster care or pushed into the swelling ranks of the homeless. Instead of addressing the very real dangers that young people face, the punishing society treats them as suspects and disposable populations, subjecting them to disciplinary practices that close down any hope they might have for a decent future.
• Children have fewer rights than almost any other group, and fewer institutions protecting these rights. Consequently, their voices and needs are almost completely absent from the debates, policies and legislative practices that are constructed in terms of their needs.
• As the protocols of governance become indistinguishable from military operations and crime-control missions, youth are more and more losing the protections, rights, security or compassion they deserve in a viable democracy.
• Rather than dreaming of a future bright with visions of possibility, young people, especially youth marginalized by race and color, face a coming-of-age crisis marked by mass incarceration and criminalization, one that is likely to be intensified in the midst of the global financial, housing and credit crisis spawned by neoliberal capitalism.