Access Restricted to Northwestern Law CommunityMessage from Director
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Children are the poorest Americans. The unconscionable fact that 1 in 5 children in the U.S. is born into poverty after a decade of unprecedented wealth and prosperity has concrete consequences for their rights and protections, for the future of all children, and for the legal system itself. Increasingly, children appear in courts or hearings in America for life-defining legal determinations of liberty or incarceration, custody or adoption, appropriate schooling or expulsion, asylum or deportation, disability and special education, child abuse and family violence, benefits and health care.
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Tragically, children are caged in escalating numbers, primarily for non-violent offending. Youngsters are incarcerated disproportionately by race. The shape of justice received by children is patently inequitable. Instead of equal justice, children find two unequal systems of justice: one private and one public.
At the Children and Family Justice Center, children's law is a complex,
intellectually rigorous, multi-disciplinary, ethically demanding enterprise.
We have the luxury of selecting our cases, the opportunity to prepare law
students, the responsibility of zealous advocacy, the understanding of the
need for effective community solutions, and the duty to educate the public
about critical issues and injustices involving children. We have a passionately
intelligent team of attorneys and a social worker who teach, litigate cases,
develop policy, engage in law reform, and forge coalitions to improve the
administration of justice.
The CFJC has been a catalyst for local and national efforts to provide greater
fairness and due process protections for children, to develop gender-appropriate
justice for girls, to reduce the number of children arrested, petitioned
into court and deprived of their liberty, and to abolish the juvenile death
penalty. We work to keep all kids in effective schools, to reform police
treatment, interrogation, and confessions by youth, and to establish restorative
justice programs grounded in communities.
The Center fights for children to be seen as fully human, with civil, constitutional
and human rights. Yet children and adolescents are not yet adults, and while
they must have a voice in determinations that are vital, they need knowledgeable
adults to enforce and implement those rights.
The team at the Children and Family Justice Center, in concert with our
students, volunteer attorneys, partners and allies, strives to be vigorous
and knowledgeable advocates for the children, adolescents and families we
represent.
Bernardine Dohrn
