More than 40,000 K–12 public school students in Washington experienced homelessness in 2017–18, a number that has nearly doubled in the past decade and likely will continue to grow because of pandemic-driven job losses. For these youth, remote schooling might mean attending class in a shelter room they share with their mother and two siblings. It might mean missing classes due to glitchy Wi-Fi or insufficient cellphone data. And, especially for homeless youth who are on their own, it might mean not having an adult who can help them with assignments and prod them to stay on track.
JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Rosie Brooks has experienced both of a mother’s worst nightmares involving gun violence. Her son spent a decade behind bars for an accidental shooting in which a young woman was killed. Then, instead of a joyous reunion when he was released from prison in January 2018, it was a day of mourning. He went from behind bars to standing at his mother’s side at his sister’s funeral. Brooks’ daughter Sahara Barkley had been shot on New Year’s Day at a gas station.
Across the United States, surging COVID-19 cases are risking the health and safety of youth in juvenile justice facilities. In November, the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ) released a report examining a summer outbreak inside California’s state-run youth correctional system, the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
Shortly after our report was released, a second outbreak sparked. As of Nov. 30, confirmed COVID-19 cases spiked by 20 youth in a single week (97 total youth cases to date). DJJ’s first COVID-19 crisis serves as a warning: Lawmakers and service providers must step up to protect our nation’s youth.
There have been calls to declare gun violence a public health crisis. I would agree with this statement, which largely speaks to the rising prevalence of gun violence. However, calling it a public health crisis doesn’t convey the magnitude of gun violence. It seems like people name a thing a crisis to get things done, so there’s an oversaturation with the term.
Gun violence is different. Think of the brutality and immediacy of death that results from gun violence.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people in the United States. More children and teens die by suicide than the next eight leading causes of death. Firearm suicide in particular is a growing crisis impacting young people: Every year nearly 3,000 young people die by firearm suicide. The rate of firearm suicide among youth ages 5 to 19 has increased 82% in the last decade. While suicide rates are increasing most among young people ages 10 to 19, researchers are noting a troubling trend of suicide among children as young as 5 years old.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended life as we know it, disrupting normal routines and cutting off access to many support networks.
The 2020 presidential election — which took place near the end of a tumultuous year that featured the rampant spread of a highly lethal pandemic, a disastrous economic recession and a long-overdue nationwide reckoning around systemic racism and police brutality — presented the country with a choice between two candidates with drastically different messages and visions for the nation. The election had historic levels of voter turnout, including among 18- to 29-year-olds and Joe Biden emerged as the clear winner with a victory that exceeded 300 electoral votes and a popular vote margin of victory of nearly 6 million (and growing).
Although public health experts have rightly been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic this year, America has been in the grips of another public health crisis for much longer — a gun violence epidemic that will continue to take lives long after we’re vaccinated unless bold steps are taken to curb the violence and address its underlying causes. Gun violence has continued unabated throughout the other crises of 2020 and acutely impacts Black, Indigenous and other communities of color.
In order to end the gun violence epidemic, the Biden-Harris administration must take a public health approach to solving the issue that not only corrects the harmful policies of the current administration but also goes significantly further to address the root causes of gun violence. Over the last four years, the Trump administration largely turned a blind eye to the issue of gun violence, except to encourage gun ownership and traffic in irrational and often racist fear-mongering. The administration eliminated funds for violence intervention programs in favor of law enforcement suppression and weakened the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also worked alongside the administration to block common-sense gun legislation, including expanded background checks, closing the Charleston loophole and so-called “red flag laws,” also known as extreme risk protection orders.
Some of the worst government-sanctioned human rights abuses committed against children are happening right here in the United States. Earlier this year, a child sex crime survivor in Ohio had her life sentence commuted by Gov. Mike DeWine. At the age of 15, Alexis was sentenced to life in prison for participating in a robbery where the man who had been raping and sex trafficking her was killed.
As a result of mandatory sentencing schemes that fail to consider childhood trauma, children like Alexis receive the exact same punishment as adults without regard for their victim or child status. For those who remain puzzled about why the justice system doesn’t give these children the benefit of self-defense laws, you are not alone. Many self-defense laws don’t protect child sex crime victims who commit acts of violence against their abusers.
The #SayHerName movement that was launched in 2014 by the African American Policy Forum and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies has gained immense momentum amid a number of nationally recognized murders of Black women at the hands of police. A goal of the campaign is to bring to light the oft overlooked stories of Black women and girls who have needlessly and unjustifiably perished in their encounters with law enforcement.
#SayHerName is an important, overdue and necessary movement. It is a vigil for Black women and girls who have fatal interactions with the legal system and is crucial to honoring those lost and to educating society on the all too common, yet underacknowledged, realities of being a Black female in America. While we recognize the importance of #SayHerName, we want to shed light on a population of Black girls who are entangled in America’s custodial systems and seemingly missing in plain sight. These girls are placed under the control of institutions that were avowedly designed to protect and/or rehabilitate young people but that often do just the opposite and, in turn, create a new population of victims.
These systems have the capacity to inflict irreparable physical and psychological harm, which in some instances has led to the untimely deaths of Black girls.
Firearm sales have increased exponentially during COVID-19. More guns in the home increase the risk of youth access to firearms. In Michigan alone, a suicide occurs every 13 hours, and access to firearms increases the likelihood of suicide completion by 85%. Unintentional shooting deaths by children increased by 30% nationally March through May of 2020 compared to the same time period averages for 2018 and 2019.
As a psychiatric nurse practitioner this raises grave concerns for mental health and the public health crisis of gun violence. Locally in Washtenaw County, Michigan, I am a survivor fellow with Everytown for Gun Safety working with the local chapter of Moms Demand Action to get out voter information about gun sense candidates who are willing to work toward common-sense gun laws such as red flag laws, which temporarily remove firearms from individuals in crisis, and background checks for all weapons.
After losing my son Jonah to firearm suicide in 2016, I speak with groups (temporarily online) about why safe storage bills, such as Ethan’s Law in Connecticut, are crucial in the fight against teen suicide. In a world where teens are more isolated and having to manage multiple stressors that are new to all of us, in homes that are increasingly saturated with guns, we have an escalation of the public health crisis of suicide as teenage suicides rise nationally.
States across the country place children as young as 8 years old on sex offender registries for conduct that is otherwise developmentally normal. Required by federal law, this label imposes barriers on young people’s access to education, employment and safe housing. It can devastate them psychologically with little benefit to the community.
