Congresswoman Cori Bush in House Judiciary Committee Hearing: “These are children - they’re young people who need love and support”
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, in a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security hearing on the Juvenile Justice Pipeline and the Road Back to Integration, Vice Chair Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) brought attention to the criminalization of Black youth and the cycles of trauma that inform punitive, carceral responses for children.
Her questioning of Aaron Toleafoa, Chair of the Emerging Leaders Committee with the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, and Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), focused on the lasting harm incarceration has on young people and the need for mercy and compassion.
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A full transcript of her questioning and exchange with the witnesses is available below.
Transcript: Congresswoman Cori Bush Questions Witnesses on the trauma inflicted on youth by the criminal-legal system (May 13, 2021)
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: St. Louis and I thank you, Madam Chair, for convening this hearing.
In my home state of Missouri, Black youth account for 15% of our youth population, yet receive 27% of referrals to juvenile court. In the St. Louis region, Black girls are 11 times and Black boys are 18 times more likely than their white peers to be suspended from school. These zero tolerance policies regularly do not take into account, they do not take into account the social conditions in which children may live - unsafe and unstable housing, lead exposure which is to no fault of their own, cyclical violence and trauma in their community - no fault of their own — and instead they force our children out of school for “acting out,” and fueling the school to prison pipeline.
It is this fear of Black and brown youth, long labeled “super predators,” that has made jailing and sentencing them to life without parole too easy and too common.
This stereotype that Black and brown boys and girls are dangerous or threatening has normalized systems of trauma: the cradle to prison pipeline, foster care, youth detention, and being tried and sentenced as adults. We treat trauma with more trauma. We treat Black and brown kids who can’t vote yet, can’t join the military, can’t rent a car or even buy a lottery ticket - like adults in our criminal legal system. We deprive them of their joy and their youth.
Children who deserve to live rich and abundant lives. Children who should be allowed to make mistakes, to learn from their mistakes because we did, to grow up and live productive and loving lives. Children like all other children. These children are young. These are children - they’re young people who need love and support — the love and support that our communities should give and our government.
Mr. Toleafoa, thank you for being here with us today and for sharing your story and your incredible work with all of us, thank you for that, as we strive to build a more just America. Can you please tell us about the trauma and the lasting harm that incarceration can have on young people?
MR. TOLEAFOA: Yeah, so speaking of trauma and harm, a couple weeks ago, I had gotten a call from one of my friends who was sent up to prison. And we were on a three-way call and I was asking him you know, like how are you doing? I asked him, “What was it like when you first got there?” And he said well the first thing that he did was go and take a shower. And once, he walked into that shower, he saw a dead body laying on the floor. Mind you, he’s 18 years old, first going into prison. And thinking about that was his first experience when going into that shower, he saw a dead body and thinking about how young he was and how he experienced that. I personally don’t think he’s ever going to forget something like that. He’s going to carry that on to when he grows up to take on adult responsibilities, so when we think about just trauma and harm that being in an institution can cause, I feel like that experience just then and there kind of expresses the totality of it.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. That is the truth of what is happening to our youth. That is why trauma-informed care also, that care and support needs to be prioritized for us in this space. Thank you.
Mr. Peterson, what holistic alternatives to incarceration exist for young people?
MR. PETERSON: I’m sorry can you repeat the question?
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Sure, what holistic alternatives to incarceration exist for young people?
MR. PETERSON: Sorry the list of questions, sorry you broke up just a little bit.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Holistic, holistic alternatives to incarceration.
MR. PETERSON: Oh, holistic alternatives. Thank you. Someone said earlier how it’s so important that we can’t view youth out of context. So, we can’t have a youth enter the system and all of a sudden not recognize the community or family that they are from. So, this could include things that are very informal. So, for example, during COVID, when we looked at our youth and our families we recognized they couldn’t have visits the way they used to have and so we had to switch to a virtual platform. Well, there’s a big digital divide in a lot of communities, so we had to think of ways of, you know, maybe the family needs something as simple as a smartphone, things like that are these kind of holistic approaches. Or maybe they do need something more intentional or more focused like some type of evidence-based treatment with the youth and the family. And for us, also holistic when we’re talking about holistic, we have to look at educational opportunities.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: I only have a few more seconds, if you could. I’m sorry.
MR. PETERSON: That’s ok.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: I’m sorry. I have one more question that I need to get in, but thank you. Mr. Stevenson, your work has always been rooted in a deep commitment to justice and a belief in redemption. Can you tell us why it is important to extend mercy and compassion to children and young people? Mercy!
MR. STEVENSON: Well thank you, Congresswoman Bush. I think mercy is at the heart of a just system. We’ve been governed by this idea that we can put crimes in jails and prisons. And when you look at some of these sentences and you look at some of these policies, it’s as if we think we can punish the crime. But the truth is we can’t put a crime in prison. We put people in prison. We put children in prison. And I don’t believe that people are crimes. I don’t believe that children are crimes. And the difference between a crime and a child is what dictates that we think more compassionately, that we embrace mercy when we think about these policies.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Thank you. Thank you and I yield back.
To watch and download the Congresswoman’s full exchange, click here.
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Congresswoman Cori Bush represents Missouri’s First Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. She serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. She is also a Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a proud member of the Congressional Black Caucus. She is a registered nurse, single mother, and an ordained pastor. Following the murder of Michael Brown Jr. by a now-terminated Ferguson police officer, she became a civil rights activist and community organizer fighting for justice for Black lives on the streets of Missouri and across the country.