Fascism on the Rise Archives - KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show · Burt Cohen

Addressing the Unique Stigma on Youth Impacted by Incarceration, Detention, and Deportation

·58 min·3 clips

A 14-year-old who entered POPs after a playground arrest is now headed to law school.

1. Fascism on the Rise Archives - KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show centers this episode on youth impacted by incarceration, detention, and deportation. 2. Burt Cohen hosts the conversation, and Amy Friedman appears as editor of Home and Away, a writer, and a criminal justice activist. 3. The episode asks what happens to children when parents are “locked away in cages” and why those children are stigmatized. 4. Cohen cites a New York Times headline about a White House plan for a six-fold increase in immigrant detention spending. 5. Cohen says research shows “one in 14 children in America” has or has had a parent behind bars. 6. Friedman says Home and Away is the 10th collection of stories, poetry, art, and essays produced by the youth program. 7. She says the title came from the youth themselves because their submissions repeatedly returned to “home” and “away.” 8. Friedman explains that “home” can mean family homes, home countries, and club spaces where young people feel safe. 9. She says “away” covers people taken away from home, people who have gone away, and people far away. 10. Friedman traces the program to a club founded at Venice High School in Los Angeles in 2013. 11. She says the club model was adapted from a 1988 club for gay students at one Massachusetts high school. 12. Friedman recounts two girls in the first Venice club who discovered they both had fathers who had been in prison. 13. She says children often become “the world’s best liars” because stigma teaches them to hide their stories. 14. Friedman says POPs stands for “pain of the prison system,” and she notes the clubs later expanded to Oregon, Washington, New York, Georgia, and Minnesota. 15. She describes Pathfinder as meaning “paving a trail of hope,” and says the merger put the clubs under the Pathfinder Network. 16. Friedman says preliminary research from a two-year study shows participants rise to peer level after six months in the club. 17. She describes the clubs as art-based spaces where poetry, essays, photography, painting, collaging, and doodling all count as language. 18. Friedman says educators change when they listen, because curiosity about prison, deportation, and detention can become a form of kindness. 19. The tone is conversational, advocacy-driven, and personal, with Cohen pressing on stigma while Friedman answers with stories and examples. 20. Educators, librarians, and school counselors concerned with youth trauma would likely benefit most; listeners seeking crime-policy debate may skip it.

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