Think Water, Air, and Children in Prison.

Some things are so evident that they often go unnoticed.

Most fail to ingest sufficient amounts of water and air. I marvel to think that our collective anxiety as a species can be, in countless cases, reduced to attending to inhales and exhales.

Then there's the largely unnoticed thing about imprisoning our own children.

No exaggeration here: the U.S. is the only nation to refuse to ratify the 1992 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), where child imprisonment was forbidden.

Recently in New York, there's been a move to change this. The "Raise the Age" policy. It advocates for increasing the age limit to 18 and older to put youth in, you guessed it, prison. Put another way, children without a caring guardian, who came from a cultural background that included poverty, and who committed a crime — they want to lock these victims in prison on their 18th birthday.

What a way to start one’s adult life.

A nation (ours) that incarcerates more of its children than any other country could do better. Half a million of our children are in prison today. They have suffered indescribably neglect, abuse, and abandonment.

Polices to "push" the lock-up date to their 18th birthday only solidifies not abusive policies but also that which some deem prejudice against our most vulnerable population.

At Child Rights Foundation, we exist to speak on behalf of them — those with no voice. Our children.