April 2019

All things considered, Ella Mae Vail said her stay at the Weber County jail was probably the best interaction she’s had with law enforcement. Most of the correctional officers used her preferred name and pronouns and seemed to care about her well-being. But for all the good, there was some bad. Like how Vail, a transgender woman, was so scared of being housed among men in the general jail population that she hurt herself to be placed in a mental health ward. Or how before she was assigned to...

FROM THE AIR, drone photography exposes the economic divide within cities. Roads, canals, and fences become barriers that split the land separating the rich and poor. Stark images from Johnny Miller’s series “Unequal Scenes” highlight the uneven development of cities. Makeshift shacks butt against developments in Mumbai. Lots sit empty in Detroit while an adjoining neighborhood flourishes. An electric fence buzzes around an affluent community in South Africa. The landscape shows how...

Find out more about toxic stress and the brain, and how you can start using creative expression in your work.

By A. Hosack, P. Berman , & K. Hecht After being sentenced, Larry was escorted from the court room and sent to a holding cell. After a few hours, he was escorted towards a bus that was taking him and others to prison. One of his escorting police officers unintentionally stepped on his foot as they were walking. Larry didn’t believe in accidents, so he pushed the guard backward . As a result, two police officers strong armed him towards the bus and shoved him through the door. Larry fell...

Brigham City • With the dinner rush over, Juan Gaytan slid into an empty booth at the little pizzeria off Main Street and, while he waited, started drawing lacrosse plays on the plastic tabletop with his fingers. An O charged past a defending X, and in the coach’s imagination, scored a goal into the basket of condiments between the parmesan cheese and the red pepper flakes. “Yahoo,” the 40-year-old declared with the sliver of a Texas accent that remains after his 25 years in Utah. “That’s...

I was talking with an acquaintance about childhood in today’s world, compared to a typical childhood of a couple of generations ago. We both came to the conclusion that things were a lot easier back then or, at least it seemed that way. Keep in mind that this conclusion came from two guys who entered the world during the Eisenhower administration, for what that’s worth. Them the subject of “ACE”s came up. I was not really familiar with the acronym, which stands for “adverse childhood...

In El Paso on Wednesday, Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, stood in front of the steel bollards that line the border between the United States and Mexico and warned that the border had hit a " breaking point ." As McAleenan addressed reporters at the border, elsewhere in the city, hundreds of asylum-seeking families were being held in a razor wire-surrounded enclosure under a bridge. Photos showed children and families standing behind chain link and...

In its latest issue, the New York Review of Books features a defense of the public library by Sue Halpern. As NPQ has regularly noted, the demise of the library has been regularly predicted , and yet its importance has instead increased . Those expecting to see decline focused on the rise of electronic alternatives to books. Of course, libraries have become repositories of electronic materials as well. But that is not the only reason why libraries remain critical. Rather, the reason for the...

As Latanja Madison’s release date from prison inched closer, she felt more terrified than elated. During a decade behind bars at the California Institution for Women in Corona, the 55-year-old Madison underwent multiple orthopedic surgeries and now uses a walker. Her immediate family members passed away during her incarceration, creating grave doubts she would have a support system. She feared leaving prison may lead to a worse fate – habitual homelessness. “I’m more blue collar than white...

Marjorie Sims is no stranger to advocating for women and families. At Ascend at the Aspen Institute , she helps foster initiatives and networks to build opportunities for low-income families to advance in society. The organization looks at education, economic security, and health among other things and does so with an intersectional outlook. Sims is one of more than 50 participants from around the world who convened at Schloss Leopoldskron to participate in the program Healthy Children,...

Child care offers a safe space for children to grow and learn while their families are at work, making it a critical resource to support healthy development. However, child care is unaffordable for the majority of working parents, especially for low-income and black and Hispanic working parents. This research brief provides insight and analysis about the challenges families face in affording childcare, which can exacerbate inequities in early childhood health and development. [For more on...

Over the last 20 years, youth violence dropped precipitously (and unexpectedly) in California. Law enforcement arrested minors 22,601 times for violent crimes in 1994. That arrest rate dropped 68 percent, to 7,291 arrests two decades later, in 2017. In addition, a collective turning away from harshly punitive incarceration for kids, and a movement toward community-based diversion and services, have helped keep kids out of juvenile lockups. (But not all kids—racial disparities in the juvenile...