-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Disability Rights Organization Files Lawsuit Against Florida Department of Children and Families for Unlawfully Failing to Track Baker Act Use
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Florida Health Justice Project filed a lawsuit on behalf of Disability Rights Florida against the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF). The suit claims DCF failed to follow Florida law requiring that it collect and publish specific data about the use of involuntary psychiatric examination under the Florida Mental…
-
- Dismantling White Supremacy
- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Ideals to action: Five ways the SPLC promotes the values of Human Rights Day
Today, nations around the world will observe Human Rights Day, an annual commemoration of the anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in 1948. The U.S. played a leading role in the creation of the declaration and is a party to several of the important international human rights treaties that followed…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
New SPLC Report Grapples with Aftereffects of Georgia’s School-to-Prison Pipeline
Georgia’s youth legal system is designed to incarcerate and punish, not restore or support children. ATLANTA — Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a report denouncing the glaring racial disparities and systemic failures inherent within Georgia’s youth legal system. The report, Only Young Once: Dismantling Georgia’s Punitive Youth Incarceration System, examines how Georgia’s…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Georgia’s youth legal system overemphasizes punishment
In 2022, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that three teenagers died within weeks of each other in Georgia’s youth detention facilities – one after participating in a “fight game” in front of a correctional officer – drawing scrutiny to how incarcerated youth in Georgia are treated. However, these reports of abuse told a troublesome narrative of…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Mother, son fight back against discriminatory school discipline in Georgia
E.C. turned 15 last September. He wasn’t at school, where he always celebrated his birthday with friends and ate pizza and cupcakes that his mother brought. Instead, he was at home in Georgia, isolated from his schoolmates and forced to take virtual learning during a nearly six-month punishment meted out by the Walton County, Georgia,…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
SPLC Condemns Louisiana Legislature’s Passage of Senate Bill 2
BATON ROUGE, La. — Today, Louisiana’s Legislature passed Senate Bill 2, authored by Heather Cloud (R), to lower the age of juveniles subject to adult criminal procedures and remove critical protections for youth in the justice system. The measure, which will be put before Louisiana voters in 2025, opens the door to subjecting children as…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
National Youth Justice Action Month: A call for change in the South and beyond
The South has always been different. Whether it’s the flavor of New Orleans Cajun cuisine, the way Spanish moss sways in the breeze across Florida palms, or the feeling of an HBCU homecoming in Atlanta, the South will always have a special way of doing things. It’s been said, “As the South goes, so goes…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Walton County (Georgia) School District discrimination complaints
After Georgia’s Walton County School District expelled and referred a Black middle school student with a disability to juvenile court, it denied the student the necessary support and services in its alternative school program, sparking two discrimination complaints by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC filed a state administrative due process complaint and a…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Black children in Florida face harsher school discipline, new SPLC report shows
Five years ago last month, people across the country were shocked by a video showing the arrest of Kaia Rolle in her Orlando, Florida, school. She was just 6 years old, not even 4 feet tall and weighing about 50 pounds. Her wrists – too small for metal handcuffs – had been zip-tied behind her…
-
- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
SPLC Report Reveals the High Price of Florida’s Incarceration of Black Children
Florida’s school-to-prison pipeline imprisons children as young as 7 years old
Showing results 41-50 of 215