A selection of The Imprint’s most impactful stories from the past year
Across the country, challenges to keeping youth safe in child welfare and juvenile justice facilities were under the microscope in 2024. In June, the Senate Finance Committee used a hearing to announce the results of its investigation into residential care facilities, calling them “warehouses of neglect.”
“The risk of harm to children in RTFs is endemic to the operating model,” the Senate investigation concluded. Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has asked the Department of Justice to investigate private companies providing residential care.
The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act is poised to become law after passing both chambers late in the year.
Among The Imprint’s many stories on residential care in 2024:
Legislation inspired by a 2020 investigation by The Imprint and San Francisco Chronicle will require more transparency by California’s congregate care providers.
A New York court affirmed that judges have the power to dictate if a residential care facility is an appropriate placement for a youth.
Los Angeles’ long-troubled juvenile facilities continue to be found unsuitable by state regulators, while a class-action lawsuit called the violence in one of Tennessee’s facilities “barbaric.”
In upstate New York, an eclectic group of artists, historians, writers and officials gathered to revive the legacies of teens who died while in custody during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many were girls who were deemed “incorrigible,” some of whom were interred with their infants.
BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to The Imprint. Our work is funded by readers like you who are committed to unbiased journalism that works for you, not for the algorithms.
