Crimes of “Being”

There is a group of citizens in our country who are subjected daily to flagrant denials of their fundamental rights. They are deprived of their liberty without notice, for acts that do not constitute crimes. Such treatment of any other group would be denounced as intolerable, yet we continue to justify the handling of these citizens as “protective” rather than punitive. They are the children we bring before our family courts, not as juvenile delinquents, but as “persons in n...