Professor Erica Meiners discusses her book, For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State, in which the definition of childhood become an ideological state used to push back against resistance and reform. Childhood, Meiners states, depends on social constructions and differ based on the group it refers to – freed slaves were talked about as children, while white wealthy children are seen as pure innocence. The cries to “protect the children” often drown out and sideline real actors working to improve the lives of children in society or institutional spaces. Prof. Meiners ends with a hopeful recounting of groups and organizations seeking to change unfair systems of harm and punishment within the larger context of a carceral society.
Erica R. Meiners is a Professor of Education and Women’s and Gender Studies at Northeastern Illinois University – a public, urban institution in Chicago where she is also a union member of UPI: the University Professionals of Illinois.
