The sun was setting as parents waited for the Christmas Day call from their incarcerated children, unaware of the fraught situation that had broken out hours earlier: a so-called “riot” at New Mexico’s largest jail for kids. The news media were depicting a violent uprising inside the Bernalillo County Youth Services Center, where a 911 […]
Child & Family Welfare
Posted inFeatured
Holidays for foster teens: CYFD sends kids to a lockup with cold “cells” and metal beds
On Thanksgiving, CYFD sent foster children to a facility for violent youth. At Christmas, kids ran away.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Letters from juvie
Faced with strip searches, isolation and hourslong waits to use a toilet, three juvenile inmates describe their experiences in New Mexico’s largest jail for children.
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
A foster teen has gone missing. Why, his family asks, is no one looking for him?
New Mexico’s child welfare agency is supposed to safeguard children in its custody and report them immediately if they vanish. In this case, it didn’t.
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
Two paths after foster care
Two teens aged out of New Mexico’s child welfare system last year. What made their lives so different?
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
‘State of chaos’: New Mexico’s child welfare crisis is worse, monitors say
Experts call for immediate action to protect children, ease crisis and deliver reforms
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
Homeless Shelters Aren’t Equipped to Deal With New Mexico’s Most Troubled Foster Kids. Police See It for Themselves.
New Mexico’s Attorney General describes a proposed new office dedicated to protecting children and their rights
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
A new mission for Raúl Torrez
New Mexico’s Attorney General describes a proposed new office dedicated to protecting children and their rights
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
Ten-year-old foster child allegedly sexually assaulted by foster teen at CYFD office building in Albuquerque
Agency offices are used to house foster children despite the state’s promise to provide them with appropriate homes
