Homeless and In Prison - Losing all Hope

I had the great pleasure of meeting with Casa Alianza- Mexico today. They gave me a tour a two of their five youth homes for homeless teenagers in Mexico City. It was an amazing experience. Casa Alianza, known as Covenant House in the US and Canada, is an organization that works with homeless teenagers through North and Central America. They have been in Mexico City for 26 years! There is an amazing amount of overlap between the homeless youth population and children in prison.


I often describe children in prison as the forgotten of the forgotten. Homeless youth in prison then must be the forgotten of the forgotten of the forgotten. If you are arrested in Mexico, or anywhere in Latin America, and are a homeless youth, expect to be in prison for a very long time. For example, in Bolivia, kids who are arrested who are homeless almost never have a birth certificate. That means they are invisible to the government. They may never even have a hearing before a judge, and could spend as long as 3 years in prison before being released.

In Mexico City, kids without parents or who have been separated from their parents for whatever reason, are in the most difficult position. They are usually accused of a petty crime, such as theft, but because their parents do not appear at their hearings, the judge has no option but to leave them in pretrial detention. Similarly, when the judge sentences a juvenile, a homeless kid is never going to receive community service or probation. No matter the offense, homeless youth spend the maximum behind bars. Any community connection they had, any chance they had to go to school, get a job, or develop ties, is lost. What is worse is, now they are in prison with much more serious offenders. Once released, these kids become much more likely to commit serious offenses, or become the victims of violence or human trafficking.

Casa Alianza has been working with homeless youth coming out of the prison system. I am hoping that we can work together to intervene earlier in the judicial process. For example, homeless youth could receive pretrial release, just like any other juvenile, if they had guardians. Kids who have parents can be released and supervised by the court, which means they have to return to the court weekly to register and have a short talk with the judge. Homeless youth placed with Casa Alianza could have a similar process, saving them months and years behind bars.

Plus, we have seen that youth who complete their pretrial conditions are much more likely to receive probation or other non-detention sentences. This is because the child has a track record with the judge of completing their court ordered conditions. Homeless youth could benefit from the same positive feedback loop of pretrial release.

Compared to the kids I see in prison, the kids I talked with today at Casa Alianza have much different prospects for the future. In fact, one of the girls' homes was empty of girls this morning. They were all at school! One even enrolled at the university.