Forgotten Youth: Inside America's Prisons

Fault Lines examines what happens to young inmates when they are placed in adult prisons and investigates their claims of physical and sexual abuse

In the 1990s, a national trend to be “tough on youth crime” led nearly every state to pass legislation that made it easier to prosecute minors in the adult criminal justice system.  

Now, an estimated 200,000 kids under the age of 18 are tried, sentenced or incarcerated as adults in the U.S. each year. And many of these cases involve non-violent crimes.  

Fault Lines investigates the impacts of these policies in Michigan, where lawyers have filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Corrections and Governor Rick Snyder on behalf of hundreds of teenage prisoners who allege harassment and abuse by older inmates and prison staff.