Minor Revolution

A Minor Revolution is an investigation into how the United States treats its children, and an argument that improving their lives would improve everyone else's. The author, law professor Adam Benforado, also wrote Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice.

The book begins with the hopes of the early twentieth century, when reformers made progress on child labor, public education, food and drug safety, protection from abuse and neglect, and a separate juvenile justice system. A hundred years later, Benforado argues, that promise remains unmet. More than eleven million American children live in poverty and over four million have no health insurance. Tens of thousands of young people are prosecuted as adults every year, and schools are falling into disrepair. Children have no political power, while the issues that matter most to them, including gun violence, racism, inequality and climate change, go largely unaddressed.

Benforado tells real stories to show what is at stake. Three-year-old Ariel is sent to an orphanage after her parents are jailed for transporting marijuana. Thirteen-year-old Harold sees the lawn of an elite private school after growing up among chain link and asphalt playgrounds. Seventeen-year-old Wylie is paddled by his principal for observing a moment of silence to protest gun violence.

He contends that many of the country's largest problems, from crime to poor health to poverty, trace back to how children are mistreated, and that ignoring the evidence for early intervention, investment and empowerment costs everyone. Drawing on current scientific research into what young people can do and what they need, he calls for putting children first in budgets, policies, product design, laws, families and communities.