Ruben Hinojosa Quotes

If you've got kids who aren't being looked after by their parents, there's only so many times you can try and intervene to get that right.

I wanted to write with emotional honesty and tell a story people could connect with. And I wanted people to know how the foster system in America fails children; and how, at 18, they fall through the cracks. Then we can all work together and give support.

In my view, one of the major reasons that we have so many people in jail is that we have turned our backs on a lot young people.

Locking minors away for decades doesn't solve anything.

I went through quite a few establishments that maybe weren't great for myself - security units, youth-offender places. I guess that was going to the lions' den. Social services said, 'You've got to go to some sort of school.'

I did criminal defense work part-time, and that paid the bills for representing abused and neglected children... and for defending in juvenile court those kids the 'child protective system' had missed when it had the chance.

My dad worked for child protection.

Child Protective Services, all over the country, need to be revamped top to bottom.

Once a week we go to juvenile hall and talk to boys there. Just go and spend a day in the juvenile courts.

My dad works in child protection and he's spent many, many years in that line of work.

I've always been concerned with what happens to children in our society when there's nobody left to take care of them.

I went to law school. And I became a prosecutor. I took on a specialty that very few choose to pursue. I prosecuted child abuse and child homicide cases. Cases that were truly gut-wrenching. But standing up for those kids, being their voice for justice was the honor of a lifetime.

We are willing to spend the least amount of money to keep a kid at home, more to put him in a foster home, and the most to institutionalize him.

Thousands of American children have only a cell, a hospital bed or a temporary shelter to call home.

Orphans Preferred

Many of you may have seen reports from England, which indicate that juvenile crime has increased 50 percent on account of the unusual home conditions created by the war. This will happen here, unless we start at once to meet the situation…The attention of the nation should be focused on these problems, for we cannot neglect the welfare of our children in a time of war and expect to have a future worth fighting for.

A bedrock principle of our justice system is ensuring a fair day in court, something that is especially important for children who cannot advocate for themselves.

They shut down kids' homes, for a number of reasons, and I was part of that transition into foster care. That's all well and good if it's populated by people who feel their work is paid decently and supported.

I was put in White City children's home when I was 15.

I lived all my life thinking the reason I was in care was because I was naughty. Because I was breaking and entering, pickpocketing, vandalism. I wasn't party to any social workers' reports.

My mother used to leave me and my brother in the house by ourselves. The authorities came and got us. It took a year or two to get us back with my grandmother.

Working in a juvenile detention center, being a probation officer for at-risk youths, I'll do something like that. Something nice and stable.

Society chooses to disregard the mistreatment of children, judging it to be altogether normal because it is so commonplace.

How do we redefine education so that 30-50 percent of inner-city children do not drop out of school, thus ensuring that millions will end up in prison?

Foster children are disproportionately victims of identity theft.