Polier spent her retirement monitoring national
juvenile detention policies for the Children's Defense
Fund. "I know when I retired I thought I was going to
have a quiet contemplative life of just writing. Then
there was this request ...to try to get the problems
of children before the public. I couldn't refuse."
Polier traveled to every state, uncovering and
publicizing abominable conditions and keeping the
plight of juvenile justice before public eyes.
In one Southern state Polier found that "black
children were thrown into jails with black adults
charged with crimes and white children were thrown
into jails with white adults charged with crimes
rather than place black and white children together.
Both black and white children had been raped, burned
with cigarettes and tortured by adult inmates." And
as Polier reminded people across the nation, this
situation was by no means atypical. "One need not go
South to discover the injuries to children which
result from discrimination or indifference, too often
rationalized on the ground that neighbors did not know
about them."
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