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In-Depth Interview: Author Anne Kim Details the Plight of Lost Youths Demonized by Bloomberg

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Anne Kim talks about her new book, Abandoned, which desribes a group of young Americans who have been written off, and used by Mike Bloomberg to excuse his “stop’n’frisk” policies in New York City.

Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has been challenged over comments he made about New York’s controversial “stop and frisk” policies while he was mayor. He said that “male minorities” aged 15 to 25 are responsible for “95 percent of murders.”

Author Anne Kim argues this comment is wrong, and harmful to the disconnected young Americans she writes about in her new book, Abandoned. Dropouts, unemployed youth, juvenile offenders, and “emancipated” foster kids are largely invisible in urban and rural communities, and fall through the gaps in what is left of the US’s social safety net.

Kim notes that young people from middle class families often get family support and second chances during the transition to adulthood, while children of poverty face many barriers to education, jobs, and stable housing.

Anne Kim is a contributing editor at Washington Monthly and author of Abandoned: America’s Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection.