“A fierce, maddening chronicle of advocacy on behalf of our most vulnerable citizens.”
The Child Catcher
A Fight for Justice and Truth
Description
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
The Child Catcher is the true story of the fight to rescue the children confined to a violent and secretive institution in the rural South.
Andrew Bridge’s bestselling memoir, Hope’s Boy, told the story of his survival after he was taken from his mother, who struggled with schizophrenia, and was left to foster care. Bridge was first confined at one of our country’s most notorious children’s institutions, MacLaren Hall. Now, in The Child Catcher, he chronicles his role in the longest-running, most bitterly fought mental health lawsuit in American history. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Bridge joined the small team of civil rights lawyers representing the children of the Eufaula Adolescent Center, a violent and secretive institution in the rural South, against the State of Alabama.
Eufaula was a place Alabama had refused to surrender. Parents were lured into sending their children there, unable to get them back. Thousands of children went through Eufaula, just as thousands went through the institution that Bridge survived as a boy. The fight for justice led him through squatters’ camps in backwoods and into the lives of families caught in a permanent underclass. He sat with children as they struggled to explain what had gone wrong in their lives. In this David and Goliath battle, The Child Catcher is the story of Bridge’s personal redemption and the hope that justice for children is possible.
Reviews
“In the eighteen years between a child’s birth and high school graduation, 3.6 million children will enter foster care in the US. Andrew was one of those children. Then, he became a lawyer for them. By turns reflective and poignant, always keenly observed, Andrew tells the story of those he represented in foster care. Balancing triumph and loss, Andrew reminds us how King’s admonition that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’ applies distinctly to children, especially those in foster and related care systems.”
“This gripping book explores the shadowed world of adolescent mental health institutions and the dark truths often found behind those doors. Admitted to one of these institutions at just six years old, Andrew Bridge survived and became the lawyer who fought to defend 120 children trapped in a remote institution in rural Alabama. Intimate, rigorous, and humble, The Child Catcher is both heart song and triumph.”
“Last year alone, 4.2 million young people experienced at least one night of homelessness in the United States. Through his own experiences, Andrew very personally and marvelously shows how institutions like Eufaula, and the perverse economic incentives they create, have driven us to a place where youth homelessness, hopelessness, and worse have become the accepted result of foster care. The Child Catcher is a rallying cry for action for today’s children and generations to come.”