Alert (09/10/2026): Our Parkersburg TV transmitter is undergoing maintenance for a few days and will not be operational. We apologize for any inconvenience.
All our programming is available via our TV livestreams on our website and WVPB Passport. Thank you for your patience!
This week, in author Willie Carver, Jr.’s new book, he reconsiders a negative childhood experience with a neighborhood girl who might have just been looking for a friend. Also, a southwestern Virginia community rang the alarm after more and more of its children were diagnosed with cancer. A local journalist is trying to unravel the cause. And, the city of Asheville has a new crusading reporter. He’s a puppet.
Every year West Virginia children are taken into state custody. Sometimes, a case involves parental neglect or drug abuse. Other times, kids commit crimes and are placed in juvenile residential facilities.
The juvenile justice programs and agencies have been under a spotlight over the past decade — partly because West Virginia has had one of the highest rates of juvenile incarceration in the country. Lawmakers have passed bills to reform the system but the outcome is mixed.
Meanwhile, juvenile incarceration means the system makes decisions for kids — and those changes can last a lifetime.
This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.
Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on
WVPB Radio — tune in on the fourth Thursday of every month at 8 p.m., with an encore presentation on the following Saturday at 3 p.m.
Louis Mitchell
/
Geard Mitchell (19) knows West Virginia’s juvenile system first hand. He spent nearly three years in the Donald R. Kuhn Juvenile Center in Julian, W.Va. Mitchell, who now lives in Brooklyn, NY, is one of 12 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the State of West Virginia. The plaintiffs argue the state violated the rights of children by failing to plan appropriately for juveniles in state custody.
Trey Kay
/
This is the exterior of the Donald R. Kuhn Juvenile Center in Julian, W.Va.
Laura Rigell
/
Trey Kay is in Boone County, W.Va. standing on the shoulder of U.S. Route 119 in front of the Donald R. Kuhn Juvenile Center.
Trey Kay
/
Ronda Lehman has been the coordinator of Teen Court in Jefferson County, W.Va. since 2013. There are currently about 16 other Teen Courts in the State of West Virginia.
Add WVPB as a preferred source on Google to see more from our team
This week, in author Willie Carver, Jr.’s new book, he reconsiders a negative childhood experience with a neighborhood girl who might have just been looking for a friend. Also, a southwestern Virginia community rang the alarm after more and more of its children were diagnosed with cancer. A local journalist is trying to unravel the cause. And, the city of Asheville has a new crusading reporter. He’s a puppet.
Lydia Hamessley is a professor of music at Hamilton College in New York and the author of "Unlikely Angel, The Songs of Dolly Parton." She spent nearly a decade researching Dolly's music catalog. Inside Appalachia Associate Producer Abby Neff talked with Hamessley.
Dolly meant a lot to educator, author and poet Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr. from east Kentucky. Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Carver about the loss of Dolly Parton.
Lalena Price
