After an intensive study of local jails and police lockups in nine states, the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) reported that throughout the country, often in violation of law, children are sent to adult jails rather than to juvenile facilities for detention. The study was directed by the Honorable Justine Wise Polier, Director of CDF's Juvenile Justice Division and a former Family Court Judge in New York State. Judge Polier commented. "There is an appalling vacuum of information and little sense of responsibility at any level of government when it comes to children kept in jails. There is no complete list of jails and lockups in this country. National estimates that as many as half a million children are held in adult jails annually are conservative, because they fail to take into account the many children hidden away in small jails which elude the Censustaker's map and tally. Unlike the stocks in former days, jails are hidden from public viewwhich makes them and the human beings inside them a subject of continuing ignorance."