Abstract
The research, interviews, images, and findings that are represented in juvenile-in-justice.com are the result of Richard Ross’s continuing project that has lasted over six years, involved hundreds of institutions, and over 1,000 kids that are detained and confined. They are the voices of the youngest, least heard, from families with the least resources from neighborhoods with the least power.
Keywords
250 sites, 31 states, 1,000 kids. These are statistics of how many kids are in detention and incarcerated—and where. But this data does not show who the kids are. My mission was to capture their presence without damaging them or revealing their identity. Over the past six years I have traveled the country and tried to create an image bank of kids. They come from families with the least power and communities that have the fewest resources.
From New York to Hawaii, Florida to Alaska and points in between, for over five years I worked in relative secrecy to gain access to this population. Although I was always candid, the administrators I encountered may not have fully understood the power of photography as documentation. Some wanted to be a part of my project. Others were forced by court order to give me access. In every case, extensive negotiations preceded my gaining access to correctional facilities.
Once inside, I made a deliberate decision to sit on the floor of each cell so that the child would be looking down on an older adult, and feel that she or he had control over the situation—a unique event in their lives. I invited them to talk and help make an image that would not reveal their identity. It offered them a moment of power and control. By paying attention to them, and being curious about who they were and where they came from, they opened up to me.
In most cases, the kids were born into a world of limited expectations and somewhat predestined outcomes. Many are the victims of abuse—sexual, emotional and/or physical. A huge majority of the girls had been abused in some way. These kids are not monsters; they are the products of where they came from, some poor decisions, and our inability to assist them in making better decisions.
In most cases, the kids I spoke to were victims of bad neighborhoods, family problems, economics, and other issues defined by birth and circumstance.
After five years, I made this work public and have been licensing it to non-profit advocacy groups at minimal or no cost. I created a low cost exhibition that travels to university museums and conferences, providing a focus for discussion among probation agencies, child protective services, judges, law schools, art students, journalism, criminology and psychology departments. The work has also been used to advocate for legislation, and has served as visual evidence before state and federal legislatures, as well as in judicial bodies.
I believe this work is helping to make these kids real to the world, and bringing attention to the data in a manner that simple numbers and statistics can’t possibly do. I invite reader to take these images and create an argument and a course of action that prevents these lives from being discarded. We have vast swaths of our population in prisons and in confinement.
What can you do? Get involved. Start a discussion with someone. Share your point of view and advocate on behalf of the lives of these children. Some organizations do amazing work: The Equal Justice Initiative, the Campaign for Youth Justice, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, for example. You’re also invited to join a working group at juvenile-in-justice.com—and subscribe to juvenile-in-justice.com and facebook.com/juvenileinjustice.
I live at home with my mother, 10-year-old brother, and stepfather. I don’t know my real father. I hate school and have been suspended. I spend my time at home hanging with my friends. I have two older brothers and one older sister, all in their 20s, and they all don’t live at home. I have been at King County for about a week and have been here three other times. They’re thinking of moving my charges to Robbery 1. I might be going to a decline status, not an auto decline, a person-on-person crime. I might be going to Residential Treatment Center to break the detention cycle…they tell me. –D.P., age 16
King County Juvenile Detention Center, Seattle, Washington.
I have been here about three weeks. I got picked up for VOP [Violation of Probation]. Not much to do here. Mostly I write on the wall. I really don’t want to talk to you. –A.W., age 16
Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center, Biloxi, Mississippi.
I spent a year at TGK [Turner Guilford Knight Correction Center.] I was at the center for nine days on charges of home invasion, kidnapping, armed carjacking, aggravated assault, and armed battery. All the charges were dropped to juvenile. If the charges had been filed as adult, I could get 10 years’ prison time. I’ll probably serve three years—half of that if I behave well. In TGK, I was never able to touch my mom. After my first release from the center, she hugged me for the first time in over a year and we both cried and cried. All the visitation here is in the gym. It’s set up for a hug with a parent and then you can sit holding hands. –S.M., age 15
Miami-Dade Regional Juvenile Detention Center, Confinement Unit, Miami, Florida.
Juveniles in the Challenge Program sit in their cells at the Juvenile Detention Facility, El Paso, Texas.
Orientation Training Phase (OTP), part of the Youth Offender System Facility in Pueblo, CO. OTP performs intake and assessment of convicted kids and is set up to run like a boot camp, with staff yelling at kids all the time. All of the kids at OTP have juvenile sentences with adult sentences hanging, meaning that if they mess up, they will have to serve their adult sentence. For example, a juvenile could serve a two-year juvenile sentence with 15 years hanging.
No one has visited me here. No one. I’m not here for a status violation. They got me charged with more than that. I talk to the judge tomorrow. I have to touch the wall for doing what they consider “anti-social” behavior—only a “procedure violation,” nothing big. I’ve been touching the wall for a while now. Doesn’t matter what part of the wall I touch as long as I have some part of me on the wall. I am trying to get some sleep here. –J.B., age 17
Hale Ho’Omalu Juvenile Hall, Honolulu, Hawaii. The facility was built in the 1950s and is now closed; detainees occupy a new facility.
I’ve been here a week this time. I’m on court order to stay isolated from the other kids. I was in foster care for about 11 years and now I am adopted. They got me for residential burglary when I was in seventh grade, but since then it has been lots of probation violations—late for school, not appearing for my P.O., stuff like that. Drug Court probably saved my life. My mom is into drugs and my dad was deported to the Philippines. I have three sisters but we are all split up. The only person who visits me is my YMCA drug counselor. Lunch? It was junk. –C.C., age 16
Hale Ho’Omalu Juvenile Hall, Oahu, Hawaii.
A female juvenile with scars from cutting herself that read “Fuck Me,” Washoe County Detention Facility, Reno, Nevada. The facility holds youth for up to 30 days before transferring them to commitment.
Twenty-three young men, unsupervised, at Orleans Parish Prison, Louisiana.
There was a fight the night before, so staff had taken away the privileges of TV, cards and dominoes. The air conditioner is broken and it is August in New Orleans.
Camera monitoring of the isolation room at St. Louis Detention Center, St. Louis, Missouri.
Intake at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, Downey, California.
