Uncompromising Photos Expose Juvenile Detention in America

Originally posted by Sippy Cup
Here is an interactive map of sorts of images from the different states Richard Ross took the photos.

was hoping for Ohio, no luck.

www.juvenile-in-justice.com...

Thank you for that map and after just a few minutes checking it out I cannot find anything that is even close to the disgusting picture in the OP's post.

That for sure does not suggest they exist but probably they are hidden or forbidden to see.

Thanks again
Regards, Iwinder

Take it from a Corrections Officer, these kids belong behind bars so to speak. Some that are in our care have tried killing people. I think the fact that they see it on television and hear it repeated in music has a lot to do with the amount of juveniles in jail. Some think it's cool to join gangs, some are forced into it, while others hear their favorite musicians singing/rapping about it and think "hey if they can do it, so can I, it will make me cool".

I am posting this with confidence that you fellow ATS'ers will not judge me or flame me. Having personally spent 4 days in a Juvenile Detention center i can vouch for some of this. Yes only 4 days, i was put in on a monday and got out on a friday for incidents of a past me that i will not go in to here. Much of what an above poster stated is true, in Juvenile Detention, in CO at least; there is no television, music, or anything productive to do. You get 3 meals per day, the meals are bad but they force you to eat them. Yes, they force you, probably for kids who are trying to starve themselves but if you do not finish your entire meal you will be put into solitary with your tray and won't be released until you have eaten it. In other factors, it is almost scary how prison like the center i was in was. All the doors are locked, 6 foot by 8 foot cells with just a mat, no pillow, and a blanket that is about 4x4 ft. You must have your hands interlocked behind your back at ALL times when standing up. Every time you pass through a doorway you must shout out your number. I was in a 'pod' consisting of about 28 people, 2 girls, the rest guys. No contact, speech, or even eye contact is allowed between the guys and the girls or you would be placed in isolation. Whenever 1 person in the pod has to go somewhere, the entire pod must go along in a line, counting off their numbers with hands behind the back. It is almost like day care in a sense... Honestly for me the worst part of it was having no alone time, you do not have the option of sitting in your cell if you choose. You must do what everybody else is doing. Anyways, im not going to sit here and exagerate on how bad it is. What i will say is right across the street from the center i was in was the CJC (county justice center) with adults. We had one person who was 19 years old who had been moved from CJC to our center for good behavior however he wanted to go back to CJC. He told me that over there they have TV's in their cells, a radio, free time, etc. The last thing i will say is i was only in there for 4 days, but it nearly drove me insane. I honestly do not know if i could have lasted another week in there whilst remaining sane. On a related note, my fiancee (this is personal) spent 45 days in a psych center for cutting herself. She has told me everything about her stay and i will not post details here but however i can say that psych centers are definitely 1000x worse than prisons. In there you can get a week of 24/7 isolation in a straight jacket. Did not happen to her personally thank god
but many others. Now i agree that the corrections system in this country is behind screwed up. There are many people(including juveniles) who deserve to be locked up temporarily or for many of them for good. There just needs to be way more budget for the systems, and much more segregation. For instance in my pod there was one kid who stabbed somebody 18 times, killing them along with another kid in there for a trespassing petty offence. That is NOT okay, and simply scares the sh*t out of first time offenders who are good people.
Peace

Originally posted by bharata

On any given night in the U.S., there are approximately 60,500 youth confined in juvenile correctional facilities or other residential programs. Photographer Richard Ross has spent the past five years criss-crossing the country photographing the architecture, cells, classrooms and inhabitants of these detention sites.

www.wired.com... 4/photog-hopes-to-effect-polic

Do you know what is sad? The first pick, the cell seems about the same size as my bedroom..... Width wise it looks the same, may be a few inches shorter though, but not by much.

The only thing that stood out was the pink room. I think it would be borderline(if not outright) illegal for you to lock an dog in a room like that for a couple of day's, let alone a child/teen.

The prison guards, facility directors and other people in charge of prisons for juvenile and adult offenders really belong in jail themselves. The way they treat other human beings is beyond forgivable.

Originally posted by Irish614
Take it from a Corrections Officer, these kids belong behind bars so to speak. Some that are in our care have tried killing people. I think the fact that they see it on television and hear it repeated in music has a lot to do with the amount of juveniles in jail. Some think it's cool to join gangs, some are forced into it, while others hear their favorite musicians singing/rapping about it and think "hey if they can do it, so can I, it will make me cool".

So what? Just because person A is a rotten monster doesn't give person B the right to treat person A like a rotten monster. Unless person B is just better at hiding the fact that they are monsters then person A.

That seems to be the only real difference between the Prison guards and the Prisoners.

-
What I mean is, why do people use the fact that "person A" is a monster, to act like monsters themselves. The whole "they deserve it because" argument is a total falesy, because nothing justifys a person acting like a monster period. That is the reason why they are locked up, because they are monsters unfit for society. So by allowing the prison system* to act like monsters to other monsters, the prison system turns it owns components into monsters deserving of being locked up themselves.

It is like the story of a little boy who swallows a fly.

There is no excuse for it.

*(all components of human systems are human beings, not some emotionless, conscienceless system. Just a series of human opinions, thoughts, feelings and decisions that reinforce or pressure other human thoughts, feelings and decisions)

reply to post by Irish614


Yeahhhh ok. So I'm sure you know what happened to each individuals kid life in order for them to turn out the way they did.

This is one facet of a hugely important topic that many of us completely ignore. What are we doing to our children in this society. What really struck me is that some of the pictures on the interactive map reminded me of places I went to school. I wasn't in the JJS.

We really need to be looking for alternatives when it comes to education and correction. What does it say when a person looks at pictures of a "youth assessment center" and thinks, "that looks like my elementary school?" How can we justify spending as much on incarcerating children as we do on "educating" them. America needs to start taking a hard look at itself and demanded serious change. The whole society seems to be suffering some form of mental breakdown.

The CRIMINALS are anyone who would do that to a kid. Kid doesn't behave? Well the streets are mean cold and lonly enough. But prison? That's torture and breeds hate - they'll kill their keepers sooner or later.

Cry for the kid you dont even know what he did. I was there lots and in prison also when i was very young that is. Its supposed to be scary and dirty that way you remember it. Crying yourself to sleep and smelling the toilet that is usually nose level while laying down do the crime do the time. I have no sympathy for them kids.

reply to post by Kali74


"I just want to hug them all, it sounds so sappy and bleeding heart...I don't care. Someone needs to love those kids maybe they'd have made better choices if they had been to begin with."

Give them hugs???

I am happy these punks are where they are. I hope they throw away the keys.
I'm so fed up of people making excuses ALL the time for these Vermin who will become the adult perpetrators of other crimes that will have a devastating effect/affect on their victims, families & friends for the rest of their lives.
We all have problems growing up & we all have to make choices that may or may not be breaking the law when we are growing up. Most of us take the right path thank god or whoever.
I hate living in a society where crime is understood. Why must we understand crime?
If society would stop making allowances for criminals we could all live in a much better world.
I strongly think that we need to start teaching our kids that a zero tolerance to crime & criminals is where we need to be.
Stop understanding & start destroying these liberal principles that are making our society a place where we can't love & respect people for the right reasons.
Eg. the 16yr old called Sean who murdered two British tourists in Florida last year. (I think that's where & when it happened.)
That's just one example. There are countless more.
Start feeling sorry & compassion for the victims & stop understanding the criminals.
Find some isolated islands & put them all there so they can continue their behaviour amongst themselves, where they harm & destroy each other & not those of us who choose to live by the law of the land & respect others for doing the same.
Sorry for the rant guys & gals but bleeding hearts like you make me puke regularly.

reply to post by supamoto

Start feeling sorry & compassion for the victims & stop understanding the criminals.

You have to admit there is a big difference between the kid you mentioned and the one stuffed in there for skipping school. How about the elementary school kid drug out of school in cuffs for drawing a gun? He ends up in the same detention center. What about the middle school kid locked up because he was skipping school? Instead of figuring out why he isn't going to school we lock him in with the assaulters and rapers?

When I was in high school there was a zero tolerance policy for fighting. Even a kid defending himself against multiple attackers got locked up in a juvenile detention center. You went down just like the guys that attacked you.

Yeah you're right though. Zero tolerance for anything the government deems a crime and long sentences for all of them.

Wow... Japan must be doing something right.

reply to post by MikeNice81


I'm sorry I'm not familliar with those cases, but what's the kid doing with a gun in school & it's highly unlikely that the cops or whoever would put the other kid in JD for just truanting from school. There had to be reasons leading to JD, maybe the kid had some previous deviant behaviour that was factored into that decision.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder

Wow... Japan must be doing something right.

Now THAT puts it all in perspective. Between that chart and the pictures the OP posted, someone needs to take those and make them viral somehow.

Education is the key though. Don't hug them and don't lock 'em up like animals. Educate them. It will solve the problem in time.

Originally posted by supamoto
reply to post by Kali74

 

"I just want to hug them all, it sounds so sappy and bleeding heart...I don't care. Someone needs to love those kids maybe they'd have made better choices if they had been to begin with."

Give them hugs???

I am happy these punks are where they are. I hope they throw away the keys.
I'm so fed up of people making excuses ALL the time for these Vermin who will become the adult perpetrators of other crimes that will have a devastating effect/affect on their victims, families & friends for the rest of their lives.
We all have problems growing up & we all have to make choices that may or may not be breaking the law when we are growing up. Most of us take the right path thank god or whoever.
I hate living in a society where crime is understood. Why must we understand crime?
If society would stop making allowances for criminals we could all live in a much better world.
I strongly think that we need to start teaching our kids that a zero tolerance to crime & criminals is where we need to be.
Stop understanding & start destroying these liberal principles that are making our society a place where we can't love & respect people for the right reasons.
Eg. the 16yr old called Sean who murdered two British tourists in Florida last year. (I think that's where & when it happened.)
That's just one example. There are countless more.
Start feeling sorry & compassion for the victims & stop understanding the criminals.
Find some isolated islands & put them all there so they can continue their behaviour amongst themselves, where they harm & destroy each other & not those of us who choose to live by the law of the land & respect others for doing the same.
Sorry for the rant guys & gals but bleeding hearts like you make me puke regularly.

You should of read my post, because from my vantage point: Your just as much, if not more so, a monster that belongs behind bars.

Me personally? I don't want to be a monster. Why should I, as a person with a sense of morality, a person with a conscience, allow myself to be degraded because of the actions of others. That is what your doing, your degrading yourself! Your not only allowing yourself to become a callous, conscienceless monster, your giddy with glee over it all!

So in the name of victims we must create more victims? You do know a percentage of people, both juvenile and adult, are wrongfully prosecuted and incarcerated. Hey you can't make an omelet without breaking any eggs right? Wrong. Not only that, sometimes people do minor, trivial things that cause no real long term harm.

I am acutely reminded of the "Kid's for Cash" scandal in the county I live in. A bunch of juvie judges received kickbacks for directing juvie offenders to a private prison. Many of them should of gotten probation instead of incarceration. But under your social totalitarianism they deserved whatever they got for not being well trained dogs?

There is a difference between justice and vengeance, between order and chaos, and good and evil. I thank you, and those like you for reminding me of it.

reply to post by supamoto


I'm sorry for my lack of clarity. I was talking about a kid that was arrested a while back for drawing a gun on a piece of paper. The teacher felt it was threatening and violated the zero tolerance policy.

Actually when I was in middle school they threatened to lock me up for missing seven consecutive days without a doctors note. I went back to school for two days with a fever over 101 degrees. Then Christmas break started and I had the time to recover. I was eleven years old.

They lock kids up for all kinds of things these days. I personally know a person that was locked up for 36 hours because he fought back against a gang attack at school. He was jumped by three guys for "stealing" one of the guy's girlfriend. He fought back to protect his safety and health. He was locked up on Friday afternoon and had to wait until his mom could fly home from a business trip. They wouldn't release him to her fiancé and nobody could find his dad.

ETA:
I was trying the case of the kid drawing a gun on paper and being arrested. It turns out it was an autistic middle schooler. I found something a little more useful though.

19 Things Kids Are Getting Arrested For

reply to post by korathin


So I'm a "monster" & "degraded" for not wanting to understand Scum that leave irrepairable scars on innocent peoples & their lives forever???
Laughable to say the least!
Yes education is probably the key to all of this but most of this particular type of kid don't want your education just your understanding & forgiveness so they can do it again & then another bleeding heart will go crying to the courts on their behalf again!
People need to grow up knowing that if ' they do the crime they WILL do the time.'
Stop pandering & making excuses for people who wont & can't change because that's all they know.
Change attitudes in society towards VICTIMS & criminals with education.
I don't want to understand crime or criminals because there isn't any excuse for causing harm to innocent people.

reply to post by MikeNice81


I sympathise with you for the cases you've stated.
A kid drawing a gun on a peice of paper is harmless in itself but maybe the kid had issuses that we are unaware of.
I personally can't see how this was threatening & warranted arrest of a minor with handcuffs.
Protecting oneself shouldn't be a crime.
Obviously some people will over react to a given situation.

reply to post by supamoto

Stop pandering & making excuses for people who wont & can't change because that's all they know.

Your outlook on life is so pathetic. I feel sorry for you. It's people like you which actually cause so many youths to be criminalized and they continue that behavior because your harsh sense of punishment only works to teach them to be hateful and cruel. They aren't taught love and compassion. Instead they are thrown in hell holes and treated like human trash... so that's exactly what they become, human trash. You understand NOTHING about human nature and how to correctly teach criminals why their actions are wrong. You think shoving them into a cold dark cell and labeling them with numbers will "teach them a lesson".

No, it wont, it will make them vengeful, angry and hateful on the inside, it will instill into them a pessimistic outlook on life. Instead of trying to beat them down and make them fearful of ever breaking the law, they should be educated as to why those laws are there in the first place and why they should be following them. Most kids will do something when you tell them not to, it's how they are. And if you punish them by smacking them it doesn't really work. They will do it again most of the time, but the next time they'll be more careful they aren't caught.

The US Schools With Their Own Police

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later...

Students are also regularly fined for "disorderly behaviour", which includes playground scraps not serious enough to warrant an assault charge or for swearing or an offensive gesture. One teenage student was arrested and sent to court in Houston after he and his girlfriend poured milk on each other after they broke up. Nearly one third of tickets involve drugs or alcohol. Although a relatively high number of tickets – up to 20% in some school districts – involve charges over the use of weapons, mostly the weapons used were fists.

Pour milk on your girlfriend after a bad break up and go to court. Face criminal charges and possible jail time. Why? Because you are an uncontrollable social deviant in some peoples eyes. These are the type of kids that end up mixed in with the drug dealers and rapist at the detention centers.

The sadder part, this all comes from an article about a girl arrested for spraying perfume on her neck. Why, because the other kids were making fun of her and saying she stinks. When she sprayed the perfume they began heckling her because of the perfume's smell. So the kid getting teased is arrested for disturbing the class.

I can be honest and admit there are evil kids out there. I knew a few growing up. The problem is that we stopped trying to differentiate between which is which. If they don't comply, give them drugs and psych diagnoses. If that doesn't work give them tickets and arrest them. There is something out of whack with the system and we need to start looking for ways to address it.