Uncompromising Photos Expose Juvenile Detention in America

reply to post by Kali74


sorry to be brutal,but the truth is that poor 12 yr old probably stabbed a 12 yr old that has parents with touchy feely ideals not unlike your own.it does not matter that he prob never knew his dad,or his mum was on crack,or there was no playground where he grew up.these excuses dont alter the fact that that young boy is locked up for a reason.i am not at all racist,so dont even go to that response.we have the same problems here in the uk,very few guns thankfully,but when they keep doing wrong they need to be removed from society.is it even wrong ,in a pragmatic sense, that if they have went wrong enough at 12 to rape or kill they should be in the system for life.where could you begin to rehabilatate that.how do you deal with a child that ,for example,commits the same crime whilst awaiting trial for the same offence? they have passed the point where they can be punished with anything that scares them.
this is not a personal attack on your response.i have a daughter of similar age and can see your empathy,just realise some people are beyond help..its the rest of society that needs help to remove them.

reply to post by bharata


Why are they held?? for all you know these kids could be remorseless killers.

Sometimes I think -

when its ALL said and and everyone of us has to account for our lives and behaviors,
what are people going to say when their actions and thoughts flash before their eyes and that of the creator?

True - these children will have to account for their own responsibilities too.

But I doubt anyone up there is going to listen to people whimper

"but they were bad children, they missed school, they were violent - that's what I _locked them in a cell, agreed that they were worthless, etc etc etc____ "

Where I live in NC. not more than ten miles away are three or four prisons, I honestly don't know what the count is, but as you drive by, there is the fence with razor wire and then an earthen berm to prevent any view of the interior. I know one prison guard, a woman, and that's about it. It is obviously an industry, and of course the population is predominantly black and white and probably 70/30 respectively. This is however the least affluent county in the state, so costs are maybe lower to house and maintain. As for the types of crime, it's for murder on down to stupid stuff. But it is an industry, not state owned, it's private as far as the institution itself, with state hired law enforcement employees. It occurs to me, the kids of today are more trouble prone than in my generation, and for more heinous types of crimes. But for those low level criminals, it only pants a mindset of 'getting even' when released. The correctional system in the US is broken, and when it becomes industry with revenue, there becomes a conflict of interests. I could go on to describe the behavior of the predominant race here, but it would be no surprise, and follows closely to stereotypes. It just is what it is, no apology given. After all, I behave, and anybody can behave who chooses to. Embracing a 'Gangsta' personality or fashion, will get you a higher profile and a higher level of scrutiny. The cities are the worst, while rural has it's problems, they are much more likely to behave.

When being a ex-con is a symbol of social 'gangsta' standing, you can be sure behavior will be convoluted.

Timeout room is pink? More like "rage room". Paint the damn room green or blue. Even better paint a mural of the outdoors. To paint the room a red tone and call it a "timeout room" is absurde. These poor kids will be worse off once released because of the horrid conditions. The one picture with the 12 year old boy stairing at the wall in a room with no windows made me heart ache...

I don't care what his crimes were no human deserves this especially at such a young age. You can see the walls of his cell are still burnt from the fire, they couldn't even repaint. Guess it's better than pink...

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

Sadly, I have been to jail. And I can tell you that our rooms did not look NEARLY as bad as those poor kids rooms. That is just absolutely atrocious! And a boarded up window?! Gee lets just make them think there is no hope for life in there! And I doubt that they get to call a bondsman in there, so its almost as if they are in there without any confirmation of freedom! The rich should NOT be able allowed to own a private jail, it's sickening.

Originally posted by detachedindividual
Anyone else think that it would be far more effective, far cheaper, and far more worthwhile to hire some proper psychologists to take each kid to somewhere like Pakistan for a week?

Well, we agree on this, that is for sure. There is little or no thought given to the causes of these children and their problems, only retribution, and that breeds resentment, so sure they will be back, and spend more time, as a youth, and adult in the "justice system. These for profit, private prisons have no problem with that, it's good for business, it guarantees a good future for the investors.

Let's do away with all prison's and release all of the inmates back into society and sing cumbya.
Why have prisons? All of you griping about conditions could adopt one of these fine individuals and love them as your own. Put your words into action ...we could start a program and I would like for all of you to volunteer.
Insteade of being in these detention centers we will send them to your house for rehabilitation, then you can help them out and give them a chance.

Weird. We've basically had a high tech, clean, and really nice juvy detention center. They are tearing it down this year due to money trouble. A lot of places around here seem to be doing that a lot latetly...

My past two jobs closed down on me. The name of the game this year is survival.

I worked with a woman who was a nurse at both a Prison and a Juvenile Detention Center, and she said the JDC is worse than the prisons, because the kids know you cannot touch them. So these 15/16/17 year old gangster wannabes punch guards in the face and attack them but know they cannot do anything back....

I would agree that yes some kids deserve jail while others should be given rehabilitation.

That's terrible, they're treated like animals. Locked up and lying around on the floor like a bunch of dogs, this just isn't right.

I agree with another poster that we should know what those kids did to be locked up. Not everybody deserves to go to prison, but some do. It is a shame your government puts together murderers and runaway children, it is clearly 'about the benjamins'.

This next piece of information blew my mind ..

Books are only permitted in the classrooms, not in the cells.
Juvenile Detention Facility, Greenville, Washington County, Mississippi.

Wait WHAT??? are they for real? The only thing a juvenile delinquent needs is a lot of books in his cell. I don't know about you guys but i find this info more disturbing then size and color of those rooms. Even in medieval times people were allowed to have a bible in prison.

reply to post by hanyak69


Bwahaha, at 28, as a single man, i was asked to become the foster parent to a 13 year old drug addicted alcoholic boy that I knew, the alternatives were give him back to his drug addicted mother who had run off with another guy and abandoned him with his drug addicted alcoholic step dad who then abandoned him, or put him in juvenile detention because nobody wanted a little drug addict in their home as a foster child.

I became his foster dad, I did have the support of my family, and needed it being a single parent. We had challenges, you bet we did, and more than once I was called to the cop shop, that was when I was not dragging him there for a talking too, myself. I also have dragged him out of drug houses, had my life threatened by dealers, and had my name dragged through the mud by his mother, and a host of other things happen to me, even assaults.

He is now a 21 year old productive member of society, holds down a job, lives with a room mate not far from me, drinks periodically, may have the odd joint, but I would hardly call that a major fault, and is not a bad person by any stretch.

yYonly interest in making money, you may have just hit the nail on the head trying to be a sarcastic GIT!

The almost psychopathic lack of empathy shown by some of this thread is very sad. Just because someone is even in prison doesn't mean they were guilty. Remember this case from Pennsylvania, where so-called "judges" were caught taking bribes to send children to a for-profit prison.

Then there's the whole issue of unconstitutional, insane laws that criminalize normal human behavior, especially normal, adolescent behavior. A tiny percentage of kids are the real monsters who probably do belong in prison, but the media hypes them up while flat out ignoring the vast majority of children who are put in adult style prisons for the horrible "crimes" of truancy, graffiti, sexual experimentation, or making a Facebook page about their teacher.

That is the definition of a police state and an insane society. Judging from some of the ignorant, even illiterate comments on this thread, there's a tiny handful of masochists who long to be brutalized by the State in that fashion. You sick and damaged folks should move to North Korea. That kind of totalitarian dictatorship will suit you just fine.

The rest of are going to call it out as the sickness that it is.

reply to post by RyanFromCan


You are to be commended sir.


Yes,its hard,but it can be done.Children NEED role models.Not prison Bars.

reply to post by sonnny1


Thanks, what really hurt me, and made me decide to do it was the idea that this kid, not really bad, just misguided, would be sitting in jail, not because he did anything wrong, but because his mom and step dad abandoned him, and he had nowhere else.

The facts of the US prison system are horrible through and through.

- The US has less than 5% of the world's total human population, but nearly 25% of the world's entire prison population.
- Crime in the USofA has decreased substantially in the last decades while incarceration has increased stratospherically.
- The majority of "criminals" are in prison for non-violent crimes....  Mostly non-white for drugs (in most places), while in fact whites use drugs more than non-whites...
- Etc....

But regarding juveniles, the facts can be beyond horrific.

- The US has 2,500 individuals, who committed crimes as juveniles, in prison for life without the possibility of parole. That is, they've been locked up, with the key thrown away. That means that these KIDS are going to DIE in prison for stuff that they did (or didn't do) when they were under 18 years old, and before the frontal cortexes in their brains (where judgment and such happens) are actually fully WIRED. 

Most of these kids are non-white, and about 1/3 of these KIDS did not actually commit the crime, but were party to the crime.  Which means that if they happen to be in the back seat of a car, and the adult in the front seat shoots somebody out the window, since the KID happens to be there he can and often is convicted of "Felony Murder."  --- Unless of course, his/her daddy is rich and can afford good counsel. Sometimes, the adult who did the shooting often cops a plea and gets hit with six or seven or a dozen years in prison.  BUT the KID, gets life.
 
>>> Finally, guess how many KIDS are in prison for life without the possibility of parole in the Rest Of The World??   ZERO!

Here's a good recent reference for the above: www.healthycal.org...

When I'm posting something on people actually taking action, in concrete and efficient manner, against the proliferation of youth prisons, NOBODY'S READING!

My point is there are ways to counter this. Like stopping to call the cops and snitching on your neighbors for any reason... or attacking these prison projects where they are being promoted, like they did in that story.

It's for your children's sake!

If parent's aren't able to raise their kids properly, the prison system will surely NOT make them any better. They'll end up being violent, messed up, drug addicts, as they WILL get raped and/or beaten regularly, while they are confined within these horrible concrete cells.

Whoever thinks the opposite is a glaring hypocrite who never went to jail.

reply to post by bharata


The photo of the boy in the cell with the window boarded up was a tear jerker for me. I find it appalling the system would even allow children to live in this cell.

When Ross visited only 35 of the 137 beds were occupied. The population had decreased significantly because of the embrace of the principles of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative and the leadership of Judge Edwards.

See its not all gloom and doom