Juveniles In Justice?

After reading over this book and studying the photos in this book I had a few comments and quotes that really resonated with me. I ended up spending close to an hour looking at these photos in stories because they were so intriguing and made me really think about the state of our prison facilities and our social structure.

Quotes:

• “The kids all look so vulnerable. So normal It’s hard to get your head around the fact that these are the criminals, that these are kids who need locking up”
  • This quote was something I tried to consider the entire looking through the book. There were definitely times reading some of the stories in which I sympathized for the kids that were locked up. Some had stories that showed that they needed to be locked up (multiple arrests, no remorse, psychological issues). But there were a few that I felt bad for. One had killed his father because he sexually assaulted him and threatened to do it to his siblings so he did it out of protection. Obviously this wasn’t the way to solve his issues but he did what he did out of love for his siblings.
• “I don’t blame nobody, I just made a mistake. I was 13.”
• “I’ve been here before, done this before, worn this before”
• “Being able to control, that is my real strength”

Photos:

Some photos really stood out to me and made me think more about my privilege of not being an incarcerated youth.

• The “Wall of Shame”, which showed all the juveniles that had been in the center that had ended up being killed once they left was something that really touched me.
  • On each photo was the date they died with the word expired next to them. I don’t know why but the word expired over the faces of kids that were my age, older, or younger just felt weird. It was like they were produce that had just expired and not real people
• A page towards the middle had photos of all different colors of doors in different facilities. It was so artistic and made me consider having to open one of them every day and live inside the rooms beyond them. Some doors looked clean and new, while others were beaten and scratched up showing different states of some of the facilities.
• There was also a photo in which it showed around 8 inmates sitting with their backs on the doors to their rooms. All of them had their heads down and looked so sullen and sad. Each door had an inmate in them and they were all doing the same thing which spoke to me about the amount of people in these facilities struggling to survive and cope with the stresses of being in those facilities.

I’m excited to discuss this book in class because it really puts into perspective the conditions and people that are actually inside these facilities.