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A gallery of audio, video, writing and art by youth mediamakers addressing juvenile justice. |
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POOR Magazine: Youth in the Media
The following three articles were written by young women participating in POOR Magazine's Youth in the Media program. For more information, visit www.PoorNewsNetwork.org.
A Fake Life: The Story of David, a youth in and out of the criminal justice system since he was 12 years old.
By Isabel Estrada, PNN Youth in the Media Intern
"Has anybody in here actually been to Juvenile Hall?" asked the facilitator of a workshop concerning the juvenile justice system, at the Upset the Setup Youth Conference on Saturday, August 29, 2001. The Latino with long curly hair and glasses -- his 6-foot, 1-inch, 160-pound body spilling out of the small school desk -- raised his hand.
To me he didn't look like the "type" who would have been through Juvenile Hall. He seemed too quiet and well behaved and spoke with a sweet and innocent voice. I think he noticed that I was staring at him and felt slightly perturbed. I was just thinking that I needed to talk with him. When the class was over, I followed him around for awhile and when I finally got up my nerve to speak, I asked him for an interview. He didn't seem particularly enthusiastic but at least he was willing.
I was expecting the story of a reformed youth. It's odd how things are never as simple as they first appear. I was speaking with a boy who was as intelligent and, in his own way, as caring as I. However, because of the completely distinct conditions in which we grew up, we have very different views on life. I feel as though I have a vague, universal, but undeveloped caring for all people. David cares as well, but he cares exclusively for his "own" -- his family and friends, the ones who are, in turn, prepared to support him if he needs it.
While I think that only necessity justifies stealing, David used to see it this way: "If someone's gonna rob out of my pockets then I'm gonna return the favor, pretty much." Now that he has a job and a slightly less chaotic life he says, "If it's there and I have the opportunity then yeah. But I don't go out and go to a store and rob it. It's not valuable just for your own conscience to go out and take from another person, but if you're ignorant enough to trust people at a party then you're just asking to get robbed. If you're hard-headed enough then you're just asking to get robbed."
Read the rest of the article: www.PoorNewsNetwork.org/index.cfm?L1=news&story=555
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Youth Justice or Juvenile Injustice?
By Mari, PNN Youth in the Media Intern
I walked into The San Francisco City Hall like I have done for the last two years, but as I gave my bag to the security guard so they could check and make sure there wasn't something like anthrax in it, today felt different. The dome that topped City Hall seemed repulsive, it actually made me sick. I was thinking about the young women and men sitting inside the Youth Guidance Center (YGC), San Francisco's Juvenile Hall. So while I looked at the golden, marble floors inside City Hall, I was thinking about the dirty, yellowish earwax looking floor of the cafeteria at YGC, all the gold that surrounds city hall, and all the dirty grimy concrete that surrounds YGC.
Today was the day that the Youth Justice Hearing between the San Francisco Youth Commission's Youth Justice Committee and
the San Francisco's Board of Supervisors Rules Committee was going to be held on the San Francisco's juvenile justice intake process for youth and alternatives to detention for them.
Right now there is not a central intake process for youth; there is two ways they can enter the system, one is through YGC or Community Assessment Referral Center (CARC). I have talked to my friends who have gone through YGC, and the ones who gone through CARC. All I hear from my friends who have gone through YGC, is that you don't even get treated like a human being, and what I hear from my friends who have gone through CARC is that the staff there listens to you, and that the staff actually wants to help you out.
I myself have never been through YGC. But, when I was 17, I lived in Texas, and over there when you turn 17 if you get in trouble with the law, you go straight to the adult criminal justice system. I was arrested for shoplifting clothes. I was lucky, I shoplifted clothes worth under $50.00, because if I stole more I would have committed a class B misdemeanor, because I would have gone to county jail instead of city jail. I remember signing a paper that if I admitted to stealing, I would most likely be able to go. So of course, I signed it. Well, the store still called the police on me. I was handcuffed, and put in a cop car. Then I was processed and put in a jail cell. I remember how scared I was, how humiliated I felt, and how I wanted to get the hell out of there. It would have nice if someone in that system sat me down and asked me "Why did I shoplift?" Then they would have found out I was dirt poor, and I was living in abusive household, and I was not given money to buy new clothes, for the clothes that my body rapidly growing out of, which usually happens at 17. This event lead me to my major, which is Criminal Justice, and also lead me to work on this issue, so that not another youth ever has to go what I went through.
Read the rest of the article: www.poorNewsNetwork.org/index.cfm?L1=news&story=592
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We will not be Silenced: A report on Upset the Set-up conference at Fremont High School
By Isabel Estrada, PNN Youth in the Media Intern
Walking into Fremont High School on Foothill and High Streets in Oakland, I couldn't quite grasp what was off about the environment. Then I realized that the tall, dimly lit, stark walls made me feel lost, as though they belonged to a factory, constructed for the purpose of molding loads of kids. The long, drab, brown tables seemed to beg me to lay my head on top of them and fall asleep. However, the young people surrounding me were completely at odds with their solemn environment, anything but dulled by convention, they ran around, talking and organizing, as if propelled by a hidden energy.
Upset the Setup, the third annual youth conference centered around uniting youth against juvenile injustice was just getting started. The group that organized this event, the Youth Force Coalition, is dedicated to fighting the Prison Industrial Complex. Their member organizations include the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) Youth Advisory Committee as well as others representing Asian, Filipino, Jewish, Homeless and Queer communities.
I cautiously let myself into the auditorium where a young woman, Rosa King, from Youth Speaks was reciting poetry dedicated to those who had died on September 11, 2001. I was hyper-conscious of my role as reporter. I leaned against the wall at the back of the auditorium and quickly took out the little notebook I had bought just for the occasion. I was nervous as hell and hid my insecurity about being in a room filled with unknown people my own age by taking on the role of reporter. I scribbled things down constantly and with an air of importance. I'm Latina and am always hearing other kids of color complain of feeling uncomfortable around white adults, well my problem is more with people of my own age. How was I going to go up to them and get the information I needed for my article?
Looking around, I began to relax. There were people of all ages and colors. From the middle and high school-aged kids who were attending the conference to the twenty-somethings facilitating or reporting on it -- everybody was being taken in by Rosa's words. Her poems spoke to the discrepancies in California's priorities, "Number one in prisons, number 41 in education," she pointed out, and continued in the same vein, "A system where knowing your rights isn't a right." The crowd began to cheer. You could start to see the disgust in people's faces as they were once again reminded of the hypocritical standards so often embraced by the United States government.
Read the rest of the article: www.PoorNewsNetwork.org/index.cfm?L1=news&story=499
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NEXT: Youth Media Council
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