Jeff Hobbs - Children of the State: Stories of Survival and Hope in the Juvenile Justice System

Children of the State

Stories of Survival and Hope in the Juvenile Justice System

Jeff Hobbs

Author of the New York Times bestseller

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

To Mama Rose Villalon, and to the constellation of educators, counselors, therapists, coordinators, mentors, volunteers, and families who devote their lives and spirits every day to the most imperiled youth among us

It was the evident purpose of the founders of the first juvenile courts to save, to redeem, and to protect every delinquent child for the benefit of himself and of society and of the state. If these principles are not applied to the juvenile court, the result will be that in the future, as in the past, distressed children, broken in body and mind, must travel along the trail of tears that leads finally to their destruction.

Judge Charles W. Hoffman, speaking to the first Conference on Juvenile-Court Standards, June 21, 1921

AUTHORS NOTE

A YOUNG MAN , about seventeen years old, sauntered into a classroom where another young man was idly waiting for English language arts class to start. He took a boxers crouch and landed a powerful, undefended right cross on the waiting boys face. The crack of knuckle bones against cheekbone was audible throughout the room. The boy whod received the blow appeared simultaneously dazed and emotionally wounded as he stumbled backward and tripped over a desk, half his face already bright red beneath the skin as blood rushed there. Without pause, the attacker launched himself forward with the leverage of both height and surprise to continue the assault, ferociously barraging with head and body blows. Ultimately, three large, well-trained adults were required to wrest him off and out of the room, while his victim lay in the fetal position, reduced by the violence to trying only to protect his head.

Meanwhile, I was starfished against a wall in order to stay out of everyones way. Id been invited to speak about books and writing to this class in San Franciscos Woodside Learning Center. The facility was more broadly known as the Juvenile Justice Center, the citys equivalent of county jail for youth. The pure force of the attack was stunning, as was its targeted quickness. In one moment, the classroom had been peaceful. In the next, it was taut with ferocity. And the adults in the room whose jobs were to prevent this exact thing from happening had been powerless to do soreally through no fault of their own. As a result, the unit was secured, all the boys living there locked in their rooms, and class was canceled. The teachers who had arranged the visit seemed frustrated but not terribly surprised.

I visited Woodside a few times in the years that followed, as well as a number of other juvenile facilities in various citiesto lead a book club discussion, maybe, or assist a creative writing class. Each place was physically different with its own ecosystem of educators, guards, counselors, spaces, and schedules. Each place was sad. Each place was striking in just how young and fragile its residents appeared, how even the loud, brash ones seemed to exist in a constant retreat within themselves, and how they strived to find rare, small moments of joy in the simplest observations while denying the grim long-term consequences of their plights. A veteran juvenile hall history teacher once told me, when I asked as to his aspirations for his students after they were released, I used to have high hopes for them leaving here and graduating from high school and maybe even college. Now, I mainly just hope that, within five years of leaving, my students arent dead. Even if theyre in adult prison, but still alive, I consider that a success. This teacher, who ate his lunch every day in a nearby woodsy area while listening to the birds in order to manage the constant heartache of his work, added, Frankly, the track record with that is not great.

As these various visits accumulated, I realized that people without direct experience in juvenile halls tended to have no idea that these buildings contained schoolsthat the young people detained inside them attended core academic classes every day and accumulated credits toward graduation. Most people instead seemed conditioned to equate juvenile hall with prison, youth offenders with inmates, educators and counselors with guards. These misconceptions and the casual nature with which they are perpetuated in our society seemed insidious and unjust.

After deciding to write about what it felt like to be an incarcerated juvenile and to teach incarcerated juveniles in America, I spent significant time in each of three spaces within the juvenile justice system. Two of them were secure placement facilities, and the third was a highly regarded diversion program.

Ferris School is the sole youth residential detention facility in the state of Delaware and has been for 102 years. Kids thereall boys, though a separate, lower-security facility for girls is on an adjacent campushave been sentenced to be held at Ferris generally for three, six, nine, or twelve months. The entire building, including the sector devoted to education, operates under the purview of the states Department of Services for Children, Youth & Their Families. This book follows a student named Josiah Wright through his yearlong incarceration there.

Woodside, already mentioned, is a court facility housing San Franciscos juvenile arrestees awaiting sentencing before a judge but deemed unfit to be free in the interim. The structure is connected to the juvenile court building, and students are placed there for anywhere from a couple days to many months depending on the progress of their various cases. There is one living unit for girls and two for boys. The residential program is managed by the Juvenile Probation Department. The educational sector is run by the San Francisco Unified School District. This book focuses on the work and trials of educators there, mainly through the experience of an English language arts teacher named Megan Mercurio and the school principal, Chris Lanier.

Exalt Youth is a New York Citybased nonprofit dedicated to helping young people who have had serious contact with the legal system avoid further contact while reclaiming forward movement in their lives. The intensive, four-month program involves classroom experience, a paid internship, and immersive prep for various life challenges such as job interviews and regular school days. The majority of Exalt students are referred by professionals within the legal system (probation officers, lawyers, and even policemen) hoping to divert kids from further incarceration. This book observes the challenges of transitioning from juvenile hall back into the outside world through the experience of Ian Alvaro and his Exalt teacher Alex Griffith.

I had prior connections with each of these entities (I also grew up about ten minutes from Ferris School and remember being intimidated playing against its football and basketball teams as a JV player at a nearby private school), which eased the process of obtaining the access and permissions needed to write honestly about the people insidenot that this was remotely easy, just slightly less complicated. I also felt that these programs together formed an expansive view of the national landscape of juvenile incarceration: East Coast and West Coast; short- and long-term imprisonment; small city and large city; the experience of young people and the adults guiding them before, during, and post-incarceration. It would be disingenuous to assert that these places and this work offer a complete representation of juvenile justice in America, but I believe that these pages illuminate a tremendous range of incident and relevance.