Deborah Ellis - My Story Starts Here: Voices of Young Offenders

Copyright 2019 by Deborah Ellis
Published in Canada and the USA in 2019 by Groundwood Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press
groundwoodbooks.com

We gratefully acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: My story starts here : voices of young offenders / Deborah Ellis.
Names: Ellis, Deborah, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190045663 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190045701 | ISBN 9781773061214 (softcover) | ISBN 9781773061344 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781773061351 (Kindle)
Subjects: LCSH: Juvenile delinquentsAnecdotes. | LCSH: Juvenile delinquentsSocial conditions. | LCSH: Juvenile corrections.
Classification: LCC HV9069 .E45 2019 | DDC 364.36dc23

Illustrations by Eric Chow
Photographs by Deborah Ellis
Cover photo by Michael Solomon

All royalties from the sale of this book will go to two organizations that work with at-risk youth.

There but for the grace of God go I.

John Bradford (15101555), as he watched prisoners being led to their execution

Why cant they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
Whats the matter with kids today?

Lee Adams, Kids, from Bye Bye Birdie

Children should obey us, trust us and amuse us. They should be grateful to us. They should allow us to feel dignified, wise, competent and powerful.

They should not defy us.

And theyd better not laugh at us.

This is a grim view of how we grown-ups see the creatures we used to be. I believe this grimness has, at least in part, formed our public policies on young offenders.

Its not all grim, of course. We adults also want to care for our young, keep them safe and pass on our hard-earned knowledge. We want the next generation to be more successful than we are. We want to save them from the mistakes we made. We want to give them every advantage, every opportunity, every chance to make good.

Some of them.

We also condemn many of the worlds children to bed without supper, even to bed without a bed. We continue to buy products made by tiny underpaid hands, and we would rather pay to punish children than protect them.

Could it be that when we grow up we forget we were ever young? Do we forget how powerless we felt to create productive change in our lives? Do we not remember being confused about who we were and what we wanted? Were we never quick to make a dumb move without a thought for the consequences?

This is a book of interviews with young people who have interacted with the criminal justice system. All the names have been changed and any locations or other identifiers have been removed. I interviewed most of the young people in person. In the case of those under eighteen, I first obtained permission from their parent or guardian. A few of the interviews were done over the phone.

Many, many other individuals and agencies (including the two organizations that will receive the royalties from this book) provided me with information, advice and the means to reach out to the young people and their families, but cannot be named in the interests of protecting the identities and locations of the interviewees. The law is strict about safeguarding the identities of young offenders.

There is a First Nations community out west that has a Walk with an Elder program. Kids who are feeling lost can go up to an Elder and walk with them not necessarily even talking but knowing that the Elder is on their side, taking time to acknowledge them and letting the kid know they are not alone.

Many of the young people in this book talk about one person, or even one moment with one person, when a small act of kindness changed the trajectory of their lives. How often are we providing the world with kind moments moments that could land like sunbeams on someone who desperately needs them?

Time will go by. Those who are now young will become adults who make policy. What we need now is what we have always needed support for struggling parents, addiction-recovery help, short- and long-term steps out of poverty and access to appropriate types of education for kids who are having a hard time.

It can cost more than $100,000 a year to keep a teenager behind bars (American Correctional Association / Council of Economic Advisers, 2015). Once a child goes into prison, they are much more likely to become an adult who goes to prison.

We could turn this around with the right amount of will in the right direction. All the resources we spend to further break broken kids could be used to help us all rise together. Think of the pain we could avoid! Think of the gifts that people could contribute if their brains are properly fed, their bodies properly housed and without recurring trauma to drag them down.

We humans made the problem of youth crime. We humans can fix it.

When I get to a church in time for a free meal, I always ask if I can volunteer for clean-up, just so they know I can contribute. It also helps me feel this is all temporary.

Twenty percent of Canadas homeless are young people. In Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey (www.homelesshub.ca), most youth reported that they left home because of conflicts with their parents. Over sixty percent reported physical, emotional or sexual abuse in the home. Others reported parents who are addicted or struggling with untreated mental-health problems.

Homeless youth are four times more likely to die from things like suicide or drug overdoses. Nearly one-fifth land in some form of human trafficking (www.modernslaveryresearch.org). Without a home, all things become more difficult. How do you keep clean? Where do you do your homework? How do you eat, sleep, get out of the rain, pass the hours? Where do you keep your things?

Every year, forty thousand of Canadas young people are homeless at least some of the time. In the United States, the figure is more than two million (www.covenanthouse.org). Each one of them has a story.

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I was born in a small town in New York State. Im Native American. I was only supposed to come to Canada for a three-day visit, to meet my biological father, who I first heard about when I was thirteen. There was another guy I thought was my dad my mothers husband but one day him and my mom had a big argument in front of me and he said, Im not looking after that kid of yours anymore since hes not even mine. Then Mom fessed up about who my real dad is.

So I was up here in Canada for a three-day visit and Bio-Dad saw that I was not well. He got me a doctor and found out that I have type 1 diabetes.