Reaching Puberty in Prison?

Good (Fri)day Bloggeaters of the world, 

                I don’t know how many of you are keeping up with the current Juvenile Justice news but some major federal moves have been made. On April 15th, 2011, California’s Supreme Court declared that a 110-year sentence for 16 year old Rodrigo Caballero is constitutionally sound. (-_-) <--My face when I read this decision. I do not want to engage in an unproductive rant…but you would think that with California’s current track record around unjust and un-restorative juvenile justice policies that their supreme court would be less likely to have such an outrageous charge…

                His potential sentence is on the grounds of admitted ATTEMPTED murder.

(-_-) <--My unimpressed face, yet again once I found out the charges causing such a sentence.

                Cruel and Unusual punishment apparently only refers to international war crimes- in the United States, rest assured that you can condemn youth to adult prisons for their entire livelihood. The point of Juvenile Justice being Restorative Justice is to RESTORE the youth back into society successfully. They have so many years ahead of them and their potential to change is unfathomable. I remember what I was like at 16. I remember my beliefs, and disbeliefs, my dreams, and aspirations, I remember who I thought I was. Five years later and I have literally gone through at least three complete transformations of self. People grow. People are not born criminals- it is a question of circumstance and nurture. If given the right growing environment, people can bloom, they can prosper.

Adult prison is NOT the right growing environment for a 16 year old boy. We are existing in a time where people are more concerned with the punishment than the utilitarian goodness of caring for a fellow human being. Such a sentencing should not even be considered worthy of addressing! Our youth need something more than cold concrete and metal bars to grow up. How can one expect him to be a productive part of society when formulating himself under conditions of extreme punishment? That is setting yet another person of color on a destructive path; even if Caballero was to be let out early on good behavior, there would be no hope for a healthy and independent lifestyle.

All we can do is write, fight, and pray that someone’s voice will resonate with the ‘justice’ leaders of America. I’ll keep you all posted- trust, I WILL be following this case closely…

Challenge to the innovative mind

                Good-day Bloggoids,

                I was having lunch with a friend of mine the other day and she pulled out some staggering statistics on education and income in the Unites States. Apparently, the nation’s average African American with a masters and/or PhD gets paid more than the average White American. Somehow, latino/a communities did not make it onto this graph at all. She showed me another graph that showed the statistics for obtaining a high school diploma is latino/a is extremely low. In the state of California especially, the brown population is large. To imagine that most of them are not obtaining education- at a university level or otherwise- brings about interesting questions around the social boundaries or norms that are preventing this from happening.

                If there was ever a time for social reform around education…it is now. The CA education system has clearly abandoned the youth, therefore it is time for those who do care to do something. Granted, those who do care often time do not have the luxury of starting a project while being able to survive- jobs are necessary. But even if it was time to draft a plan to submit to local non-profits about initiating a school of equity would be a useful contribution.

I am going to put forth this challenge to you cyber world, along with myself, to come up with a rough proposal within the next two weeks. It does not have to be elaborate or full of hard hitting statistics, but it should be innovative enough to work. For those of you who do submit something, I will contact education non-profits up and down the coast with them and see if anything may possibly come of it. Why not? Gotta start somewhere…and I am tired of simply writing about the systematic oppression everyone already knows about. Action speaks louder than words…so let’s do it!

Pre Prison Educational Systems

Hello bloggies and bloggets,

Despite Los Angeles being one of the lamer cities to be in, there is one guarantee that makes being here worth it: the young people. Anywhere you find a large group of young minorities in Los Angeles, it is almost guaranteed that they are not too far from some form of activism.

I was with one of my friends the other day and saw his button:

“Hey LAUSD: I am pre-med, pre-college, NOT pre-prison!!!”

Calling out state school systems in California has always been intriguing, so I did a little more research on the button. Turns out that this little jem of social commentary is not just a trendy fashion piece, it is a mass-response to the increased amount of police in and around LAUSD schools. Protests have been made, demand sheets have been drafted, and progress is promised. These young people are angry, and they are organized.

It is a fact that the graduation rate at many of the high schools in Los Angeles County is less than 50%. The probability of a young adult getting in trouble with the law increases exponentially if they do not finish high school. Correlating those two ideas might be the grounds on which police persons infiltrate educational facilities. However, it could be that those facts are true because of the large amount of police at the schools. There has been a report stating that in some schools if a student is late to class, they receive a fine of a couple hundred dollars that is enforced by the police. If they come to school in loose or baggy clothing they will more likely than not end of on a police officer’s list of gang affiliated youth (such lists have a history of being prejudice and serve as a way for the law to profile youth by superficial images. If anything were to happen with someone on the list-even a petty crime- their punishment is increased, even if it is the first mark on their record).

Slowly but surely, the United States is embedding youth of color into a systematic oppression like no other. Sure there are no blatant laws excluding them from upward mobility, but there are many road blocks, obstacles, and deterrents. The defeatist attitude common in minority high school students does not come from a racial distinction between one who is lazy and one who is hard working- it is the armor needed to handle the injustices faced on a day-to-day basis. It is a front for the kid in class that has been told by the pigs “I’m watchin’ you boy- I can tell your going to cause trouble” before the school year even starts. Psychologically speaking, in environments where you are made to feel worthless, it is instinctive and almost necessary to stop caring. Caring opens a venue to be hurt and affected even more by those who are against you. If there were most schools where the students were surrounded by those who supported them rather than doubted them things would be a lot different.

Imagine This!

            College has been embedded in our culture as necessary for a successful lifestyle. While the options to study once in an institution are diverse, getting to a decent university is the first step, and a challenging one at that.

Imagine this:

            Implementation of an affirmative action bill that is no-longer based on racial and sexual demographics, but instead based on opportunistic demographics. Those who have been discriminated against by high schools can have restored hope and faith in America’s systems by gaining a second chance to receive higher education. Those who qualify do not have to worry about a record, get paired with a specialist social worker advisor for their time at the university, and graduate with a B.A. in anything; which automatically qualifies them for several entry-level jobs at an above-average pay rate that they would not be able to touch with a high school diploma. It would be a system-wide debunking of the social prisons we allow juvenile delinquents to become trapped in. With such legislature being properly enforced, the foundational values of American juvenile justice would prevail.

Sounds dope?

Imagine this:

            An independent university system, powered by the NGOs and compassionate philanthropists of this country, specifically for previously incarcerated youth. A system where the professors, classes, and curriculum are centered around the experiences of America’s bastardized children- focused on teaching them the most beneficial subject matter. English and History courses that were not focused on the West- that instead were focused on people of color, revolutionary minds and times. Mathematics and Science taught in ways that were accessible to all students, not just the ones who were familiar with reading dense and complex textbooks. Learning languages would no longer be dominated by French, Spanish, and Chinese- but Swahili and Arabic. A university for world learners, producing young adults that will able to withstand the pressures of a system going against them and work to create change.

What can you imagine for reformation in our lifetime?

-Judge Juvi

Blog Talk:: Justice in conversation and collaboration

Hello Bloggy Buddies,

I was reading through a couple of the blogs I subscribe to and decided to engage them in conversation. Check out my commentary below and feel free to click the links to direct you to other blogs that have some really good content.

I am a devout follower/believer in Ella Baker Center. This entry focused on the new leaders in Alameda county and their devotion to reforming juvenile detention in Oakland/the Bay Area as a whole.


New and passionate leaders are always exciting-As are models such as the Missouri model (when I first began researching juvenile justice I saw Missouri as the “mecca” in the dark cloud of depressing irreversible facts and figures). I am curious as to HOW they would plan on imitating the Missouri model in Oakland. I have come to understand that generic activism on a large scale tends to lose its effectiveness. Big NGOs such as Red Cross have inspiring mission statements, however they also come with a lot of bureaucratic tape. Furthermore, the Missouri model works…in Missouri. In terms of culture, political climate, and financial status California (Oakland specifically) is very different. Can we include experts who have been in the state into this conversation as well? Instead of trying to improve our own systems by imitating others, we should look to these models as inspiration to create our own. 

I just started following a blog called Reclaiming futures. The entry I responded to was about the costs and benefits of youth in adult prisons vs youth prisons.

              

  Excellent point about long term investment- it is undeniable that the youth are the future. However, how do you suggest we eliminate pretrial detention? As much danger as it puts young people in, as detrimental as it is to the rehabilitation process, what are ways to guarantee that it does not happen? I have read thousands of facts and figures pointing out similar trends and how the current justice system is a large part of why juvenile delinquents grow up to be adult criminals as well and I cannot stop wondering about why it is so. If these facts are supported, widely understood within the general population then WHY have these systems been structured that way? I just finished a short essay examining how the juvenile justice system works within the social, political, and economic realms of American life but I would be interested to hear your hypothesis as to why things have stayed so fucked up for so long.

Third, I responded to a post on prison culture's blog. The entry was about police feeding the Prison Industrial Complex along with different tips/what rights you have in different encounters with the police. I want to print this entry out and post it in every urban community- spread the knowledge ya'll! The only way to beat the pigs is to stay together!!!

THIS IS SO HELPFUL! I want to post this is EVERY hood in America. How useful is it to film interactions with the police? Is that allowed? I feel like visual evidence is stronger than written evidence (though in some cases it is still not enough…#shoutout to Oscar Grant, RIP, we will never forget)
One of my peers and I were discussing the possibility of a bill being passed insisting upon police officers policing areas where they have been a resident for 5 years or more only. The ideology behind it is that those who protect and serve their community best are those that are from that community- they have a greater sense of investment in that community. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts around this proposal or any other suggestions to deal with the corrupt police force other than knowing your rights and recording badge numbers (as we know, this does not always work)