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The
Organizing Campaign in Los Angles County to End
the Detention and Incarceration of Youth with
Adults
ãWhy would they put children into jail with
adults? We make mistakes -- weâre children and
teens, not adults. If God gives us chances, the
courts should too.ä - Helen A., Youth Justice
Coalition Member at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall,
Sylmar, LA County
My name is Daniel Robles. Iâm 18 and I am a member
of the Youth Justice Coalition (YJC), a growing
movement led by the young people Los Angles has
labeled as criminals, gangsters, thugs, in other
words disposable. We represent thousands of youth
organizing to build peace in the streets, racial
and economic justice in the courts, humane treatment
of all prisoners, and community owned and operated
alternatives to lock-up so we can close prisons
down.
We are fighting to end the detention of juveniles
in Californiaâs jails and prisons. Our first victory
came in July when the LA County Board of Supervisors
voted to close the juvenile module at Menâs Central
Jail.
NO YOUTH IN ADULT JAILS!
Let me tell you about my six-month experience
in the juvenile module at Menâs Central Jail.
I was 17 and sent to County Jail from Juvenile
Hall. I was never told why I was sent there. I
had an excellent record at Juvenile Hall. It was
my first arrest.
I entered the Juvenile Module with the sight of
cement walls and unforgiving steel bars. I entered
my dirty roach infested, urine-smelling cell.
I only walked eight small steps and my walk was
interrupted by the back wall. I had one blanket
and one sheet to cover my steel bunk. No pillow
no mattress at night I froze.
I was locked down for 231/2 hours of every day
for six months. I never knew what day it was because
I had no clock, outdoor recreation, contact visits,
or windows. I saw the sky once every two weeks
when we got 30 minutes of recreation time in a
small cage on the roof.
Visits, when they happened were for 20 minutes
through 2 inches of plexi-glass. Before and after
visits, youâre in a cage and handcuffed in front
of your family. The adults are not cuffed.
The Deputy Sheriffs treated us as if we had three
strikes and were on our way to San Quentin. They
raided our cells two times a month. When they
raided the 42 cells, they handcuffed us behind
our backs and left us in our boxers to sit on
the cold dirty floor for two hours.
Education was in your cell. A teacher came in
two or three times a week and dropped off packets
of worksheets. No education. No explanation.
We were not able to attend any church services;
just plastic crosses.
The Sheriffs held our mail for a month or more
before giving it to us. It just sat there in their
office.
Let me tell you what I learned in the County Jail.
I learned how to make mirrors out of the inside
of a potato chip bag. County ãspreadsä÷Ramen Noodles,
Hot Cheetos and hot water in a plastic bag, mixed
until it turns into a thick paste÷gave me diarrhea,
but were a welcome change from County food. Youâre
so desperate that it seemed like heaven.
I learned how to make weapons by filing down a
toothbrush or rolling paper into a spear tip.
Supposedly, we had no contact with adults, but
the adult inmate who worked as a trustee on my
tier taught me how to rob a bank.
After six months, I had my eighteenth birthday
alone in my cell. At 2:30 in the morning, I was
sent to mainline with adults to a four-man cell.
There I saw inmates set on fire, beat down, and
brutally stabbed.
After I was released, I was very confused. I didnât
know if I was a criminal that would only come
back to jail, or if I was released to do something
positive. I was scared; I still looked over my
shoulder for the first three months.
I felt like I was going crazy because the judge
referred me to a psychiatrist. It seems strange
that the judge that put me in a place that caused
me to need counseling was the same person who
then recommended me to therapy. When I complained
about this to my Probation Officer, he said, ãNo
comment.ä
For girls, the experience is even worse. Noemi
Fuerte was housed at Twin Towers in solitary confinement.
Youth detained at the County Jail are to have
no interaction with adult detainees. But, according
to Noemi, "They say they housed me there
to keep me away from the adults, but they would
leave my slot open. People could see and talk
to me. One time this lady reached in and touched
me. People would walk in on my showers. I complained
and they (the Sheriffs) just treated me worse.
Theyâd take me to the showers in handcuffs. They
never did that with anybody else." Noemi
slipped into a depression so deep that, when lawyers
managed to get her transferred to the juvenile
hall, she says, "I didnât even want to leave
my room."
Craig Haney, is a University of California at
Santa Cruz psychology professor, who has done
extensive work on the effects of 24-hour lock-down
and solitary confinement. "The effects of
this type of confinement are profound and disabling,"
says Haney. "For even the strongest of people,
itâs a test in maintaining sanity."
Until we started organizing, LA County maintained
42 juvenile beds at Men's Central Jail and detained
juvenile girls in solitary confinement or in the
medical ward, despite extremely inhumane conditions.
We protested that youth at detained at the County
Jail were:
- On lock-down in single-person
cells 23.5 hours a day;
- Denied access to an
education program;
- Denied access to adequate
mental health and religious programming;
- Given Friday half-hour
afternoon "recreation time" in a
small cage on the roof of the jail;
- Youth detained at
County jails were as young as 14, and the
vast majority were going through court proceedings
and had not been found guilty of a crime;
and
- The staff at County
Jails are not selected or trained to work
with young people.
We took our concerns to
the LA County Department of Probation and Sheriff
Lee Baca. Probation argued that they needed to
send some youth to County Jails in order to ãprotectä
the other youth in juvenile halls. But, we argued
against that since LA County had just spent $14
million on construction improvements to the halls
including several million to build a maximum security
unit for "high risk offenders" at Sylmar
Juvenile Hall. In addition, all three juvenile
halls have Special Housing Units (SHU) in order
to separate youth who pose a ãsecurity risk.ä
According to Victor Flores, a YJC member recently
detained at Central Juvenile Hall, ãYou can't
escape from the SHUs -- it's impossible -- unless
staff go against protocol. Also, I have known
a few youth who were sent to County NOT because
they were a threat to other detainees or staff,
but because they had minor disciplinary infractions.
For example, my roommate at juvenile hall got
sent to County because he had $10 of weed. Is
that an adult crime? Does that make him a threat
to the general population or staff? Is that a
crime that calls for a youth to be sent to an
adult jail? The answer to all these questions
is NO! And, for the youth who have more serious
charges, sending a juvenile to an adult facility
for a so-called "adult" crime makes
about as much sense as sending an adult charged
with a minor crime to juvenile hall. You don't
punish youth by locking us up with adults. Regardless
of who we are, you are required under the law
to protect us, to educate us, and to prepare us
for when we come home, so we have a future beyond
the bars of a cell.ä
We collected over 3,500 signatures on a petition.
Clergy from around LA County also complained,
as well as State Senator Gloria Romero. Youth
in juvenile halls sent hundreds of letters to
Sheriff Baca, the LA County Department of Probation,
and the LA County Board of Supervisors. We made
Halloween cards with the theme ãIf you think Halloween
is scary, try being locked up in LA,ä and again
called on the County to stop the detention of
youth in adult facilities. But, still no policy
changes occurred.
Then in the spring, two youth tried to hang themselves
with their bed-sheets while locked in their cells
at Men's Central. We believed that these suicide
attempts were a direct result of the conditions
at Men's Central Jail. And the Sheriffâs response
was to take both youth across the street to a
mental health module at Twin Towers where the
isolation became even more extreme. During their
two weeks in that module, they were only allowed
out of their rooms three times a week for five
minutes, so they could take a quick shower. For
the entire two weeks they were kept completely
naked, with no sheets. They were only given a
padded robe for cover up with. One youth says
he was never given an opportunity to make a phone
call to notify his family of what happened. The
other youth says that he was given one phone call,
but could not get through because his motherâs
phone does not accept collect calls.
So, we organized a rally and press conference
in front of County Jail on June 19th, and subsequently
had 17 youth testify before the Board of Supervisors.
Finally, the Supervisors voted to move the detained
youth into a youth facility!
Now weâre pushing the California State Senate
and Assembly to pass a law that would ensure that
no youth shall be locked up in an adult jail or
prison before their 18th birthday. In October,
weâll be marching for RESPECT ö for 42 hours across
LA County, the march route will link all three
LA County Juvenile Halls in order to bring attention
to our demands. We will also be meeting with elected
officials and police whose offices are along the
march route.
LA County is one of the few places in the industrialized
world that continues to house juveniles in adult
facilities. But, the policy of locking up youth
in adult jails and prisons is increasing. The
US Justice Department estimates that the number
of juveniles sent to adult prisons more than doubled
between 1985 and 1997. This practice has been
condemned by the United Nations Statute on the
Rights of the Child, Amnesty International, and
Human Rights Watch.
We know why this is happening in LA. As Michael
Mendoza, 19, one of the founders of the YJC, said
at the rally in June: ãTo society and most people
we are invisible and forgotten -- locked away
in dusty corners of L.A. County behind barbed
wire and concrete brick walls in juvenile halls,
County jails, camps and youth authorities. Weâve
been pushed out of the school system into continuation
schools and probation centers where the teachers
are overworked and under-trained. Books and materials
are in short supply and there are more Probation
Officers than guidance counselors. We report to
probation and parole on a regular basis, and have
gotten used to routine police searches and peeing
in a cup on demand. Almost all of us are poor
and are people of color. We are not terrorists.
Most of us are not armed with bullet lead but
with pencil lead, a pad, the truth and the intent
to revolutionize the injustice we are currently
facing. We are demanding respect from a city that
treats us like monsters, as if our future behind
bars is a guarantee.ä
The Youth Justice Coalition is fighting for respect,
because we have no choice. For us, itâs either
change the system or know that the system will
destroy us.
Hook up with the struggle for YOUTH JUSTICE in
LA. If youâre between the ages of 8 and 24, and
you or your immediate family members are now,
or have ever been arrested, in detention, CYA,
state or federal prison, on Probation, or on Parole
-- then you can become a member of the YJC. If
you havenât been personally affected by the system,
or if youâre over the age of 24, we still need
your support. Become a YJC ally.
Hit us up at the YJC, P.O. Box 73688, L.A., Cali,
90003, or e-mail us at freelanow@yahoo.com. |
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