I’ve been in SEC (Soaring Eagles Cottage) two years for armed robbery. We get to wear whatever clothes we want. Yeah, my philosophy is you should ALWAYS give someone another chance. 

There are eight of us in this cottage. Both my parents come to visit every weekend. My group is stuck here in the dorm room because D.N decided he wasn’t going to class. He got frustrated and went back to bed. He was using the phone last night when something happened. I don’t know what it was. All I know is everybody had to go back to the dorm and he got cut short of his phone time. That frustration carried with him to the next day. My group has had to deal with it. When someone screws up, everybody has to deal with the consequences.

-D.N. age 17

Hillsboro Treatment Center in Hillsboro, Missouri is a maximum-security center. But instead of using razor wire to delineate boundaries they use climb resistant fencing. There is also a dog here, a friendly Alaskan Husky named Buddy Lew after one of the administrators. In the classroom he sleeps at their feet. The capacity in Soaring Eagles Cottage is 12. At the time of visit there were 8 residents. Virtually all of the kids here are African American. Today, as the boys are not leaving the cottage, the teacher has to come to them, She is trying to do fractions on a glass window. The 7 boys are slumped in various positions of lethargy and boredom as the teacher tries to get something, anything across.

click here for more images of Hillsboro Treatment Center

Richard Ross

Richard Ross is the Executive Director of www.juvenile-in-justice.com and Juvenile-in-Justice. He is the principal photographer for the Juvenile-in-Justice project and travels frequently throughout the country to photograph and interview incarcerated children. Ross lectures frequently and has spoken at the Vera Institute of Justice, the 7th Annual Models for Change Conference, JDAI conferences, The Justice for Youth Summit, and many more. He is the author of Juvenile-in-Justice the book which received the American Library Association's 2013 Alex Award. He has been the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Fulbright, and the Center for Cultural Innovation. Ross has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 1977.

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