I am a different person at 20 than the drugged child I was at 13.
When I was 13, my boyfriend and I, we were really, really high burglarizing a house in the desert. The burglary was interrupted… the people came home and my boyfriend brutally murdered them both. I am 20 years old. I came to this room when I was 14 and I have been sharing 7 x 10 feet of space with another woman since. I’ve been eligible for parole, but all four times the families of the victims came and spoke against my release. If it was my family, I would do the same, but I am a different person at 20 than the drugged child I was at 13. Here I head a pretty well-respected women’s fire-fighting unit. We work with local facilities and assist in brush clearing, mudslides and forest fires. I am due for release in four years and three months. I want to be a firefighter.
- Female, age 20, Ventura Youth Correctional Facility, Camarillo, California
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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Katelin Bullicer
Katelin Bullicer says: When I first glanced at this photo and read the description, I thought to myself: “They were right”. By “they”, I am referring to my parents. They always remind me that: “The decisions you make as a child will effect the future you have as an adult..”
And although it’s true (and a little dramatic), the sad fact is how a single mistake CAN drastically change your future. How a single mistake can label someone as bad, without really knowing who that person is, and how a single mistake can make people hate you for who you used to be. People change.
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