[This is the second in a series of posts on Santa Maria Juvenile Hall in Santa Maria, California.]

S.D was the youngest of a group of boys who committed a violent crime together. He was 14 years old. Now, several of the others, his co-defendants, have been tried and sentenced. One was sentenced to juvenile life, which remands him to California Youth Authority until the age of 23. S.D, now 17 is facing a sentence of 50 years to life. If it seems a bit unbalanced, it is. It is not unusual for the youngest or least culpable person involved in a crime to receive the harshest sentence. Learn more about this disappointing phenomenon of the justice system in an article from the New York Times: “Less Culpable, But With Longer Sentences.”

Richard Ross spoke with S.D at Santa Maria Juvenile Hall … Read More »

Earlier this month, I interviewed Anthony, a young man who had spent over a year in the California DJJ between 2004 and 2006 and then went on to receive his degree from University of California, Berkeley. (Read Part 1 of the interview HERE and part 2 HERE) His disheartening experiences in the DJJ brought up a multitude of questions about their policies and whether or not the system has changed since his time there.  I called up Jennifer Kim a senior policy analyst with the Ella Baker Center and asked her some questions about the current state of affairs in DJJ facilities. You will be disappointed to learn that much of what Anthony experienced and suffered from is still happening. My interview with Ms. Kim after the jump…

What do you do when someone you love kills someone else that you love? What recourse do you seek? What do you do when the victim is your child, and the killer their lover… someone incredibly close to your family. An article by Paul Tullis in the NY Times Magazine from this week explores these questions through the experience of a family whose 19-year-old daughter Ann Grosmaire was shot and killed by her boyfriend of three years Conor McBride, a young man with no prior record who had even lived with the Grosmaire family for several months. Ultimately, the Grosmaires and the McBrides decided together that locking up Conor for the rest of his life was not what they wanted for either of their families. What they wanted was restorative justice, a lighter sentence for Conor, with more emphasis on … Read More »

Earlier this year, Juvenile-in-Justice images were featured in Campaign for Youth Justice’s report Misguided Measure 11 on Oregon’s Measure 11.