fIRST ARRESTS

FIRST ARRESTS documents the human stories of where it all begins; the first contact with policing and the justice system. These early encounters define relationships with, and understanding of, policing and the criminal justice system.

Between 2013 and 2018 more than a quarter of a million children between 10-12 were arrested, 30,000+ were younger than 10. The number of children that are intimidated, stopped and cuffed without formal arrest, dwarfs these numbers. After age 12 these numbers only increase drastically.

These experiences shape the minds of our youth, setting the foreground for a relationship with justice in some form that causes undue harm. It’s our goal to humanize these stories and tell them broadly. We invite you to tell your own story as part of the larger mission of sharing the story of how youth come to know policing and confinement in America.

I ended up being one of the first female juveniles to be tried as an adult. So I actually went to prison at 16 years old. Fast forward to today, I served 18 years in a California institution. I've been home 16 years, and I let the kids know that I teach now that it's a horrible experience. I cried every day. And if they didn't understand that, I wanted to be able to show them that. They know my main thing is - if I had someone that could have mirrored myself at that time, would I have thought about it? And when I conclude that if I had someone outside of the elements that I was at, most likely I would have [thought about it]. I'm hoping what I do today can help the kids see that that is not the way to go. And there is a way out that's just temporary as opposed to what they really can do.
I know I did something bad, but I had to realize it didn't make me a bad person.
Lakisha.

I was probably like, like nine, and my parents, they struggled with meth addiction, so they were always fighting and someone called the police on my parents for the noise.
I'm just a little boy and I'm kind of just watching my parents fight, you know, I was already kind of used to it cause they, they were this wasn't the first time they were kind of fighting and we just hear knock on the door. And I just remember my mom going outside, talking to them and they bring my dad outside and they kind of sit him 'em on the curb, you know? I don't know what's going on, you know, I kind of do, but I don't know. I kind of put it together that they have a drug addiction when I got older. I just remember my mom getting cuffed up and uh, they took her, they took her to the county jail. And they took me to a foster home. That's the first time I can remember [encountering the police].
Jordan.

I was scared. Honestly, I really don't know what I was thinking. I just know I was scared. Even to this day I get paralyzed, fear paralyzes me. I went to juvenile hall. I was stuck in a cell by myself. I never was put in the general population. I was 10 or 11 then. Maybe things would've turned out different, or maybe not.
I'd been homeless since the age of 10. And, that's when my life changed for the worse. I have to go back in time and figure out what happened, cuz you don't just, you know, one day say, oh, I wanna be an addict or I wanna be this. I wanna go to prison. That just doesn't happen when you're a child and in kindergarten and the teacher asks all the kids, you know, what are, what do you wanna be when you grow up? I had to figure out where my life changed and it changed drastically at the age of 10. I had no, no one to talk to, no one to help me, no one to show me. And so I kind of just went downhill from there. At the age of 18, I got involved with some older gentleman. They were in their thirties, myself and my ex-boyfriend from school, him and I were both 18. We got involved in, involved in a double homicide. And for the next 36 years, I called the women's facility in the state of California home.
That was my home.
Ricki.

So I was 13 years old and my goal was not to break in and steal anything. The goal was to get the cops, for me to be arrested. And so I had a crowbar bang at the back of a big metal door and I knew it wasn't gonna open it. But the goal was, again, to get arrested and I'll tell you why.
All my childhood life on into my teenage life, my dad was absent. He was in prison, but the vast majority of my childhood in teenage life. And so I can date back to around nine or 10 years old, I would have this desire, this yearning feeling that I wanted to go to prison to be with my dad. I idolized my dad with the pictures that he'll send me home of him in prison with the artwork he'll send home. And I visualize that my dad was happy there because he didn't wanna obviously be home with us. And so I found a way at outlet to start working my way towards prison. And that was through anger, violence, alcohol drugs. And at the age of 13, I made my mind up that I wanted to get locked up. I wanted to have tattoos and that happiness that my dad displayed from prison. And so I remember saying, are they gonna show up yet? I'm banging at the back door of the, of the, of the sports shop. And they showed up
I remember hearing the handcuffs clicking for the first time. And at that young age I felt a sense of purpose. I did it. I'm going to jail. I'm going to juvenile hall. Yes. I'm gonna be respected. I'm gonna be looked at as other people look at my dad, like I'm tough.
Victor T. Jr.

The first time Junior got arrested? It hit me because I remember the first time I actually went to juvie hall from the police station. I was scared. I had that, you know, what's gonna happen. I couldn't sleep that night. I thought the worst. I mean, you know. His mom contacted me. I went to go see him that weekend, that visit and I just felt so bad for him. I felt so bad for him. He was totally opposite than I was. I mean, I try to be cool. He was like, happy, be happy being there. You know, it was an odd feeling because being older, his father and everything, you never really think about it. Then all of a sudden, one of yours, a child, was arrested and that all hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember crying the first time I went there, you know, but nobody looking.
He always said he wanted to be like me, but I never understood that.
Victor T. Sr.

I was about 15. they let us out at noon which gave me who was, you know, a teen that was already experiencing with drugs and enjoying the use of drugs and kind of already going down that path. It gave me more of an opportunity to continue that path. I was living with my great grandma. I bounced around from house to house a lot when I was younger. My first arrest came from being out past curfew. That gave them the reason to pull me over and they stopped me walking on the street. And I had drugs on me. I was under the influence and yeah, they, they cuffed me and they took me to juvenile hall. Fear? I think also at that time it was kind of like you kind of felt tough. You kind of felt like you fit in with everybody now because you were officially going and getting sent to juvenile hall and you know, all the people that I hung out with had either already been there or were there not too long after me, you know, I got there and a lot of my friends were there and they were like really happy to see me at juvenile hall. *Laugh* so at first it was fear and then it was kind of like, oh, whatever, like, this is just, this is just the way it is, you know?

Melissa.

By me getting put handcuffs the first time, um, I just felt like it was part of that lifestyle. You know, like if you wasn't good enough to get away with something, the police came and cuffed you up, but there was a lot of times that handcuffs were put on me. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Sometimes they would just put handcuffs on you while you're sitting on the curb. They say for their own protection, you know, even after they checked that you have no weapons on you. But then I look at, I gotta flip the coin and be fair though. It's many times that I've got up and just ran. So I understand, I know.
Robert.

I was 11 when I had my first experience with law enforcement.

They handcuffed me. They threw me up against the wall and my mother's apartment handcuffed me and took me. And I didn't know what was happening. What was going on? They took me. I sat there for maybe six hours. No one told me anything. They took me to a holding cell inside of a building inside the projects on x and x avenue. That was the project police precinct, where you
got locked up in the projects.

Arlene.

I was outside with some friends. We was smoking and, you know, having fun, getting ready to meet up with some girls.
Then the detectives pulled [up], they came on the corner. They grabbed me like out of the bunch of people like me and one other person, they searched us. And then they brought us like down the block to a regular police car that was right behind them. It was somebody in the car that was just pointing us out, I guess. And from that, they took me in, I was young.
They started going hard. Like we know your Crip. Like, they went hard, like I'm 13, 12. They just kept going because I didn't know what was going on. They was like, all right, going to see you in Rikers. It was my first time getting arrested. I never thought it would be like this end to keep in mind. I'm not from this country. I wasn't born here. I was born in Jamaica. So, you know, it's, it's, it's worse out there, but I didn't expect it to be like this when I came here as a child. So when that happened to me is like, it shook, it shook me up. Like it was crazy.
Flex.

And the community that I grew up in, you think like, like the solid ones, like, you know, you think, you think like, man, this is kind of normal of me going to jail, even though I haven't went to jail. So you're not scared or you're not, you're just not even, you're just excited in a way. And you're just like, whatever happens happens, you know? Like, yeah. Somebody tell you a story about it, about their experience, but everybody has a different experience and people have to go through those experiences to be the person who they are to turn out to be. So my first experience, I didn't even go to that day. I didn't even get detained. I thought I was. You have seen them brothers get cuffed and see my sister, I have seen people in the area get cuffed and seen people get arrested. So I know that's how I, like, you know.
Lonnell.

When I was, when I was younger around like seven, if I was not behaving which was commonplace my grandmother would theatent to take me to the police station and like surrender me, and that was the threat. And so we were over at my aunt’s house who lived, maybe a mile or two away from what our house. And she’s like ‘you're not behaving” like “when I’m done, I’m dropping you off at the police station.’ I was like, ‘okay bye’ and I just started walking home… and then the cops came and then they put me in handcuffs for some reason. So I was like seven and handcuffed in the back of the police car walking home. And then I guess they decided that because my grandmother was not able to catch me at the ripe age of 73 or something like that, she was an unfit guardian, and so I got put into foster care. So I was like seven and handcuffed in the back of the police car.
Melody.

I was in the eighth grade. So, if I'm not mistaken, I was like, I say, around 13, 14 years old, early teen stages. And after it happened, you know, it just made me look at life, all types of different. Like instead, if you get pulled over, just cooperate for me. If you know, you ain't done nothing wrong and you've got your dad's cam, don't act out, cooperate with them because they ain't even know. But if you try to go off at the mouth, talk out the side of the mouth, all that type of stuff, that's just going to make it worse. You're adding gasoline to the fire, you know? So, my best thing that I do to avoid all that, you know, I just stay to myself, don't do this for me. I know right from wrong, so it was like, make a difference than me ready to be up in here, you know?
I had my mom behind me. You know, she was there, but you know, it's still traumatizing, but in a way, to me, I felt like she wasn't there. Cause it's like, it's not like my mom could tell them, let me go. Not only was it bad for me, but it was horrifying for my mama. Cause it's like, what if they would've? What if they would have tazed me? Or what if they would have shot me on accident or “on accident.”
Bryce.

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