The juvenile justice employees who enforce rules, dole out discipline, offer guidance, and help decide how long teenagers must remain locked up are the foundation of the youth correctional system. Some have criminal records little better than the youths they supervise.
The allegations were straight out of Oliver Twist: Teens said there were maggots in the food — and barely enough of it. Officers choked and punched them. For discipline and diversion, workers organized fights among the detainees.
As women go to jail at staggering rates, Dallas Morning News reporter Cary Aspinwall tapped into her outrage to tell the story of how their children get overlooked.
A group of reporters visits L.A.’s Homeboy Industries and learns what second chances mean for young survivors of gang life.
Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans' remaining gangs into the Central City neighborhood. With this mass concentration of drug traffickers came a bloody turf war, near-daily shootings and a rising body count.
Many New Orleans children come from tough backgrounds and have been thrust into a new school system that’s pushing hard to fast-track achievement.
Two reporters set out to answer a question: Was the horrific death of a mentally ill inmate in a California jail an anomaly or evidence of systemic deficiencies that could lead to more deaths?
Oklahoma's Tulsa County has essentially recreated a system of debtors’ prisons, critics say. Less noted, however, is what happens to the children when parents are locked up in county jail, whether for a few days or several months.
Research by Princeton University sociology professor Sara McLanahan notes that a father’s absence increases anti-social behavior such as drug use and reduces a child’s chances of employment.
Decades ago we made our criminal justice policies tougher, but in a way that turned out to be neither just nor equitable. As the prison population has soared, we've come to realize our justice system is also terrible for your health. And the forces driving lockups and bad health are often the same.
