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Kids in prison

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Contributed by: William Kus on 5/6/2007

I've never been in a detention facility myself so I wonder if there are enough things to keep people focused.

If the people already had a problem staying out of trouble when they had their freedom, it might be harder to stay out of trouble when you're trapped in a tiny cell.

I think people might be more inclined to behave if there were more immediate goals.

I wonder if there are enough programs for the inmates to take part in so that when they get released they have an idea of where to go from there.

Possibly some sort of school or career planning. Or even help immediately upon leaving the "detention center."

One thing is that the prison and judicial system need to start looking at the kids as kids instead of as criminals. There might even be a place for the super hardcore killers.

I hope they have Xbox's, poetry programs, music programs and other alternative things they can do to cultivate their "soft" sides.

I think the whole culture I have seen growing up is one of toughness, which promotes the type of behavior we see these kids do. All the attitudes and disrespect seems to start all the trouble.

It is always something really small, like you looked at someone the wrong way or said the wrong thing by accident. And each person escalates it because they don't want to back down and lose pride.

But how much pride do they feel being messed with in prison. Hopefully people realize they are better off getting punked on the outside and have their freedom than having to deal with it inside prison, where it's ten times worse.

And usually the guys who were pretty tough in the regular world find out they aren't very tough compared to the guys who been inside for a while. They wish they were back in their soft warm beds at home.

A lot of these kids are probably in jail for doing the same kind of stuff that the LAPD did to the people at the immigration rally. Except the LAPD are getting paid to do this. With our tax dollars no less.

Or maybe they are caught doing drugs, or truancy or tagging. Except if these kids were in a nice neighborhood, they probably could just pay a fine. Instead they are serving time.

Anyways, "juvie" might be a good place to try and get these kids a positive experience, instead of trying to "scare" them. I'm sure these programs exist on a small scale, but the people in prison are basically forgotten.

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