Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Not Guilty directed my attention to an interesting article in the Baltimore City Paper, highlighting the fact that juveniles without parents are locked up more often and longer than children with homes.

3 comments:

CM said...

I read this book about the juvenile court system a few months back, "No Matter How Loud I Shout" by Edward Humes. He follows five cases and contrasts what happens to two kids: one of them, who robbed a guy at gunpoint and tried to steal his car, gets sent home because he has an intact, affluent family and the judge thinks he can turn his life around in that environment. The other kid was present when a friend of his shot someone. This kid had been abused and neglected, and had spent almost his entire life in the foster care system. He got tried as an adult and ended up in jail, because the judge didn't think he had a chance of straightening out.

Anonymous said...

CDOG:

That's a huge surprise. Who would've thought it . . .

WomanoftheLaw said...

I have that book. I haven't read it though because I just read "True Notebooks" by Mark Salzman, and then when I opened Humes's book, I realized that it's pretty much the same book. Same facility, same writing workshop, same units, same beeper billboard seen from the windows, etc... Very interesting stories though.