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Lawsuit Claims Florida Teen Raped, Beaten in Prison Initiation Ritual
Florida's correctional facilities for youthful offenders are part of the state's adult prison system, and Florida incarcerates more minors than any other state in the nation. Approximately 140 juveniles are housed in detention centers on any given day, and in July 2013 that included a 17-year-old identified only as "R.W."
According to a lawsuit filed on January 17, 2016 by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Florida Institutional Legal Services, a project of Florida Legal Services, Sumter Correctional Institution guard Bruce A. Kiser, Jr. stood by and watched while at least six youths beat and sexually assaulted R.W. in a bathroom in F Dorm as part of a prison initiation rite called a "test of heart." R.W. was cut repeatedly with sharpened pieces of barbed wire, choked unconscious and raped with a broomstick on July 24, 2013. Kiser never reported the incident.
"R.W. suffered a nightmare at Sumter," said SPLC attorney Miriam Haskell. "Unfortunately, his experience is not unique. A culture of brutality persists within the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC), and what R.W. endured is just another example of why children do not belong in the adult prison system." See: R.W. v. Kiser, U.S.D.C. (M.D. Fla.), Case No. 5:16-cv-00045-WTH-PRL.
An investigation by the FDOC's Office of the Inspector General "noted Kiser's inaction" and recommended a review of the incident, according to the SPLC, but Kiser reportedly "was not disciplined for his role in the attack and continues to be employed as a prison guard."
The FDOC had previously settled a similar lawsuit, agreeing to pay $700,000 to a youth who was permanently injured during a "test of heart" ritual at the Lancaster Correctional Institution. Another juvenile died in 2014 from injuries sustained in a comparable incident at a Florida prison for youthful offenders.
Read more: https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2016/may/5/lawsuit-claims-florida-teen-raped-beaten-prison-
Showing posts with label Kids In Adult Jails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kids In Adult Jails. Show all posts
Friday, May 13, 2016
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Oscar Wilde on the Cruelty of Children in Prison
Voices from Solitary: Oscar Wilde on the Cruelty of Children in Prison
by Voices from Solitary
During and after his own two-year incarceration for "gross indecency," Oscar Wilde wrote several works on the cruelty and degradation of prison life. Among them is a lengthy letter to the editor of the London Daily Chronicle, written in 1897 shortly after his release from Reading Gaol and self-exile to France. It concerns the treatment of children in Britain's prisons, including their solitary confinement. Wilde does not specify the ages of the children in question, but at one point he argues that children under the age of fourteen should not be put in prison at all--so it is safe to assume that the children he refers to were younger still.
What follows is an excerpt from Wilde's letter, highlighting those practices that have changed relatively little since his day. Today, children as young as ten can be locked up in the UK, though they are placed in juvenile facilities rather than adult prisons, and solitary confinement is rare. In the United States, on the other hand, an estimated 10,000 juveniles are in adult prisons and jails. There, they are far more likely than adults to be beaten by guards, sexually assaulted, or end up in solitary confinement. They are also 36 times more likely to commit suicide than children in juvenile facilities. --Jean Casella
= = = = =
The cruelty that is practised by day and night on children in English prisons is incredible, except to those that have witnessed it and are aware of the brutality of the system. People nowadays do not understand what cruelty is. They regard it as a sort of terrible mediæval passion...[But]ordinary cruelty is simply stupidity. It is the entire want of imagination. It is the result in our days of stereotyped systems, of hard-and-fast rules, and of stupidity...Authority is as destructive to those who exercise it as it is to those on whom it is exercised. It is the Prison Board, and the system that it carries out, that is the primary source of the cruelty that is exercised on a child in prison...
The present treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people not under standing the peculiar psychology of a child's nature. A child can understand a punishment inflicted by an individual, such as a parent or guardian, and bear it with a certain amount of acquiescence. What it cannot understand is a punishment inflicted by society. It cannot realise what society is...
The child consequently, being taken away from its parents by people whom it has never seen, and of whom it knows nothing, and finding itself in a lonely and unfamiliar cell, waited on by strange faces, and ordered about and punished by the representatives of a system that it cannot understand, becomes an immediate prey to the first and most prominent emotion produced by modern prison life -- the emotion of terror. The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless.
I remember once in Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cell right opposite my own a small boy. Two warders -- not unkindly men -- were talking to him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him some useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer terror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal. The next morning I heard him at breakfast-time crying, and calling to be let out. His cry was for his parents. From time to time I could hear the deep voice of the warder on duty telling him to keep quiet.
Yet he was not even convicted of whatever little offence he had been charged with. He was simply on remand. That I knew by his wearing his own clothes, which seemed neat enough. He was, however, wearing prison socks and shoes. This showed that he was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had any, were in a bad state. Justices and magistrates, an entirely ignorant class as a rule, often remand children for a week, and then perhaps remit whatever sentence they are entitled to pass. They call this "not sending a child to prison." It is, of course, a stupid view on their part. To a little child, whether he is in prison on remand or after conviction is not a subtlety of social position he can comprehend. To him the horrible thing is to be there at all. In the eyes of humanity it should be a horrible thing for him to be there at all.
This terror that seizes and dominates the child, as it seizes the grown man also, is of course intensified beyond power of expression by the solitary cellular system of our prisons. Every child is confined to its cell for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. This is the appalling thing. To shut up a child in a dimly lit cell, for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four, is an example of the cruelty of stupidity.
If an individual, parent or guardian, did this to a child, he would be severely punished. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children would take the matter up at once. There would be on all hands the utmost detestation of whomsoever had been guilty of such cruelty. A heavy sentence would, undoubtedly, follow conviction. But our own actual society does worse itself, and to the child to be so treated by a strange abstract force, of whose claims it has no cognisance, is much worse than it would be to receive the same treatment from its father or mother, or some one it knew...
As regards the children, a great deal has been talked and written lately about the contaminating influence of prison on young children. What is said is quite true. A child is utterly contaminated by prison life. But the contaminating influence is not that of the prisoners. It is that of the whole prison system -- of the governor, the chaplain, the warders, the lonely cell, the isolation, the revolting food, the rules of the Prison Commissioners, the mode of discipline as it is termed, of the life...In this, as in all other things, philanthropists and people of that kind are astray. It is not the prisoners who need reformation. It is the prisons...
http://solitarywatch.com/2012/05/20/voices-from-solitary-oscar-wilde-on-the-cruelty-of-children-in-prison/
by Voices from Solitary
During and after his own two-year incarceration for "gross indecency," Oscar Wilde wrote several works on the cruelty and degradation of prison life. Among them is a lengthy letter to the editor of the London Daily Chronicle, written in 1897 shortly after his release from Reading Gaol and self-exile to France. It concerns the treatment of children in Britain's prisons, including their solitary confinement. Wilde does not specify the ages of the children in question, but at one point he argues that children under the age of fourteen should not be put in prison at all--so it is safe to assume that the children he refers to were younger still.
What follows is an excerpt from Wilde's letter, highlighting those practices that have changed relatively little since his day. Today, children as young as ten can be locked up in the UK, though they are placed in juvenile facilities rather than adult prisons, and solitary confinement is rare. In the United States, on the other hand, an estimated 10,000 juveniles are in adult prisons and jails. There, they are far more likely than adults to be beaten by guards, sexually assaulted, or end up in solitary confinement. They are also 36 times more likely to commit suicide than children in juvenile facilities. --Jean Casella
= = = = =
The cruelty that is practised by day and night on children in English prisons is incredible, except to those that have witnessed it and are aware of the brutality of the system. People nowadays do not understand what cruelty is. They regard it as a sort of terrible mediæval passion...[But]ordinary cruelty is simply stupidity. It is the entire want of imagination. It is the result in our days of stereotyped systems, of hard-and-fast rules, and of stupidity...Authority is as destructive to those who exercise it as it is to those on whom it is exercised. It is the Prison Board, and the system that it carries out, that is the primary source of the cruelty that is exercised on a child in prison...
The present treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people not under standing the peculiar psychology of a child's nature. A child can understand a punishment inflicted by an individual, such as a parent or guardian, and bear it with a certain amount of acquiescence. What it cannot understand is a punishment inflicted by society. It cannot realise what society is...
The child consequently, being taken away from its parents by people whom it has never seen, and of whom it knows nothing, and finding itself in a lonely and unfamiliar cell, waited on by strange faces, and ordered about and punished by the representatives of a system that it cannot understand, becomes an immediate prey to the first and most prominent emotion produced by modern prison life -- the emotion of terror. The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless.
I remember once in Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cell right opposite my own a small boy. Two warders -- not unkindly men -- were talking to him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him some useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer terror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal. The next morning I heard him at breakfast-time crying, and calling to be let out. His cry was for his parents. From time to time I could hear the deep voice of the warder on duty telling him to keep quiet.
Yet he was not even convicted of whatever little offence he had been charged with. He was simply on remand. That I knew by his wearing his own clothes, which seemed neat enough. He was, however, wearing prison socks and shoes. This showed that he was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had any, were in a bad state. Justices and magistrates, an entirely ignorant class as a rule, often remand children for a week, and then perhaps remit whatever sentence they are entitled to pass. They call this "not sending a child to prison." It is, of course, a stupid view on their part. To a little child, whether he is in prison on remand or after conviction is not a subtlety of social position he can comprehend. To him the horrible thing is to be there at all. In the eyes of humanity it should be a horrible thing for him to be there at all.
This terror that seizes and dominates the child, as it seizes the grown man also, is of course intensified beyond power of expression by the solitary cellular system of our prisons. Every child is confined to its cell for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. This is the appalling thing. To shut up a child in a dimly lit cell, for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four, is an example of the cruelty of stupidity.
If an individual, parent or guardian, did this to a child, he would be severely punished. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children would take the matter up at once. There would be on all hands the utmost detestation of whomsoever had been guilty of such cruelty. A heavy sentence would, undoubtedly, follow conviction. But our own actual society does worse itself, and to the child to be so treated by a strange abstract force, of whose claims it has no cognisance, is much worse than it would be to receive the same treatment from its father or mother, or some one it knew...
As regards the children, a great deal has been talked and written lately about the contaminating influence of prison on young children. What is said is quite true. A child is utterly contaminated by prison life. But the contaminating influence is not that of the prisoners. It is that of the whole prison system -- of the governor, the chaplain, the warders, the lonely cell, the isolation, the revolting food, the rules of the Prison Commissioners, the mode of discipline as it is termed, of the life...In this, as in all other things, philanthropists and people of that kind are astray. It is not the prisoners who need reformation. It is the prisons...
http://solitarywatch.com/2012/05/20/voices-from-solitary-oscar-wilde-on-the-cruelty-of-children-in-prison/
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Harsh-Conditions-Young-Lifers
Lack of educational opportunities
“LWOPs cannot participate in many rehabilitative, educational, vocational training or other assignments available to other inmates with parole dates…. The supposed rationality is that LWOPs are beyond salvagability and would just be taking a spot away from someone who will actually return to society someday.”
– Darryl T. (pseudonym), youth offender serving life without parole in California
The federal government and the states should abolish the sentence of life without parole for crimes committed by children, Human Rights Watch said. Government officials responsible for youth offenders should reform confinement conditions to accommodate their particular vulnerabilities, needs, and capacities to mature, reflect upon the harm they have caused, and change.
“Because children are different, shutting the door to growth, development, and rehabilitation turns a sentence of life without parole into a punishment of excessive cruelty,” said Parker. “Youth offenders should be given a path to rehabilitation while in prison – not forced to forfeit their future.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Youth offenders commonly reported having thoughts of suicide, feelings of intense loneliness, or depression. Isolation was frequently compounded by solitary confinement. In the past five years, at least three youth offenders serving life without parole sentences in the United States have committed suicide.
The 47-page report, “Against All Odds: Prison Conditions for Youth Offenders Serving Life without Parole Sentences in the United States,” draws on six years of research, and interviews and correspondence with correctional officials and hundreds of youth offenders serving life without parole. Human Rights Watch found that nearly every youth offender serving life without parole reported physical violence or sexual abuse by other inmates or corrections officers.
Sexual and physical violence
“When I was young, it was disorienting and scary, like a fish thrown in water not knowing how to swim. Everyone seemed big and dangerous and threatening, I was challenged and intimidated a lot. Canines [sexual predators] stalked me, and at all times I expected to be attacked.”
– Tyler Y. (pseudonym), serving life without parole in Colorado
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/02/us-harsh-conditions-young-lifers
“LWOPs cannot participate in many rehabilitative, educational, vocational training or other assignments available to other inmates with parole dates…. The supposed rationality is that LWOPs are beyond salvagability and would just be taking a spot away from someone who will actually return to society someday.”
– Darryl T. (pseudonym), youth offender serving life without parole in California
The federal government and the states should abolish the sentence of life without parole for crimes committed by children, Human Rights Watch said. Government officials responsible for youth offenders should reform confinement conditions to accommodate their particular vulnerabilities, needs, and capacities to mature, reflect upon the harm they have caused, and change.
“Because children are different, shutting the door to growth, development, and rehabilitation turns a sentence of life without parole into a punishment of excessive cruelty,” said Parker. “Youth offenders should be given a path to rehabilitation while in prison – not forced to forfeit their future.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Youth offenders commonly reported having thoughts of suicide, feelings of intense loneliness, or depression. Isolation was frequently compounded by solitary confinement. In the past five years, at least three youth offenders serving life without parole sentences in the United States have committed suicide.
The 47-page report, “Against All Odds: Prison Conditions for Youth Offenders Serving Life without Parole Sentences in the United States,” draws on six years of research, and interviews and correspondence with correctional officials and hundreds of youth offenders serving life without parole. Human Rights Watch found that nearly every youth offender serving life without parole reported physical violence or sexual abuse by other inmates or corrections officers.
Sexual and physical violence
“When I was young, it was disorienting and scary, like a fish thrown in water not knowing how to swim. Everyone seemed big and dangerous and threatening, I was challenged and intimidated a lot. Canines [sexual predators] stalked me, and at all times I expected to be attacked.”
– Tyler Y. (pseudonym), serving life without parole in Colorado
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/02/us-harsh-conditions-young-lifers
Friday, December 2, 2011
From fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2010, Texas courts certified nearly 1,300 youths as adults
Texas judges, particularly in Harris County, are sending hundreds of adolescent, first-time violent offenders to state prison, a punishment lawmakers intended for youths considered the worst of the worst, according to a report set for release today.
“Adult jails and adult prisons are simply the wrong place to hold these kids,” says Michele Deitch, a professor at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs and author of the report "Juveniles in the Adult Criminal Justice System in Texas."
Texas law allows judges to certify as adults youths between the ages of 14 and 17 who have committed felony offenses. Once certified, they are housed in county jails while they await trial and, if convicted, they are sent the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
But young, violent offenders can also be given so-called determinate sentences of up to 40 years that begin in the Texas Youth Commission — and only continue on to adult prisons if the judge determines that is necessary.
From fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2010, Texas courts certified nearly 1,300 youths as adults. During that same time, about 860 youths received determinate sentences. According to the report, though, there was little difference in the criminality among youths sentenced to the adult system and those who were sent to youth facilities. In both cases, the majority committed a violent crime like aggravated robbery or sexual assault, and had one or no previous juvenile court cases.
The Tribune thanks our Supporting Sponsors
In most cases, the obvious difference was where the offender was tried. Harris County courts certified twice as many juvenile offenders as adults as any other county over the four-year time period studied. Judges in Harris County certified 301 youths as adults. Dallas County, by comparison, certified 141 offenders as adults during the same time period.
The problem with sending so many youths to adult facilities, particularly those who are not repeat violent offenders, is that they are not designed to rehabilitate and educate adolescents, Deitch said. Youths who are sent to adult prisons, she said, have a 100 percent greater risk of committing future violent offenses, according to the Centers for Disease Control. They are also more likely to develop mental health problems in prison, to be physically and sexually assaulted and to commit suicide.
As lawmakers consider expanding juvenile justice reforms they started in 2007, and work to keep more youths in community-based facilities and treatment programs, Deitch said they ought to also change the laws that allow youths to spend time in adult jails and prisons. Juveniles should only be eligible for sentencing to adult prison if they have first been through the juvenile system, she said. And while youths are awaiting trial, she said, they should be confined in local juvenile facilities, not county jails that are not equipped to deal with adolescents.
But Bill Connolly, a juvenile defense lawyer in Houston, said it was lawmakers' overzealous reform efforts that likely boosted the number of young offenders being sent to adult facilities. Lawmakers dropped the eligible age for Texas Youth Commission sentences from 21 to 19. When that happened, Connolly said, prosecutors were less likely to recommend that young people get sentenced to youth facilities because they wouldn't have enough time to benefit from the rehabilitation programs that TYC offers. For example, if a young person was charged with a violent offense at age 17, he could be ordered to participate in TYC's Capital and Serious Violent Offenders Program. But the wait to get into the program is at least one year, and it takes another year to complete the program."You don't have enough time to do that," Connolly said. So prosecutors and judges are more likely to send the young offender straight to the adult system if the crime is serious.
Lawmakers have already filed some bills that would address concerns about youths in adult prisons. State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said judges usually only send the worst of the worst young offenders to the adult system and that each case should be examined individually. But he submitted a measure that would allow youths who have been certified as adults to stay in juvenile facilities while they await trial. And state Reps. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, and Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, have filed measures that would limit the types of offenses that would make an offender eligible for certification as an adult.
Ana Yañez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said keeping youths in the juvenile system, where programs are designed to deal with their developing brains and characters, will produce better results and make Texans safer in the long run. “The bottom line is youths do not belong in adult settings,” she said.
Texas Tribune reporter Christopher Smith Gonzalez contributed reporting for this story
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-state-agencies/texas-youth-commission/report-hundreds-of-youths-in-adult-prisons/
“Adult jails and adult prisons are simply the wrong place to hold these kids,” says Michele Deitch, a professor at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs and author of the report "Juveniles in the Adult Criminal Justice System in Texas."
Texas law allows judges to certify as adults youths between the ages of 14 and 17 who have committed felony offenses. Once certified, they are housed in county jails while they await trial and, if convicted, they are sent the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
But young, violent offenders can also be given so-called determinate sentences of up to 40 years that begin in the Texas Youth Commission — and only continue on to adult prisons if the judge determines that is necessary.
From fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2010, Texas courts certified nearly 1,300 youths as adults. During that same time, about 860 youths received determinate sentences. According to the report, though, there was little difference in the criminality among youths sentenced to the adult system and those who were sent to youth facilities. In both cases, the majority committed a violent crime like aggravated robbery or sexual assault, and had one or no previous juvenile court cases.
The Tribune thanks our Supporting Sponsors
In most cases, the obvious difference was where the offender was tried. Harris County courts certified twice as many juvenile offenders as adults as any other county over the four-year time period studied. Judges in Harris County certified 301 youths as adults. Dallas County, by comparison, certified 141 offenders as adults during the same time period.
The problem with sending so many youths to adult facilities, particularly those who are not repeat violent offenders, is that they are not designed to rehabilitate and educate adolescents, Deitch said. Youths who are sent to adult prisons, she said, have a 100 percent greater risk of committing future violent offenses, according to the Centers for Disease Control. They are also more likely to develop mental health problems in prison, to be physically and sexually assaulted and to commit suicide.
As lawmakers consider expanding juvenile justice reforms they started in 2007, and work to keep more youths in community-based facilities and treatment programs, Deitch said they ought to also change the laws that allow youths to spend time in adult jails and prisons. Juveniles should only be eligible for sentencing to adult prison if they have first been through the juvenile system, she said. And while youths are awaiting trial, she said, they should be confined in local juvenile facilities, not county jails that are not equipped to deal with adolescents.
But Bill Connolly, a juvenile defense lawyer in Houston, said it was lawmakers' overzealous reform efforts that likely boosted the number of young offenders being sent to adult facilities. Lawmakers dropped the eligible age for Texas Youth Commission sentences from 21 to 19. When that happened, Connolly said, prosecutors were less likely to recommend that young people get sentenced to youth facilities because they wouldn't have enough time to benefit from the rehabilitation programs that TYC offers. For example, if a young person was charged with a violent offense at age 17, he could be ordered to participate in TYC's Capital and Serious Violent Offenders Program. But the wait to get into the program is at least one year, and it takes another year to complete the program."You don't have enough time to do that," Connolly said. So prosecutors and judges are more likely to send the young offender straight to the adult system if the crime is serious.
Lawmakers have already filed some bills that would address concerns about youths in adult prisons. State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said judges usually only send the worst of the worst young offenders to the adult system and that each case should be examined individually. But he submitted a measure that would allow youths who have been certified as adults to stay in juvenile facilities while they await trial. And state Reps. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, and Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, have filed measures that would limit the types of offenses that would make an offender eligible for certification as an adult.
Ana Yañez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said keeping youths in the juvenile system, where programs are designed to deal with their developing brains and characters, will produce better results and make Texans safer in the long run. “The bottom line is youths do not belong in adult settings,” she said.
Texas Tribune reporter Christopher Smith Gonzalez contributed reporting for this story
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-state-agencies/texas-youth-commission/report-hundreds-of-youths-in-adult-prisons/
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Rodney Hulin 16, Died In Texas Prison:
Rodney Hulin 16, Died In Texas Prison: He Had Been Raped & Beaten Repeatedly
http://www.cfcameri ca.org/index. php?option= com_content& view=article& id=58:if- i-get-out- alive-children- sentenced- to-adult- jails&catid= 11:teens- children& Itemid=14
Teen Sex Offender Issues in the United States
Dad, I'm really scared.
Scared that I will die in here.
-- Rodney Hulin, 16, writing to his father from an adult prison in Texas.
Every day in prisons across the United States, kids are fighting for their lives.
They're locked in mortal combat with adult criminals who are bigger, stronger, meaner and
much tougher. Some kids will survive,
and come out of prison with all the mean, tough survival skills that prison life teaches. Some
kids won't.
Rodney Hulin didn't.
Sixteen years old, Rodney Hulin was beaten and raped so often in a Texas adult prison that
he hung himself in his cell. He lay in a coma for four months, and finally died. Rodney Hulin is
not alone.
IF I GET OUT ALIVE is a one-hour radio documentary, which exposes the systematic abuse
and brutality faced by juveniles in the adult prison system. It is narrated by Academy
Award-winning actress and child advocate Diane Keaton. The program addresses first-hand
accounts from adolescents currently behind bars, rehabilitated youths who survived the system,
parents of children who died in adult prisons, legal experts, policy makers and correction
1 / 4
Teen Sex Offender Issues in the United States
officers. The program also addresses the abysmal mental health conditions in prison and jails
faced by young people (fifty percent of whom, according to new research, are affected by a
serious mental illness) as well as examining alternative sentencing programs that are
successful in diverting young offenders from prison. Across the
United States, tens of thousands of children are locked up in with adults in prisons and jails
every year. This is not only immoral and unwise; it is a violation of the U.S. Constitution and of
United Nations standards. And the threat is growing. Currently, laws are pending in Congress
and in several states that would double or even triple the number of young people in adult
prisons.
If I Get Out Alive is a one-hour radio documentary, which exposes the systematic abuse and
brutality faced by juveniles in the adult prison system. It is narrated by Academy Award-winning
actress and child advocate Diane Keaton. The program addresses first-hand accounts from
adolescents currently behind bars, rehabilitated youths who survived the system, parents of
children who died in adult prisons, legal experts, policy makers and correction officers. The
program also addresses the abysmal mental health conditions in prison and jails faced by
young people (fifty percent of whom, according to new research, are affected by a serious
mental illness) as well as examining alternative sentencing programs that are successful in
diverting young offenders from prison.
Featured People
The voices are from a broad range of perspectives on all sides of the juvenile justice debate. If
I Get Out Alive
will offer a fair and balanced presentation of important personal testimony and objective critical
analysis. Special effort will made to represent the disproportionate impact of these problems on
minority populations.
Among the voices we hear from in the program are:
2 / 4
Teen Sex Offender Issues in the United States
- Rodney Hulin, father of 16-year-old Rodney Hulin, who was convicted of arson in 1995
and sentenced to eight years. Rodney hung himself after 75 days of being repeatedly
sodomized, raped and beaten in a particularly brutal adult prison in Texas.
- Donna Ratliff, a sexually abused 14-year-old who set fire to her home, killing her mother
and sister. Convicted as an adult for murder, she was sent to an adult women's prison, where
she was threatened and sexually harassed, and offered no rehabilitative services. More than 60
editorials in local and national newspapers resulted in Donna's transfer to a more appropriate
juvenile rehabilitation center, where she remains;
- and Mark Soler of the Youth Law Center who has been defending the rights of young
people for more than 20 years.
The tragedies and triumphs that define this issue are emotionally arresting. Previously, most
coverage has been limited to policy debates, ignoring the human and emotional dimensions of
the story. The in-depth interviews will allow subjects to fully express their opinions and thoughts
without being reduced to a sound bite. This program provides an opportunity for the public to
hear stories that often go untold.
For many people, criminals are faceless monsters that "deserve" whatever punishment they
receive.In reality, only a small percentage of adolescent arrests are for violent crimes (6% in
both 1992 and 1994, according to a U.S. Justice Department study). Most juvenile criminals are
misbehaving adolescents in desperate need of guidance and support. Many of them are
suffering from mental health problems that their schools or parents have been unable to cope
with. The hope is that these stories will encourage people to re-evaluate the criminal justice
system they help support with their tax dollars. Effective, alternative correctional programs do
exist and need media attention. Young criminals should be disciplined, but fairly and
appropriately. They should be taught, not tortured. The line between necessary discipline and
cruel and unusual punishment must be drawn.
A Critical Need
There is also a policy side to this issue. Legislation pending on Capitol Hill would dramatically
increase the number of children tried and jailed as adults. Charles Frazier, Donna Bishop and
Lonn Lanza-Kaduce of the University of Florida conducted a study of recidivism which
concluded that "juveniles sent to the adult system are significantly more likely to be re-arrested
than those kept in juvenile court, by almost 30%." Distribution and Marketing If I Get Out Alive
is being distributed over the National Public Radio Satellite System to more than 530 public
radio stations nationwide, with a total of 17 million regular listeners.
Call your local public radio station for the broadcast date and time in your area. If I Get Out
Alive , will also
be available on audio cassette for home use and educational outreach purposes. An
3 / 4
Teen Sex Offender Issues in the United States
educational kit, as with our other radio programs, will be developed for use by public policy
makers, schools, universities and for distribution to local advocacy organizations.
Underwriting
The project is non-profit and all contributions are tax-deductible under the production's
501(c)(3) status through New York Foundation for the Arts. Underwriting for this program has
been provided by:
- The Center on Crime, Communities and Culture
- New York State Council on the Arts
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- The Annie E. Casey Foundation
- The Butler Family Fund
- The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media
- The National Mental Health Association
- The George M. and Mabel H. Slocum Foundation
Information about the production team and advisory board is also available
http://www.cfcameri ca.org/index. php?option= com_content& view=article& id=58:if- i-get-out- alive-children- sentenced- to-adult- jails&catid= 11:teens- children& Itemid=14
Teen Sex Offender Issues in the United States
Dad, I'm really scared.
Scared that I will die in here.
-- Rodney Hulin, 16, writing to his father from an adult prison in Texas.
Every day in prisons across the United States, kids are fighting for their lives.
They're locked in mortal combat with adult criminals who are bigger, stronger, meaner and
much tougher. Some kids will survive,
and come out of prison with all the mean, tough survival skills that prison life teaches. Some
kids won't.
Rodney Hulin didn't.
Sixteen years old, Rodney Hulin was beaten and raped so often in a Texas adult prison that
he hung himself in his cell. He lay in a coma for four months, and finally died. Rodney Hulin is
not alone.
IF I GET OUT ALIVE is a one-hour radio documentary, which exposes the systematic abuse
and brutality faced by juveniles in the adult prison system. It is narrated by Academy
Award-winning actress and child advocate Diane Keaton. The program addresses first-hand
accounts from adolescents currently behind bars, rehabilitated youths who survived the system,
parents of children who died in adult prisons, legal experts, policy makers and correction
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officers. The program also addresses the abysmal mental health conditions in prison and jails
faced by young people (fifty percent of whom, according to new research, are affected by a
serious mental illness) as well as examining alternative sentencing programs that are
successful in diverting young offenders from prison. Across the
United States, tens of thousands of children are locked up in with adults in prisons and jails
every year. This is not only immoral and unwise; it is a violation of the U.S. Constitution and of
United Nations standards. And the threat is growing. Currently, laws are pending in Congress
and in several states that would double or even triple the number of young people in adult
prisons.
If I Get Out Alive is a one-hour radio documentary, which exposes the systematic abuse and
brutality faced by juveniles in the adult prison system. It is narrated by Academy Award-winning
actress and child advocate Diane Keaton. The program addresses first-hand accounts from
adolescents currently behind bars, rehabilitated youths who survived the system, parents of
children who died in adult prisons, legal experts, policy makers and correction officers. The
program also addresses the abysmal mental health conditions in prison and jails faced by
young people (fifty percent of whom, according to new research, are affected by a serious
mental illness) as well as examining alternative sentencing programs that are successful in
diverting young offenders from prison.
Featured People
The voices are from a broad range of perspectives on all sides of the juvenile justice debate. If
I Get Out Alive
will offer a fair and balanced presentation of important personal testimony and objective critical
analysis. Special effort will made to represent the disproportionate impact of these problems on
minority populations.
Among the voices we hear from in the program are:
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- Rodney Hulin, father of 16-year-old Rodney Hulin, who was convicted of arson in 1995
and sentenced to eight years. Rodney hung himself after 75 days of being repeatedly
sodomized, raped and beaten in a particularly brutal adult prison in Texas.
- Donna Ratliff, a sexually abused 14-year-old who set fire to her home, killing her mother
and sister. Convicted as an adult for murder, she was sent to an adult women's prison, where
she was threatened and sexually harassed, and offered no rehabilitative services. More than 60
editorials in local and national newspapers resulted in Donna's transfer to a more appropriate
juvenile rehabilitation center, where she remains;
- and Mark Soler of the Youth Law Center who has been defending the rights of young
people for more than 20 years.
The tragedies and triumphs that define this issue are emotionally arresting. Previously, most
coverage has been limited to policy debates, ignoring the human and emotional dimensions of
the story. The in-depth interviews will allow subjects to fully express their opinions and thoughts
without being reduced to a sound bite. This program provides an opportunity for the public to
hear stories that often go untold.
For many people, criminals are faceless monsters that "deserve" whatever punishment they
receive.In reality, only a small percentage of adolescent arrests are for violent crimes (6% in
both 1992 and 1994, according to a U.S. Justice Department study). Most juvenile criminals are
misbehaving adolescents in desperate need of guidance and support. Many of them are
suffering from mental health problems that their schools or parents have been unable to cope
with. The hope is that these stories will encourage people to re-evaluate the criminal justice
system they help support with their tax dollars. Effective, alternative correctional programs do
exist and need media attention. Young criminals should be disciplined, but fairly and
appropriately. They should be taught, not tortured. The line between necessary discipline and
cruel and unusual punishment must be drawn.
A Critical Need
There is also a policy side to this issue. Legislation pending on Capitol Hill would dramatically
increase the number of children tried and jailed as adults. Charles Frazier, Donna Bishop and
Lonn Lanza-Kaduce of the University of Florida conducted a study of recidivism which
concluded that "juveniles sent to the adult system are significantly more likely to be re-arrested
than those kept in juvenile court, by almost 30%." Distribution and Marketing If I Get Out Alive
is being distributed over the National Public Radio Satellite System to more than 530 public
radio stations nationwide, with a total of 17 million regular listeners.
Call your local public radio station for the broadcast date and time in your area. If I Get Out
Alive , will also
be available on audio cassette for home use and educational outreach purposes. An
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educational kit, as with our other radio programs, will be developed for use by public policy
makers, schools, universities and for distribution to local advocacy organizations.
Underwriting
The project is non-profit and all contributions are tax-deductible under the production's
501(c)(3) status through New York Foundation for the Arts. Underwriting for this program has
been provided by:
- The Center on Crime, Communities and Culture
- New York State Council on the Arts
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- The Annie E. Casey Foundation
- The Butler Family Fund
- The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media
- The National Mental Health Association
- The George M. and Mabel H. Slocum Foundation
Information about the production team and advisory board is also available
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