Juvenile Justice Reformers Driven by Memories of Mistakes in Their Less-informed Past

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Adolphus Graves, the chief probation officer of Fulton County Juvenile Court in Atlanta, was driven to transform his juvenile justice system by the mistakes he made as a young probation officer.
“I was a little wayward and misguided as a probation officer,” he said. “Knowing my times as a probation officer, and how many things I did horribly, or how many children that I irresponsibly, or sometimes just ignorantly, subjected to detention because I had no other tools. ... The recurring theme consistently has been the lack of knowledge, of understanding what’s going on, the depth of what’s going on in a child’s life.”

NY Theater Company Tells Story of Man’s Life in Prison System

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Boots stomped rhythmically on the ground. Angry voices pulsed through the air. A capella voices pounded like a heartbeat, growing steadily faster and louder. The escalating cacophony was directed at the man sitting on the edge of the cot. He held his hands to his head.

Regaining Right to Vote: For NY Ex-Inmates, It’s a Maze

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Marilyn Reyes-Scales, 53, remembers family time in her parents’ living room as a small child, when her aunt and uncles sat with her parents, discussing the views of political candidates and debating each one’s merits. Her parents had moved from Puerto Rico to New York for the opportunity to have a better life, and they took voting seriously.

Traumatized, Locked Up, LA Girls Starting to Get More Help

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Moriah Barrett, then 14, woke up to burns on her body one night along with physical evidence that she had been raped. She had been invited to a party the night before by someone she considered a friend.

Why Are LA’s Foster Kids More Likely to Be Charged With Crimes?

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Social workers “look at the delinquency system as having the power to control these [foster] kids. And the control is they get locked up. They think of that as a traditional method of disciplining the kids.”