When Push Comes to Shove, It’s Time to Start an Education Revolution

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It's no secret that America's public education system is failing.  Only three of seven public school students finish high school and many of those that actually graduate come away with a sub-par education that barely gets them to, or through, college. Our children are growing up in a technological boom but learning in a system designed for the Industrial Age. That’s a central message put forward by Dr. Steve Perry in his new work, “Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve -- Even If It Means Picking a Fight,” which turns out to be something of a clarion call for an “Education Revolution” in America. Perry is co-founder of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Connecticut where 100 percent of the students get accepted to college.  He is also a regular education contributor on CNN. All of this has put him on the front line of the movement to improve America's Schools.

Live-Streaming Child Porn: What Your Kids Are Doing With Their Webcams

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If you enter the rooms of teenage girls on Stickam (or any one of the other live-streaming websites like Blogtv.com or Ustream.com), you’ll quickly find nearly-anonymous users who are chatting via an AOL-style chat room with the user who is broadcasting live. Very often (more often than not, actually) teenage girls in these chat rooms are asked repeatedly and aggressively to do sexual things, to strip, pose, kiss, or more depending on how accommodating the girl is to the requests. When given the prospect of attracting more viewers, many of these girls oblige without thinking of the long-term consequences.

The Truth About Bullying

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I’ve been a journalist a lot longer than I’d care to admit (a lot of people mistake me for younger), so admittedly after a while the articles I write sometimes begin to blur together. However, one thing’s for sure: the name Jaheem Herrera will forever remain etched in my mind. I remember clearly the first news reports of this metro Atlanta boy’s suicide in 2009. The images of his mother, heartbroken and sobbing splashed across my television screen aren’t easy to erase. I was honored to be among the first people Masika Bermudez agreed to speak to after her son’s untimely death.

Leonard Witt

Show Me Your Papers, It’s Not Kids Play, It’s UnAmerican

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Martin Castro, chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, while giving a talk recently in Lawrenceville, Ga., made a little joke. He said one in six Americans is a Latino -- he paused and then added that the other five out of six Americans soon will be related to that one. He is correct. Your neighbors and co-workers today will likely become your in-laws tomorrow. Hence, I, and lots of others folks, would argue that any political group that angers the Latino community does so at its own peril.

Richard Ross

Celebrating the Power of the Still: Juvenile-In-Justice Series Premieres on JJIE

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Richard Ross is a busy guy. Catch him, if you can, dashing to, through or from, an airport. He’s always on the go.

But then again, if you plan on visiting 300 youth detention facilities across the nation, taking photos of more than 1,000 young people and administrators, then you don’t really have time to stand around and chat, for long anyhow.

One’s photography does not appear in more publications than you can shake a Canon 5D at -- from Harpers to Architectural Digest -- by being lazy. You don’t sit on your butt on the way to having your photos shown at galleries from The Tate Modern in London, to the High Museum in Atlanta. You don’t loaf around and end up publishing books, such as the Architecture of Authority and Waiting for the End of the World and get them introduced by the likes of John MacArthur and Sarah Vowell, by slacking.

And in between, if you are Ross, well you don’t really have down time, because there’s that class you have to teach at U.C. Santa Barbara.

It’s a good thing he approaches his work with the energy of a teenager, but it’s a better thing that he does it with the practiced eye and maturity of his 64 years. With that combination, comes not only care for his art and what’s in it, but the subjects and subject beyond the images. See it across his body of work.

His latest, and the object of his profound care for the past five years, is a project he calls Juvenile-In-Justice. This is what has taken him to those many detention centers scattered across 30 states. After 40 years of working in photography, he’s turning his attention, and his lens, he says, to the juvenile justice system.

The point of this exercise? He does not even attempt to blur his motivation. It is, quite simply, to “instigate policy reform.”

With his stunning photos it is hard to see how he will fail:

Ross’ work begins appearing this week on this page as well as our new arts page, Bokeh. Twice a week, you’ll see new images of his work on the JJIE site, where a link will take you to a larger body of his work on the Bokeh site. The images, all of youth inside detention centers, will include cutlines telling you enough about the teen for you to get a feel of their, and Ross’, humanity.

Celebrating the Power of the Still: Photography and its Place in Our Lives

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JJIE launches Arts site:
Not too many years ago, the still photo was the domain of the professional and the dedicated hobbyist. Today, when school children routinely have iPhones at the ready, we’ve reached the point where the world is our collective subject, caught from a billion different angles.

And what a glorious addition to our gallery of life’s great riches it is, this daily chronicle of human life, the capture of otherwise forgotten moments, the tally of the small order of life's minutiae as well as the dramatic breaths in time that bring about outcries of emotion, the sparking of movements, the fall of governments.

With so many photos taken by so many photographers, though, the prevailing opinion may be that the art form has been eroded, that the cascade of mostly mediocre images pummels the viewer into disinterest. The riveting scene from a few years ago now ranges from mildly interesting to old hat.

But the truth is, stunningly wonderful photography exists at the top of the populace’s current body of work. These are the images produced by those who know the science of the trade and practice it with a passion, every day. You see their work in the giant metro papers, but also in galleries. The composition, if you will, is there. A nice picture, that on closer inspection tells a story that demands your attention and stirs your emotions.

Today, JJIE introduces Bokeh, what you might call our fine arts site. Here is a place where some very fine still images will reside, along with photo essays and written essays on the art of photography.

Some of this work will include those at top of the field. On Monday, we begin publishing photographer Richard Ross’ work. Ross spent five years photographing and interviewing some 1,000 inmates in youth detention centers all across the country.

Other work on Bokeh (the name roughly means, ‘the aesthetic quality of the blur in that part of the unfocused image’) includes our own. Today, a photo essay, “Saturday in the Park,” by JJIE photographer Clay Duda runs on the site. This is our attempt to capture the voices and thoughts of kids on common, but important, questions of the day. (Click here or see the introduction to the essay below.)

And finally, through our partnerships with groups such as VOX Teen Communications, you’ll see the work of young photographers, the way they see the world and the issues dominant in their lives.

Youth as its subject and the quality of the work are the common threads in the photography of the professionals, the up-and-coming photojournalists and the dedicated beginners congregating on Bokeh.

What you see on Bokeh is meant to be craft, strong and compelling, a home for the best work on the issues of juvenile justice.

We hope you enjoy it.

Leonard Witt

Truth Telling: Civil Rights Era to JJIE.org

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Our Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, JJIE.org, has its roots in part in The Race Beat, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book co-written by Hank Klibanoff, former managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was taken by how important it was for the press to shine a spotlight on the injustices taking place in the South before and during the Civil Rights era. Today that same kind of spotlight must be shone on the juvenile justice system, which, with its share of injustices, remains in the shadows of the collective American consciousness. When John Fleming came our way as the prospective editor of the JJIE.org, I knew he was a kindred spirit who cares deeply about high quality, ethically sound journalism and equal justice for all. That dual commitment is illustrated in his just published essay in the Nieman Reports entitled: Compelled to Remember What Others Want to Forget.

Disney, Take Beyond Scared Straight Aff the Air

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An Open Letter to

Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Walt Disney Company

Dear Mr. Iger:

I know Disney is a large company and you, like Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation, can’t oversee everything. So I want to let you know about one of your company’s investments -- Disney’s one-third equity stake in the A&E Television Networks. Since it is not fully under Disney’s control, maybe that’s why you haven’t been watching A&E’s "Beyond Scared Straight." Certainly if you had, you would have intervened and pulled it off the air, but alas last week marked the beginning of its second season.

Win $100 Every Week During JJIE.org Facebook Contest

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Our digital communication team announced it will run a six-week contest on our Facebook page with a chance to win a $100 gift card and a JJIE VIP Swag Pack. The contest began Aug. 11, 2011 and will continue until Sept.14, 2011. Entering is really simple. Just “like” the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange page (http://www.facebook.com/JJIEga,) answer one question (which is not required), and then tune in to the Ishto see if you won.We've seen a lot of growth over on Facebook, and we'd like you to join that community.

Do you Have Addiction and Recovery Questions? JJIE Wants You to Ask the Expert

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It’s always good to have someone to turn to when you are going through a tough time. And life, as we all know, can be full of those bumpy patches. That’s especially true of the teen years. Toss yourself for a moment back into that tumult of peer relationships, galloping hormones, bad judgment and all the temptations on God’s green Earth. Not so easy for a kid, you’ll remember.