Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s12e15 Episode Script
Juvenile Justice
1
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver, thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week!
Israel attacked Iran, setting off
a conflict escalating as we speak,
RFK replaced the CDC's vaccine
policy advisers,
the pope wore a White Sox cap,
and in Tennessee,
there was this major story.
This morning, a zebra on the run
and in the air.
After more than a week
on the loose in Tennessee,
Ed the zebra was finally caught.
Ed has been causing chaos
and confusion in Rutherford County
since May 31st.
No!
But after eight days on the lam,
officials finally managed to catch
the elusive equine.
Deputies quickly hoisted Ed
into the helicopter harness
before transporting him
to a nearby animal trailer.
Okay, there is a lot to love there.
My only note
is that when you show footage
of the world's chillest zebra
looking bored
in a flying hammock,
you don't call that "being hoisted
in a helicopter harness",
you call that what it is:
"Last Week Tonight" bait.
And in case it wasn't clear:
you got me.
Because look at me right now!
I'm squawking zebra news at you
and Disney isn't even paying me
to do it.
And look, I'd love nothing more
than to spend the rest of the night
exploring questions like, is this how
animals are transported now?
Getting hoisted like an adorable
shipping container, while,
and this is crucial, remaining upright
like they're sitting in a little chair?
But unfortunately, we have to move on
to a story that dominated this week,
the protests against
ICE enforcement raids.
As you undoubtedly know,
last weekend,
ICE conducted sweeping raids
across the country,
as part of an escalation
ordered by Stephen Miller,
a man who despite
all photographic evidence,
is somehow still in his 30s.
Miller reportedly told ICE officials
to "just go out there
and arrest illegal aliens",
suggesting they target Home Depots
or 7-Eleven convenience stores.
So that's what happened.
And from the start, it was a mess,
resulting in scenes like this in L.A.
We have obtained Citizen app
video from this morning
showing multiple people getting
detained by Homeland Security.
It's still unclear how many people
were detained and for what reason.
The man says,
"My friend started yelling, 'ICE',
and I thought he was joking,
but he wasn't.
Then I saw all the day laborers
starting to run.
That is awful!
Someone yelling "ICE" is almost
never going to be a positive thing.
Best-case scenario, you've somehow
time traveled back to 2014
and have to do
an ice bucket challenge.
Something, by the way,
that this guy did,
because he was nominated by,
and this is true,
Mike Tyson, Vince McMahon
and Homer Simpson.
It was a simpler time.
In response to raids like that,
L.A. saw days of escalating protests
as community members rallied
around their neighbors,
something that Trump seized
upon as an opportunity to do this.
I've deployed thousands
of National Guard troops
and hundreds of Marines to protect
federal law enforcement
from the attacks
of a vicious and violent mob.
And some of the radical left,
they say, "Oh, that's not nice."
If we didn't do it,
there wouldn't be a Los Angeles,
it'd be burning today,
just like their houses were
burning a number of months ago.
I know I'm not saying anything new
right now, but he is such a dick.
There is just no reason
to bring up the traumatic fires
that are still very much
on people's minds in L.A.,
for the same reason you shouldn't
open a toast at a retirement party
with, "Only milestone
left after this is death."
Yeah, everyone knows that,
and we're all trying
not to think about it.
Also, it is just so obvious
when he stops reading
and starts ad-libbing,
as the tone of his voice
just completely changes.
I honestly wonder if his speech
writers even write it in now,
if there are places where
his teleprompter just says,
"Do a bitchy little vamp."
A president sending in
the National Guard
without the approval of a state's
governor hasn't happened since 1965.
And it wasn't just Gavin Newsom
who opposed it.
The LAPD chief even said,
"We're nowhere near a level"
"where we'd need to be reaching out
to the governor"
"for National Guard at this stage."
And for good reason.
Because despite a lot
of sensationalist news coverage,
all of this was well
within the city's control.
While scenes like this are being
broadcast prominently around the world,
here's some context.
It's all happening in a small part
of downtown L.A.,
at and around City Hall
and the Federal Building,
where detainees from ICE raids
have been taken,
just a few blocks in a county
of nearly 10 million people.
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass
tells us the extra help is not welcome.
When it comes to the National Guard,
you say they're underutilized,
or just… is it not working?
I'm saying there's nothing
for them to do.
Right!
And why would you send troops
if there is nothing for them to do?
You're just gonna have 4,000
soldiers wandering around L.A.,
swinging by Hollywood Walk of Fame
to go, "Christian Slater?"
"Okay."
Now, there was some sporadic
vandalism and rock-throwing,
and some Waymo cars
were set on fire.
But those were isolated incidents,
not at all representative
of the protests as a whole.
And I'm not saying that those
aren't striking visuals,
I'm just saying,
setting a driverless car on fire
is not the same thing
as assaulting someone,
unless we're somehow living
in the Pixar "Cars" universe,
where burning one is murder and you'd
be condemned to hell by the car pope,
a real character from "Cars 2",
by the way.
Implying there's car Catholicism,
car Jesus, and presumably,
a decades-long car cover-up
of car sexual abuse.
Now, as for the people of L.A.,
they seemed pretty unfazed,
with one writer saying,
"I'd say the collateral damage"
"ranks right above a typical
Dodgers World Series win."
And that sounds about right,
especially considering when
the Dodgers won last year,
fans literally burned a city bus.
So, the federal response felt
completely over-the-top,
especially when you consider troops
will apparently be there for 60 days,
at a cost to taxpayers of roughly
134 million dollars.
And usually when that much is spent
on something completely pointless,
we at least get to see
one of the Avengers in it.
Honestly, much of the violence
and unrest we've seen in L.A.
actually came from the authorities.
There've been multiple incidents
of police abusing protesters.
Members of the press were
also assaulted, and at one point,
Senator Alex Padilla was even
forced to the ground and cuffed
when he tried asking Kristi Noem
a question at a press conference.
The fact the supposed peacekeepers
were escalating the situation
led to ironies
like when Trump posted,
"Arrest the people
in face masks now"
and, "What do these people
have to hide, and why?"
Which is pretty hard to take,
given many of those in masks
were ICE agents themselves,
something Trump border czar
Tom Homan justified, saying,
"They're trying
to protect themselves."
And honestly, at this point,
the only immigration official
that I really want to see
wearing a mask is Tom Homan
and not even to protect
his identity,
just so that I don't have to look
at his fucking face anymore.
He looks like Homer Simpson
photoshopped as a real person.
He looks like someone tried to carve
Andre Agassi's head into a bar of soap.
He looks like
baby Harvey Weinstein.
Look, protesters this week
showed admirable restraint.
In fact, just watch this guy
respond to getting teargassed
with an almost
annoying degree of L.A. chill.
You told me you got caught up
in the tear gas as well.
Describe what happened to you.
Just tasted a little tear gas.
Tasted like fascism.
Has there ever been anyone more
Los Angeles than that man?
Snarky attitude, sunglasses at
night, beanie and sweatshirt in June,
and a perfectly timed
look to camera,
all while looking
like Travis Barker's tether.
And look, who knows
where all this is going?
We're taping on Saturday, during
Trump's big military parade in D.C.,
with mass demonstrations
happening all over the country.
So, a lot could happen between
now and when you see this.
What I do feel comfortable
saying is that,
when everyone was warning
about a slippery slope
to authoritarianism under Trump,
this is it.
Because masked government agents
grabbing people off the streets
and deporting them without
due process is authoritarianism.
Sending in the military
to crack down on protests
against those actions
is authoritarianism.
And the good news is,
polls show there is mounting
public outrage over all this,
as did the hundreds of thousands
of people in the streets this weekend.
Even in Minnesota,
where two state lawmakers
were tragically shot on Saturday,
where authorities suggested it would
be safer if protesters stayed away,
people showed up
in large numbers anyway.
Which is honestly the sort of thing
that gives me real hope.
'Cause we're living through
a time in American history
that'll be remembered for acts
of incredible cruelty.
But I hope it'll also be remembered
for acts of courage and defiance.
Think of this administration like
a loose zebra in the suburbs.
It shouldn't be there.
It makes you shout "oh no" a lot.
But maybe,
if we all work hard enough,
we can contain it until the glorious day
we get to watch it fly off
into the fucking sunset.
And now, this.
And Now: Dads on Local TV Discuss
What They Want for Father's Day.
What do you want for Father's Day?
Another tie.
Some socks. What are
the other cliché things?
Something from YETI, a cooler,
that'd be great.
I hope my family's watching.
Maybe a special outing.
Maybe a gift card. Hint, hint.
Like, I can get my mom
a spa gift card.
Done. That's a spa day for her.
I can't get you guys that.
- Why not?
- You want to go to the spa?
I'll go hang out in the spa.
What do you want
for Father's Day, Charles?
A break from working in the yard.
That's all I'm asking.
Just something basic. I just
want to sit. Leave me alone.
Just leave me with the game.
It's gonna be a great game.
Then later on that night,
my wife will give me
your Father's Day… You know
what y'all do for Father's Day.
Well, I mean, this is "The Nightcap"
I need you to expand a little bit.
Well, typically,
the little blowjobs you get.
- They become not as well…
- Over the years.
- Over the years.
- Yeah.
- They kind of fall off.
- You get maybe one a year.
Then, for Father's Day or your
birthday, you'll get a flashback.
'Cause she'll give you
a flashback on those days.
Then for the rest of the year
you suffer.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns kids. You know, idiots.
They don't know
important adult skills
like how to do taxes,
or have regrets.
Which is why, for years now,
local news has been full
of dumb teen trends like these.
They're apparently bringing back
the Kool-Aid Man TikTok challenge
that first started
during the pandemic.
If you don't remember, it's when
teens mimic the commercial,
pretending to be the Kool-Aid Man,
saying, "Oh, yeah!"
and then bursting
through walls and fences.
There's another popular dare
called the Kylie Jenner challenge,
where the teens put their lips
in shot glasses,
they suck all the air out.
It's called
the banana peel challenge.
The challenge may seem
harmless at first,
but doctors say it could
really lead to serious injuries.
This TikToker drank nothing
but food coloring for 11 days
just to see what would happen.
You may notice
my skin is turning blue.
It should come as no surprise
that trying to turn yourself blue
is not a good idea.
Look, as far as experiments go,
drinking nothing but blue
probably isn't gonna win
a Nobel Prize.
Which is just as well, because we'd
then have to watch a TikTok
called "I ate my Nobel Prize
just to see what would happen."
The point is, young people
can do a lot of dumb shit.
And that can sometimes lead to
them getting in trouble with the law,
something definitively covered
by everyone's favorite character,
Pants Bear.
Pants Bear, where did you
get the candy from?
I don't remember
seeing that earlier.
I forgot,
I got it from the candy aisle.
But did we pay for it?
Pants Bear, you cannot simply take
products from the supermarket.
- That's stealing.
- I didn't mean to steal it.
Help! Oh, no!
Oh no! For those unfamiliar,
that is Pants Bear.
A bear who,
and this is true, wears pants.
Say what you like about the Microsoft
Paint quality of the animation,
that clip falls under my single
favorite genre of entertainment:
British bears
face carceral punishment.
So it was always gonna be
a 10 out of 10 for me.
But the thing is, in the U.S.,
a kid ending up behind bars
for accidentally pocketing a candy bar
actually isn't that much of a stretch.
And that is what our story
is about tonight,
our juvenile justice system.
We've occasionally
touched on it before,
you may remember
in our school police story,
we talked about kids winding
up arrested for "crimes"
like throwing Skittles
or having a tantrum.
That's just one of the many ways
for kids to fall into this system.
And while it's true that some
have committed serious crimes,
far more often, they're in trouble
for things like vandalism, theft,
or even so-called "status offenses"
like truancy or underage drinking.
Basically, crimes that are only
crimes if you are a kid.
You may have even seen stories
like the one about the six-year-old
who went to court for picking a tulip
from a yard at his bus stop.
The point is,
our juvenile courts are busy.
In 2022, the most recent year
for which data's available,
they heard
just over 600,000 cases.
That same year, over 130,000 kids
were detained ahead of judgment,
with an additional 38,000 locked up
as a result of judges' orders.
The U.S. actually incarcerates youth at
many times the rate of other nations.
That's from the Global Study
on Children Deprived of Liberty,
which is not a study you want
to be on the leaderboard of.
It's like hearing a urologist say,
"Single weirdest one I've ever seen!"
That's how ashamed
we should be.
It's a "topping the weird dicks
list" level of shame.
And while we occasionally
get glimpses of this system,
it tends to be worryingly opaque.
Juvenile court hearings are often
closed to members of the public.
Which does make sense, in a way,
it's important to protect kids' privacy.
But in practice, that creates
a dangerous lack of accountability
for the adults in charge.
Because the truth is,
our juvenile justice system
has many of the flaws
of our adult one,
except the people running it
have even more power,
and the damage it can do
is even longer-lasting.
So tonight, we're gonna take
a longer-than-usual look
at two things:
our juvenile justice system,
and the facilities it can,
far too often, funnel kids into.
And let's start with something
that might seem obvious,
but is still worth stating:
kids are not, in fact, tiny adults.
They are, and this is true: kids.
And research shows
that in figuring out who they are
and how they want to behave in life,
kids often engage in "exploratory,
risk-taking behaviors"
"that help them assess social,
personal, and familial boundaries."
Or, to put it another way…
Part of adolescence
is testing the limits
and part of adolescence is not having
the brain functioning to understand,
"Gee, if I do that,
it's gonna get me in trouble."
Right. Kids are good at testing limits
and bad at weighing consequences.
Sort of like a puppy, or
a pre-"Iron Man" Robert Downey Jr.
And we've long understood
that kids need a system
that takes their still-developing
minds into account.
It's part of the reason why
a separate court process
was created for them back in 1899.
And just watch this 1940s film
"Boy in Court",
which tells the story of a 15-year-old
boy who helped steal a car.
Johnny and 200,000 other youngsters
who are arrested each year
are America's number one
crime problem.
Can't something be done
to help these twisted young
lives and set them straight?
Yes, something can be done.
Something is being done.
Many communities believe
that good juvenile courts
with well-organized
probation service
can make good citizens
out of wayward youth.
Fortunately, Johnny lives
in a community which has such a court.
Yes, luckily, Johnny lives
in a community with a juvenile court,
as opposed to
the other kind of community,
where wayward children
are sent into the maze.
No judgment, both are good options,
whether you're talking
about rehabilitation or the maze.
In that film, Johnny gets
sent to probation,
and his probation officer guides him
toward youth sports.
It's a process that
all culminates in this happy scene.
Well, Johnny, Mr. Benton tells me
you don't need probation anymore.
You made good. I guess you won't
steal any more automobiles, will you?
- Gee, that was dumb, wasn't it?
- It certainly was.
Well, that is nice. Although,
is that kid actually reformed?
Hair slicked back, sharp suit,
he may've just been upgraded
to a higher class of crime.
Stealing cars was a fool's game,
Your Honor.
I won't do that again, or my name
isn't little Bernard Madoff.
But obviously, court never
worked that way for everyone,
and definitely doesn't
for many kids today.
One investigation into this system
has likened it to Plinko,
the "Price Is Right" game where
a chip can fall any number of ways,
depending on what it hits
on the way down.
And that is basically true here,
at every stage,
factors beyond a kid's control can
propel them to different outcomes.
And unfortunately, many kids have
no idea how to navigate this system
or even
what their basic rights are.
For instance, if a young person
is being interrogated by police,
research shows they waive their
Miranda rights at extremely high rates,
as high as 90%,and may not
understand the consequences of that.
Take this woman,
who was arrested at 15 years old
and unknowingly signed
away her right to an attorney.
She ended up getting sent
to a youth facility,
where she met another kid who'd been
through the same court that she had
and they realized they'd both been
denied something pretty important.
I said to my friend, I said,
"Man, did you have, like, a lawyer?"
And she was like,
"No, nobody has lawyers."
And I was like, "But haven't
you seen 'Law & Order?'
Like, everybody has lawyers,
you're supposed to have a lawyer.
If you don't have a lawyer, you get
one assigned to you. Isn't that…
She's like, "I guess it doesn't
work that way for kids."
That is ridiculous,
every kid in court should at least
have access to the stuff they have
on "Law & Order".
Which, as we all know,
is a lawyer, two quippy detectives,
a guy only loosely connected
to the case but played
by a suspiciously high-profile guest
star so you know that they did it,
a dead body being played by a Tisch
graduate getting their big break,
and as always, an abrupt
smash cut to the name…
Exactly.
You know, the usual.
Now, without access to an attorney,
she ended up being sentenced
to three months in a youth facility,
with six months' probation,
all for the crime of "harassment",
which, incredibly, consisted entirely
of making this Myspace page
mocking her school's vice principal.
And if you're wondering
how on Earth a kid wound up
getting locked up over that,
it's because the judge decided that
she should be. That is the whole reason.
Because in most cases,
when a kid goes to trial,
there is no jury, meaning the judge
has sole discretion
in deciding the fate of that child.
And, to be fair,
some use that power judiciously,
to dismiss or "divert" cases,
which can take many forms,
including writing an apology letter,
doing community service,
or participating in counseling
or treatment for substance abuse.
But judges can also go
the other way,
placing kids in a youth facility,
or even kicking their case
up to adult court.
We do that
for over 50,000 kids a year,
which is actually down from its
peak of 250,000 in the mid-'90s,
when there was a lot
of bullshit fearmongering
about so-called teenage
"super-predators".
Back then,
sending kids to adult court
was actually a popular campaign
promise for judges like this guy.
As judge,
if given the opportunity to try
a juvenile offender as an adult, I will.
If you're a teen
and convicted of murder, rape,
or violent crimes against
our children or the elderly,
you can expect that I will impose
the maximum sentence allowed by law.
Mark Ciavarella,
a judge to protect all of us.
Okay, I have
a lot of questions there,
starting with: what on Earth
is he walking in front of?
That setting doesn't scream
"I'm a noble warden of justice"
as much as "my homemade 'Ninja
Warrior' training course fell down,"
"so this is my backup career plan."
Ciavarella was the judge who sentenced
that girl to three months behind bars
over a Myspace page.
And she wasn't alone.
Over a five-year period,
he and another judge
routinely committed juveniles
to two private detention centers,
in many cases giving out lengthy
sentences for minor infractions.
Which sounds bonkers,
until you learn
they allegedly received massive
payouts from those centers,
totaling over 2.7 million.
It's a scandal that later became
known as "kids for cash".
And when it all came out, the outcry
tended to focus on the "cash" part.
But to be clear, funneling kids
into those facilities,
even for free, is not okay.
Especially when you learn some
of those minor infractions included
"smoking cigarettes
on school property",
"opening a yo-yo
in a convenience store",
"pranking a schoolteacher
by hiding her purse"
and "stealing a Hershey bar".
Which, I'll remind you,
is the exact crime
Pants Bear committed,
and we all know what
happened to him.
Help! Oh no!
Oh yes, Pants Bear!
In hindsight, you're just lucky
you didn't get tried as an adult!
And the fact judges
have so much discretion
means their individual biases can have
a huge impact on sentencing.
And one of the most glaring
impacts is the racial disparities
in who gets sentenced to what.
46% of kids who get
incarcerated are Black,
even though Black kids comprise
only about 15% of the nation's youth.
It's a discrepancy that this head
of a New Orleans juvenile center
points out
with some heavy sarcasm.
They're all African American,
Black, young Black kids.
Today, my population's 100%,
yesterday, my population was 100%.
My population is about 100%
most of the time I've been here.
We have an anomaly in Orleans Parish
in that white kids
don't go to detention.
Apparently, they don't commit
car burglaries.
Apparently, they don't get in
school fights and commit assaults.
Apparently,
they're not selling drugs,
'cause if they are, they're not
winding up in detention.
Okay, any time the population ends up
100% all one race, something is up.
That doesn't happen by chance.
Even at a Black wedding,
in a Black church,
somebody's got a work friend.
There are so many stories
of kids who faced
starkly different repercussions
for the same activities.
Take Eric, a 13-year-old boy
who was watching a movie
and saw someone
with a Molotov cocktail.
He thought it was "cool"
and wanted to see if he could make
something that looked like that,
so he grabbed an empty bottle and
filled it with household products,
then he taped it up with black tape
and put toilet paper under the cap
which, importantly,
is not a Molotov cocktail,
just a bottle that looks like one.
He left it
in his backpack by mistake,
and brought it to school,
where he was pulled out of class,
questioned by police, arrested
and charged with possession
of a Molotov cocktail,
which he did not have, attempted
arson, which it could not do,
and carrying a dangerous weapon
which, again, it wasn't.
Eric is Black. And when his lawyer
told that story at a conference,
a white woman
walked over and said,
"My son did exactly
what you described",
though crucially, he faced
a very different punishment,
as his school
"rearranged his class schedule"
"so he could take
a chemistry course."
And there's just no clearer
disparity in punishment
than the one between "gets arrested"
and "gets class credit".
And to see just how naked
these differences can get,
look at Rutherford County, Tennessee,
where Black children make up
around 16% of the local population,
but from 2010 to 2021,
they accounted for 38% of those
locked up by the county.
And at that rate,
you'd almost think
they were making up reasons
to put Black kids into detention.
Well, guess what?
All right, well, in Tennessee,
a judge under fire
for illegally jailing Black kids
for watching a fight back in 2016.
The alleged crime,
listen to this:
"criminal responsibility
of conduct of another."
One of the problems:
that's a fake law.
Yeah! "Criminal responsibility
for conduct of another"
is not an actual charge.
And you can't just invent reasons
to arrest people you don't like.
Personally, I'd love to put whoever
thought a cologne should be sponsored
by Johnny Depp in jail.
You have chosen one
of the only men on Earth
who looks like he constantly smells
like feet and ayahuasca.
That feels like a crime to me.
But at least
I acknowledge that it isn't one.
In the end, 11 elementary school
children were arrested.
And this all happened
under a juvenile system run
by Judge Donna Scott Davenport,
who had set up a process under which
"even kids accused of minor violations"
"must be taken into custody
and transported to jail."
And to hear her tell it,
she was just doing what was necessary
to stamp out
a wave of youth crime, saying,
"We are in a crisis with our children
in Rutherford County."
"I've never seen it this bad."
and calling herself
the "mother of the county."
I guess, in the sense that the queen
from "Aliens" was a mother,
sure, I will allow it.
Davenport even had a radio segment
where she'd talk about
how she had no choice
but to do what she was doing.
I've locked up one seven-year-old
in 13 years,
and that was a heartbreak.
But eight and nine-year-olds,
and older, are very common now.
Okay. I'm not a judge.
I'm not a criminologist.
My expertise is mainly
in sitting behind a desk,
digesting lactose poorly
and telling you which
of these guinea pigs can get it.
From left to right:
yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
That's a full house, ladies.
But I am confident in saying
that if putting eight and
nine-year-olds behind bars
has become "very common" for you,
maybe you are the one
who should be in fucking prison.
The point is,
which judge you get
is one of the big variables in
the Plinko board of your case.
The next is what sort
of punishment you get.
Because if a judge doesn't opt
for leniency,
they have a number
of tools at their disposal,
including putting you on probation.
That's the thing that
little Johnny got earlier.
Some judges will give kids probation,
either instead of locking them,
or for a time after.
And on its face, it sounds better.
Kids get to stay at home,
and at least theoretically,
get access
to community-based support.
The terms can be so easy to violate,
they can still end up behind bars
for what amounts
to standard teenage behavior.
A few years ago,
there was a case in Michigan
involving a girl called Grace.
She'd been sent before a judge
for stealing at school
and fighting with her mother,
and she was sentenced to, quote,
"intensive probation."
Which included a GPS tether, regular
check-ins with a court caseworker,
counseling, no phone,
and the use of a school laptop
for educational purposes only.
She was also required
to do her schoolwork.
But this was all happening at
the start of Covid and remote school,
which, as we all know,
was very difficult for some kids.
Grace lost some of the support
that she'd been getting at school
and missed some assignments,
and before long, she was handcuffed
and locked up, because
she hadn't done her homework.
The judge called her
a "threat to the community",
a characterization
that Grace strongly disputes.
Do you feel that at any point you've
been a threat to the community?
No, because if we called every person
who's taken something
or every person who's got
into an argument with their mom
a threat to the community,
like, I'm pretty sure
everybody would be
a threat to the community.
Exactly, that clearly
doesn't make sense.
Because if she'd done her homework,
she wouldn't
have been considered a threat,
but the second she missed
a worksheet,
suddenly,
she's Tony fucking Montana.
Studies have found
that juvenile probation
is at best deeply ineffective,
and "at worst, it leaves kids
more likely to recidivate."
And yet, the sad truth is,
it is still preferable
to the harsher alternatives.
Which brings us to the second part
of this story: youth incarceration.
Essentially, locking kids up.
That might mean
a juvenile detention center where
they await trial, like a jail.
Or a long-term facility
after they've been sentenced,
akin to a prison.
But a lot of these facilities don't
like using terms like "jails"
or "prisons," preferring to go
by "state schools"
or "academies"
or "youth centers".
But as this interview with the woman
who oversaw this facility makes clear,
those euphemisms are not fooling
anyone actually inside one.
Taylor calls itself a "center",
the state lists it
as a "correctional facility".
The leadership calls the juveniles
"clients", not inmates.
One of the young men
I talked to today said,
"They call us 'clients,' but we're
not clients, we're prisoners."
"You can call it whatever you want,
you're in a prison."
Does he have a point?
Well, we do still
control their movement.
They are still certainly
in an environment
that we are in control
of and they're not,
and that probably feels like prison.
And you have barbed wire.
And doors that lock.
- In front of you and behind you.
- Yes.
One of the toughest
things, for my job certainly,
is to always balance the needs
of the client and public safety.
Okay, putting aside the use
of the word "client" there,
it "probably feels like prison?"
Yeah, of course it does,
it's fucking prison!
Lots of people feel like prisoners,
but they actually aren't.
You know, people trapped
in loveless marriages
or a cameras-on work call,
or a studio audience
where the subject of the alleged
comedy show is "Kid Prisons",
but when there is barbed wire
and kids locked up in a cell,
it's not just a feeling,
it's a reality.
Because whatever you call these
facilities, once you're inside,
it is painfully clear what they are.
From the outside,
it looks like an office building,
but go inside
and it looks like a prison.
These are single-occupancy cells.
But look closer.
This haunting picture
shows who's inside,
children barely
taller than door handles.
Jesus Christ. And honestly?
Props to that kid
for turning the creepy factor
up to 1,000.
He saw someone
with a camera and said,
"Let me show you assholes
what it is actually like in here."
Because that looks
exactly like an adult prison.
And typically, we tend to try
and tone things down
if they're designed for children.
It's the entire business model
behind Kidz Bop.
And Kidz Bop takes a lot of shit,
but who else is changing
the Macklemore lyric in "Thrift Shop,"
"probably shoulda washed this,
smells like R. Kelly's sheets"
to "probably should've washed this,
smells like my baseball cleats?"
No notes.
12 states have no minimum age
to be sent to one of these facilities.
And some others
set the age at seven or eight.
Which is horrifying enough,
even before you discover
what it can be like inside them.
Just listen to this mother describe
the conditions of a facility
that her son was kept in
in Michigan.
They have flooding from sewage.
My son literally called me
and said,
"Ma, there's literally poop…"
I can't say the word he said,
"floating through
the hallways, urine and feces."
I really appreciate that she's going
out of her way to be polite there,
but if your child tells you they're
living in a state-sanctioned shit river,
you should absolutely be allowed
to curse on local news.
In fact, it should be
actively fucking encouraged.
One employee
at that facility even said,
"I would sell my soul if it was
my kid in there to get them out",
because the conditions are so bad.
While that facility has since closed,
there are similar stories of unsanitary
conditions all over the country.
And the thing is, these places
are supposed to be rehabilitative.
But basic services like mental health
counseling can be non-existent.
It's estimated that up to
70% of youths in the justice system
have a diagnosable
mental health problem,
but as few as 20% of them ever receive
mental health services in there.
As for education services,
they are not much better.
A child in South Carolina
reported receiving
only a single day of education
over the course of nine months.
And a lawyer in Michigan said
her young clients
didn't have anything to write with
to complete the schoolwork
packets that they were given,
and a mother there said that her
son hadn't been attending school
at the facility, but instead, had
received a word search to complete.
And clearly that is not
an adequate education.
Although, for the record,
that is also the only time
that you'll ever find me
bad-mouthing word searches,
because that shit is fun.
A letter mystery where your eyes
are the detectives? Don't mind if I do.
I'm a word slut who loves to be right.
Up, down, backwards, diagonal.
It's Cirque de Soleil for your mind.
And when you find a word
that is not only diagonal,
it's backwards, honey? Honey?!
Fuck me stupid, I'm wet for that.
It is hardly surprising
researchers have found
that detained students have
significantly worse academic outcomes,
with one study in Washington finding
only 16% of detained students there
graduated from high school, compared
to 72% of non-detained students.
And it's not just lousy buildings
or a lack of services.
There is also physical violence,
sometimes
actively encouraged by the staff.
30 L.A. County officers charged,
accused of staging what prosecutors
are calling "gladiator fights"
inside a juvenile detention center,
after video of one of those fights,
first obtained and published
by the L.A.Times last year
helped trigger an investigation.
Parents of one of the teens speaking
with NBC Los Angeles
horrified at the footage.
They say the guards appear
to do nothing to help,
even appearing to shake hands
with one of the boys who hit him.
That is horrifying.
Even the Roman emperor
who invented gladiator fights,
whoever that was,
would look at that and go,
"What the fuck is wrong with you?
Also how did you get it"
"to be light in there without a fire?
Also, what am I watching this on?"
"But mostly, what the actual fuck
is wrong with you?"
And staff can be active
participants in abuse.
There've been multiple reports
of staff at facilities doing things
like withholding sanitary pads,
or allegedly withholding
prescribed medications
as collective punishment.
And I won't even get into
all the many examples
of physical abuse that we found
researching this story,
suffice to say, a guard at one
facility in Florida
apparently beat his detainees
with a broomstick
that he'd nicknamed "Broomie".
And if all that wasn't bad enough,
which it very much is,
some facilities
also use solitary confinement,
which, as we've discussed
before, is widely considered torture.
For kids and teenagers in particular,
"prolonged isolation can cause"
"or exacerbate mental disabilities or
other serious mental health problems."
And yet, it has been used routinely.
There've been reports
of kids kept in isolation for 22
hours a day or more, often for days,
weeks, or even months on end.
Just listen to this man who went
through Judge Davenport's facility
as a teenager explain
how he wound up in solitary.
Me and my best friend,
we had gone out at night
and we had opened up
some unlocked cars.
They didn't steal the cars,
but they did take some change.
It was a non-violent offense.
But Dylan was held in solitary
confinement for four days
waiting to see a judge.
Four days doesn't sound like a lot
until there's absolutely nothing to do.
I mean, just go shut yourself
in a closet for four days
and you'll know what I mean.
Yeah,
that would absolutely be torture.
You try shutting yourself
in a closet for four days.
You will quickly lose your mind.
Sure, you'll maybe initially
check the back to see if you've got
any chance of a "Narnia" situation.
But even then, you're dealing
with some needy talking animals
and some pretty heavy-handed
Christian allegory.
You might be better off on your own.
And remember,
that wasn't even his punishment,
he was waiting to be seen by a judge.
And this happens all the time.
Though some facilities
won't use the term "solitary",
instead call it "seclusion, isolation,
segregation, or room confinement."
One even sent kids to what they
called "reflection cottages",
which honestly sounds
like a place on "The Bachelor"
where the contestants
go to masturbate.
And some facilities can be
pretty shameless about this.
Take the Richard L. Bean center
in Knoxville.
It's known
to lock kids alone in a cell
more than
any other facilities in their state.
And here's its head and namesake,
Richard Bean,
laying out his general philosophy
when it comes to juvenile detention.
And used to we'd paddle kids.
1986, we stopped when
the state ruled you couldn't.
And had a lot of problems
since then,
we didn't have any problems then.
They thought I was about half crazy.
I'd whip six or eight a year
and it run pretty smooth.
What we do is treat everybody
like they're in here for murder.
You don't have
any problems if you do that.
You know what?
I do have a problem, actually!
And it's not just
that your name is Dick Bean,
or that you have a literal kid jail
named after you.
It's not even
that you smack your lips
like you're recording ASMR
for sociopaths.
It's that you should not treat every
child in your care like a murderer!
And for the record, most
of the kids in Dick Bean's facility
are not yet convicted of anything!
Most have only been charged with
a crime and are awaiting court dates.
And yet, kids have been
put in solitary there
for things like talking back and
forgetting to bring books to class.
But when local news spoke
to the center's board chairman,
he saw nothing wrong with
what they were doing.
It's not like we're putting them
in a cage somewhere.
They're in their normal bedroom.
It's their bedroom.
This is the solitary confinement.
It's just, you go to your room.
What are you laughing at there,
you deeply weird man?
The only way that playful giggle
makes any sense
is if, just out of frame,
a Keebler elf was tickling
his balls with a feather.
And while this is by no means
the point,
I just want to take a minute to address
the episode of "Hoarders"
happening behind this man.
What is going on in that room?
I count four American flags, one
aquarium for hanging dress shirts,
two bookends
with no books between them,
a whole collection of elephants,
one Trump doll, one Obama doll
that either evens things out
or makes things much worse,
one portrait of Richard Nixon,
and one actual Richard fucking Bean!
What are you doing back there, Dick?
Sit anywhere else!
You're too old to be lurking
in the background without suggesting
some kind of "Weekend at Bernie's"
situation's happening.
Tennessee's Department
of Children's Services
has been documenting
the improper use of seclusion
at the Bean Center for years,
and yet,
they've continued to approve
their license to operate.
And while Richard Bean himself
is finally retiring later this year,
in the wake of yet
another scandal at the facility,
he's doing so at age 84, and not
only will the facility stay open,
this deviled egg is still
the head of the board there.
And that is the thing here.
Nothing I've brought up tonight
is new information.
We've known about abuse in juvenile
confinement facilities for decades.
And it's worth remembering
that if public safety is your priority,
locking kids up by the hundreds of
thousands isn't the answer to that.
Detention actually increases
the likelihood that youth
will be arrested
and punished later on.
One study in Washington state
found that
"every additional day spent
in detention increased the odds"
"of felony recidivism
by one percentage point."
Meaning that locking kids up,
over the long run,
makes no fucking sense,
as this critic of New Jersey's
system points out.
95% of kids who are locked up here
are Black.
Brothers, you matter to us!
At a cost of more than
250,000 per kid per year.
More than an Ivy League education.
Much more per year,
much more than four years
of an Ivy League education, and that
youth coming out of these places
re-offend at a rate that exceeds 80%.
So, we know we're buying
a whole lot of failure
for a whole lot of money.
Yeah. On top of everything else,
this nightmare
is not even cost-effective!
I can actually recommend a book
that talks more about that.
It's "The Purely Economic Argument
Against Ad Hoc Child Torture,"
"You Know,
If That's Something You Needed."
The truth is, we don't do this
because it works.
Because it doesn't.
We do this because we want to.
Because we're afraid of these kids,
or we're mad at them,
or we just can't imagine
that they could be ours,
and so we don't give a shit.
There's even a pervasive sense
that whatever happens to these kids
in these facilities,
it's somehow what they deserve,
even if what happens to them
is horrifying.
Kids in Louisiana's Ware Youth
Center reported enduring,
among many other terrible things,
sexual abuse from guards
as the price for phone privileges
or in exchange for food.
Despite a horrendous pattern
of abuse there,
the DA had only prosecuted three
guards in her 13 years in office
and even then,
gave them all plea bargains
to keep them out of prison
and off sex-offender registries
because she said she did
"not like the idea"
"of burdening someone with
a charge that they did not deserve."
And when asked if the cases
made her concerned
about the safety of children at that
facility, she responded,
"We're talking about armed
robbers and murderers."
"And these girls haven't even hit
the age of 18 yet, some of them."
"Do I worry about their safety?
No, I don't."
"I think that they're quite capable
of taking care of themselves."
And it is pretty telling who she's
comfortable reducing to a label there.
"These murderers
are fine on their own,"
"but let's not call these poor sex-
offending guards 'sex offenders!'"
"They have their whole life ahead
of them! They can change!"
That kind of indifference is sadly
all too common throughout this system.
And if you want to see the tragic
consequences of it,
from start to finish,
take the case of Solan Peterson,
a 13-year-old who was arrested
after an incident at his school.
His parents asked that he go
to a mental health facility,
but instead he was sent
to a juvenile detention center,
as it happens, the same one where
those guards were abusing girls.
While there, Solan disassembled
the light in his cell
and was sent to isolation.
Under Louisiana state rules,
isolation shouldn't exceed
four hours.
Solan was kept in isolation
for four days.
At one point, he reportedly told
a guard that he wanted to die,
to which the guard replied,
"If you want to be killing yourself,
just do it."
And I'll let this news story
pick things up from there.
Solan took his own life
in solitary confinement
at the Ware Youth Center
in Coushatta.
The 13-year-old was there because
he'd set a roll of toilet paper on fire
at Houghton Middle School.
Solan's death raised serious questions
about whether he should have been sent
to Ware in the first place.
He had no criminal history and was
battling PTSD and ADHD
with the help of new medications.
We feel very confident in knowing
that if Solan had lived
15 miles in the opposite direction, he
would not have been in this situation
because the judge in that jurisdiction
would have made
a different choice for his case.
Yeah, that is heartbreaking.
And yet, the Ware Youth Center
remains open.
And if you're thinking, "How can
a system treat kids like this?"
I'd argue it's what happens
when too many of us
stop thinking of them as kids.
Some of whom may have
done terrible things,
many of whom haven't
and none of whom deserve this.
'Cause look, we've all done
stupid things in our youth.
Maybe you shoplifted
or committed vandalism,
or roasted a teacher online,
or got in a fight, or, God forbid,
opened a yo-yo
in a convenience store,
any of the things that you've heard
kids get in trouble for tonight.
And maybe you didn't face
lasting consequences,
but it's worth
remembering that,
but for the variables of race,
or class,
or how the Plinko chip
happened to fall,
things could've ended
very differently for you.
So, what can we do? I would argue
the whole system I've shown you
from start
to finish here needs reform.
When it comes to the juvenile
justice process,
kids should be provided access to legal
counsel at every step of the system.
If they want to waive
their right to an attorney,
it should only be after a discussion
with one.
And if they're gonna be given
probation, it should be designed
in such a way that rewards
and incentivizes good behavior,
instead of penalizing a kid
for every mistake they make.
But in general, experts suggest
diverting kids into things
like "family-focused, multi
dimensional therapy models",
mentorship programs,
and investing in
"community-based interventions" is,
in most cases,
the best approach.
One of the most comprehensive studies
ever undertaken in this field
followed over 1,000 adolescent boys
for five years
after they'd been arrested
for low-level offenses.
And it found diversion
isn't just better for the kids,
it actually promotes public safety
through reducing violence,
which serves everyone.
The good news is,
there are lots of organizations
that have been working hard
to deliver those services.
The bad news is, they're among
the ones getting hardest hit
by the Trump administration's
massive funding cuts.
Now, when it comes
to incarceration,
I will concede there are some kids
who may be a threat to themselves
or others and may, for a time,
need to be in a secure setting.
But even then, I'd argue
any residential treatment they get
should bear no resemblance
to adult incarceration.
I'd also argue that adult incarceration
should bear no resemblance
to adult incarceration but
that is for another time.
That's for another time.
To their credit,
all these states have passed
some rules or statutes
limiting the practice of locking kids up
over minor probation violations.
Which is good!
And all of these and D.C.
have passed laws aimed at improving
conditions in youth facilities.
Though I will warn you
there that cosmetic changes
can be falsely reassuring.
There've been numerous stories
of facilities that bragged about
new approaches like pet therapy
and yoga,
only for it to then emerge
that they were home
to the same abuses as
traditional facilities,
just with more
brightly colored walls.
So reform can't be a discrete event,
it has to be an ongoing commitment
to reimagining this entire system.
And for the final time,
I get that some kids
can commit heinous crimes.
But our anger at those crimes
shouldn't be the main thing dictating
our treatment of those kids.
Especially when you consider kids'
brains do change as they get older.
Studies indicate
that even psychopathic traits
decrease with age
in the majority of youth,
whether they're involved
with the justice system or not.
The point here is,
no matter what they did,
kids deserve safety, respect,
protection and the chance
to grow beyond their mistakes.
They deserve to be treated like
individuals with potential and value,
and I would argue especially,
on their worst days.
Being an adult is hard.
Becoming one is even harder.
And we need to work
as diligently as we can
to make sure that we are not
wrecking kids' lives
by mindlessly throwing them
into these prisons,
or "academies",
or "youth centers",
or "freedom-challenged inside yards"
or whatever you want to call them.
And if we can do this,
then hopefully, one day,
we'll be able to look back on this
absolute disgrace of a system
as a thing of the past and, just like
happy, reformed Johnny, say
"Gee, that was dumb, wasn't it?"
And now, this.
And Now: KLAS Reporter Ozzy Mora
Loves to Show, Not Tell.
Think of social media
being a tree like this one,
each branch representing
a different platform.
Las Vegas is one of the places
with the highest eviction rates.
Some of these rocks that you see
here can be hidden around parks
in trees, light poles, and tables.
The ladies train
six to eight hours every weekend.
Telling me the overall goal is to
provide opportunities for women.
Every licensed educator
needs to renew their license
five to six years
depending on their degree.
This yoga course
that we're in right now
offers six hours towards the 15 hours
they need to renew.
But when you open these doors,
the opportunities are endless.
Students can end up
in any of these stations in class,
whether it be connecting wires
or cutting up some wood
or hammering away.
And the numbers showed just
how many students are struggling.
For the school year 2022/2023,
the department had 4,100 referrals
from either parents or pediatricians.
CCSD is not even halfway
through this school year
and there are already
2,000 referrals.
That's our show, thanks so much
for watching,
we'll see you next week, good night!
Oh no!
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver, thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week!
Israel attacked Iran, setting off
a conflict escalating as we speak,
RFK replaced the CDC's vaccine
policy advisers,
the pope wore a White Sox cap,
and in Tennessee,
there was this major story.
This morning, a zebra on the run
and in the air.
After more than a week
on the loose in Tennessee,
Ed the zebra was finally caught.
Ed has been causing chaos
and confusion in Rutherford County
since May 31st.
No!
But after eight days on the lam,
officials finally managed to catch
the elusive equine.
Deputies quickly hoisted Ed
into the helicopter harness
before transporting him
to a nearby animal trailer.
Okay, there is a lot to love there.
My only note
is that when you show footage
of the world's chillest zebra
looking bored
in a flying hammock,
you don't call that "being hoisted
in a helicopter harness",
you call that what it is:
"Last Week Tonight" bait.
And in case it wasn't clear:
you got me.
Because look at me right now!
I'm squawking zebra news at you
and Disney isn't even paying me
to do it.
And look, I'd love nothing more
than to spend the rest of the night
exploring questions like, is this how
animals are transported now?
Getting hoisted like an adorable
shipping container, while,
and this is crucial, remaining upright
like they're sitting in a little chair?
But unfortunately, we have to move on
to a story that dominated this week,
the protests against
ICE enforcement raids.
As you undoubtedly know,
last weekend,
ICE conducted sweeping raids
across the country,
as part of an escalation
ordered by Stephen Miller,
a man who despite
all photographic evidence,
is somehow still in his 30s.
Miller reportedly told ICE officials
to "just go out there
and arrest illegal aliens",
suggesting they target Home Depots
or 7-Eleven convenience stores.
So that's what happened.
And from the start, it was a mess,
resulting in scenes like this in L.A.
We have obtained Citizen app
video from this morning
showing multiple people getting
detained by Homeland Security.
It's still unclear how many people
were detained and for what reason.
The man says,
"My friend started yelling, 'ICE',
and I thought he was joking,
but he wasn't.
Then I saw all the day laborers
starting to run.
That is awful!
Someone yelling "ICE" is almost
never going to be a positive thing.
Best-case scenario, you've somehow
time traveled back to 2014
and have to do
an ice bucket challenge.
Something, by the way,
that this guy did,
because he was nominated by,
and this is true,
Mike Tyson, Vince McMahon
and Homer Simpson.
It was a simpler time.
In response to raids like that,
L.A. saw days of escalating protests
as community members rallied
around their neighbors,
something that Trump seized
upon as an opportunity to do this.
I've deployed thousands
of National Guard troops
and hundreds of Marines to protect
federal law enforcement
from the attacks
of a vicious and violent mob.
And some of the radical left,
they say, "Oh, that's not nice."
If we didn't do it,
there wouldn't be a Los Angeles,
it'd be burning today,
just like their houses were
burning a number of months ago.
I know I'm not saying anything new
right now, but he is such a dick.
There is just no reason
to bring up the traumatic fires
that are still very much
on people's minds in L.A.,
for the same reason you shouldn't
open a toast at a retirement party
with, "Only milestone
left after this is death."
Yeah, everyone knows that,
and we're all trying
not to think about it.
Also, it is just so obvious
when he stops reading
and starts ad-libbing,
as the tone of his voice
just completely changes.
I honestly wonder if his speech
writers even write it in now,
if there are places where
his teleprompter just says,
"Do a bitchy little vamp."
A president sending in
the National Guard
without the approval of a state's
governor hasn't happened since 1965.
And it wasn't just Gavin Newsom
who opposed it.
The LAPD chief even said,
"We're nowhere near a level"
"where we'd need to be reaching out
to the governor"
"for National Guard at this stage."
And for good reason.
Because despite a lot
of sensationalist news coverage,
all of this was well
within the city's control.
While scenes like this are being
broadcast prominently around the world,
here's some context.
It's all happening in a small part
of downtown L.A.,
at and around City Hall
and the Federal Building,
where detainees from ICE raids
have been taken,
just a few blocks in a county
of nearly 10 million people.
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass
tells us the extra help is not welcome.
When it comes to the National Guard,
you say they're underutilized,
or just… is it not working?
I'm saying there's nothing
for them to do.
Right!
And why would you send troops
if there is nothing for them to do?
You're just gonna have 4,000
soldiers wandering around L.A.,
swinging by Hollywood Walk of Fame
to go, "Christian Slater?"
"Okay."
Now, there was some sporadic
vandalism and rock-throwing,
and some Waymo cars
were set on fire.
But those were isolated incidents,
not at all representative
of the protests as a whole.
And I'm not saying that those
aren't striking visuals,
I'm just saying,
setting a driverless car on fire
is not the same thing
as assaulting someone,
unless we're somehow living
in the Pixar "Cars" universe,
where burning one is murder and you'd
be condemned to hell by the car pope,
a real character from "Cars 2",
by the way.
Implying there's car Catholicism,
car Jesus, and presumably,
a decades-long car cover-up
of car sexual abuse.
Now, as for the people of L.A.,
they seemed pretty unfazed,
with one writer saying,
"I'd say the collateral damage"
"ranks right above a typical
Dodgers World Series win."
And that sounds about right,
especially considering when
the Dodgers won last year,
fans literally burned a city bus.
So, the federal response felt
completely over-the-top,
especially when you consider troops
will apparently be there for 60 days,
at a cost to taxpayers of roughly
134 million dollars.
And usually when that much is spent
on something completely pointless,
we at least get to see
one of the Avengers in it.
Honestly, much of the violence
and unrest we've seen in L.A.
actually came from the authorities.
There've been multiple incidents
of police abusing protesters.
Members of the press were
also assaulted, and at one point,
Senator Alex Padilla was even
forced to the ground and cuffed
when he tried asking Kristi Noem
a question at a press conference.
The fact the supposed peacekeepers
were escalating the situation
led to ironies
like when Trump posted,
"Arrest the people
in face masks now"
and, "What do these people
have to hide, and why?"
Which is pretty hard to take,
given many of those in masks
were ICE agents themselves,
something Trump border czar
Tom Homan justified, saying,
"They're trying
to protect themselves."
And honestly, at this point,
the only immigration official
that I really want to see
wearing a mask is Tom Homan
and not even to protect
his identity,
just so that I don't have to look
at his fucking face anymore.
He looks like Homer Simpson
photoshopped as a real person.
He looks like someone tried to carve
Andre Agassi's head into a bar of soap.
He looks like
baby Harvey Weinstein.
Look, protesters this week
showed admirable restraint.
In fact, just watch this guy
respond to getting teargassed
with an almost
annoying degree of L.A. chill.
You told me you got caught up
in the tear gas as well.
Describe what happened to you.
Just tasted a little tear gas.
Tasted like fascism.
Has there ever been anyone more
Los Angeles than that man?
Snarky attitude, sunglasses at
night, beanie and sweatshirt in June,
and a perfectly timed
look to camera,
all while looking
like Travis Barker's tether.
And look, who knows
where all this is going?
We're taping on Saturday, during
Trump's big military parade in D.C.,
with mass demonstrations
happening all over the country.
So, a lot could happen between
now and when you see this.
What I do feel comfortable
saying is that,
when everyone was warning
about a slippery slope
to authoritarianism under Trump,
this is it.
Because masked government agents
grabbing people off the streets
and deporting them without
due process is authoritarianism.
Sending in the military
to crack down on protests
against those actions
is authoritarianism.
And the good news is,
polls show there is mounting
public outrage over all this,
as did the hundreds of thousands
of people in the streets this weekend.
Even in Minnesota,
where two state lawmakers
were tragically shot on Saturday,
where authorities suggested it would
be safer if protesters stayed away,
people showed up
in large numbers anyway.
Which is honestly the sort of thing
that gives me real hope.
'Cause we're living through
a time in American history
that'll be remembered for acts
of incredible cruelty.
But I hope it'll also be remembered
for acts of courage and defiance.
Think of this administration like
a loose zebra in the suburbs.
It shouldn't be there.
It makes you shout "oh no" a lot.
But maybe,
if we all work hard enough,
we can contain it until the glorious day
we get to watch it fly off
into the fucking sunset.
And now, this.
And Now: Dads on Local TV Discuss
What They Want for Father's Day.
What do you want for Father's Day?
Another tie.
Some socks. What are
the other cliché things?
Something from YETI, a cooler,
that'd be great.
I hope my family's watching.
Maybe a special outing.
Maybe a gift card. Hint, hint.
Like, I can get my mom
a spa gift card.
Done. That's a spa day for her.
I can't get you guys that.
- Why not?
- You want to go to the spa?
I'll go hang out in the spa.
What do you want
for Father's Day, Charles?
A break from working in the yard.
That's all I'm asking.
Just something basic. I just
want to sit. Leave me alone.
Just leave me with the game.
It's gonna be a great game.
Then later on that night,
my wife will give me
your Father's Day… You know
what y'all do for Father's Day.
Well, I mean, this is "The Nightcap"
I need you to expand a little bit.
Well, typically,
the little blowjobs you get.
- They become not as well…
- Over the years.
- Over the years.
- Yeah.
- They kind of fall off.
- You get maybe one a year.
Then, for Father's Day or your
birthday, you'll get a flashback.
'Cause she'll give you
a flashback on those days.
Then for the rest of the year
you suffer.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns kids. You know, idiots.
They don't know
important adult skills
like how to do taxes,
or have regrets.
Which is why, for years now,
local news has been full
of dumb teen trends like these.
They're apparently bringing back
the Kool-Aid Man TikTok challenge
that first started
during the pandemic.
If you don't remember, it's when
teens mimic the commercial,
pretending to be the Kool-Aid Man,
saying, "Oh, yeah!"
and then bursting
through walls and fences.
There's another popular dare
called the Kylie Jenner challenge,
where the teens put their lips
in shot glasses,
they suck all the air out.
It's called
the banana peel challenge.
The challenge may seem
harmless at first,
but doctors say it could
really lead to serious injuries.
This TikToker drank nothing
but food coloring for 11 days
just to see what would happen.
You may notice
my skin is turning blue.
It should come as no surprise
that trying to turn yourself blue
is not a good idea.
Look, as far as experiments go,
drinking nothing but blue
probably isn't gonna win
a Nobel Prize.
Which is just as well, because we'd
then have to watch a TikTok
called "I ate my Nobel Prize
just to see what would happen."
The point is, young people
can do a lot of dumb shit.
And that can sometimes lead to
them getting in trouble with the law,
something definitively covered
by everyone's favorite character,
Pants Bear.
Pants Bear, where did you
get the candy from?
I don't remember
seeing that earlier.
I forgot,
I got it from the candy aisle.
But did we pay for it?
Pants Bear, you cannot simply take
products from the supermarket.
- That's stealing.
- I didn't mean to steal it.
Help! Oh, no!
Oh no! For those unfamiliar,
that is Pants Bear.
A bear who,
and this is true, wears pants.
Say what you like about the Microsoft
Paint quality of the animation,
that clip falls under my single
favorite genre of entertainment:
British bears
face carceral punishment.
So it was always gonna be
a 10 out of 10 for me.
But the thing is, in the U.S.,
a kid ending up behind bars
for accidentally pocketing a candy bar
actually isn't that much of a stretch.
And that is what our story
is about tonight,
our juvenile justice system.
We've occasionally
touched on it before,
you may remember
in our school police story,
we talked about kids winding
up arrested for "crimes"
like throwing Skittles
or having a tantrum.
That's just one of the many ways
for kids to fall into this system.
And while it's true that some
have committed serious crimes,
far more often, they're in trouble
for things like vandalism, theft,
or even so-called "status offenses"
like truancy or underage drinking.
Basically, crimes that are only
crimes if you are a kid.
You may have even seen stories
like the one about the six-year-old
who went to court for picking a tulip
from a yard at his bus stop.
The point is,
our juvenile courts are busy.
In 2022, the most recent year
for which data's available,
they heard
just over 600,000 cases.
That same year, over 130,000 kids
were detained ahead of judgment,
with an additional 38,000 locked up
as a result of judges' orders.
The U.S. actually incarcerates youth at
many times the rate of other nations.
That's from the Global Study
on Children Deprived of Liberty,
which is not a study you want
to be on the leaderboard of.
It's like hearing a urologist say,
"Single weirdest one I've ever seen!"
That's how ashamed
we should be.
It's a "topping the weird dicks
list" level of shame.
And while we occasionally
get glimpses of this system,
it tends to be worryingly opaque.
Juvenile court hearings are often
closed to members of the public.
Which does make sense, in a way,
it's important to protect kids' privacy.
But in practice, that creates
a dangerous lack of accountability
for the adults in charge.
Because the truth is,
our juvenile justice system
has many of the flaws
of our adult one,
except the people running it
have even more power,
and the damage it can do
is even longer-lasting.
So tonight, we're gonna take
a longer-than-usual look
at two things:
our juvenile justice system,
and the facilities it can,
far too often, funnel kids into.
And let's start with something
that might seem obvious,
but is still worth stating:
kids are not, in fact, tiny adults.
They are, and this is true: kids.
And research shows
that in figuring out who they are
and how they want to behave in life,
kids often engage in "exploratory,
risk-taking behaviors"
"that help them assess social,
personal, and familial boundaries."
Or, to put it another way…
Part of adolescence
is testing the limits
and part of adolescence is not having
the brain functioning to understand,
"Gee, if I do that,
it's gonna get me in trouble."
Right. Kids are good at testing limits
and bad at weighing consequences.
Sort of like a puppy, or
a pre-"Iron Man" Robert Downey Jr.
And we've long understood
that kids need a system
that takes their still-developing
minds into account.
It's part of the reason why
a separate court process
was created for them back in 1899.
And just watch this 1940s film
"Boy in Court",
which tells the story of a 15-year-old
boy who helped steal a car.
Johnny and 200,000 other youngsters
who are arrested each year
are America's number one
crime problem.
Can't something be done
to help these twisted young
lives and set them straight?
Yes, something can be done.
Something is being done.
Many communities believe
that good juvenile courts
with well-organized
probation service
can make good citizens
out of wayward youth.
Fortunately, Johnny lives
in a community which has such a court.
Yes, luckily, Johnny lives
in a community with a juvenile court,
as opposed to
the other kind of community,
where wayward children
are sent into the maze.
No judgment, both are good options,
whether you're talking
about rehabilitation or the maze.
In that film, Johnny gets
sent to probation,
and his probation officer guides him
toward youth sports.
It's a process that
all culminates in this happy scene.
Well, Johnny, Mr. Benton tells me
you don't need probation anymore.
You made good. I guess you won't
steal any more automobiles, will you?
- Gee, that was dumb, wasn't it?
- It certainly was.
Well, that is nice. Although,
is that kid actually reformed?
Hair slicked back, sharp suit,
he may've just been upgraded
to a higher class of crime.
Stealing cars was a fool's game,
Your Honor.
I won't do that again, or my name
isn't little Bernard Madoff.
But obviously, court never
worked that way for everyone,
and definitely doesn't
for many kids today.
One investigation into this system
has likened it to Plinko,
the "Price Is Right" game where
a chip can fall any number of ways,
depending on what it hits
on the way down.
And that is basically true here,
at every stage,
factors beyond a kid's control can
propel them to different outcomes.
And unfortunately, many kids have
no idea how to navigate this system
or even
what their basic rights are.
For instance, if a young person
is being interrogated by police,
research shows they waive their
Miranda rights at extremely high rates,
as high as 90%,and may not
understand the consequences of that.
Take this woman,
who was arrested at 15 years old
and unknowingly signed
away her right to an attorney.
She ended up getting sent
to a youth facility,
where she met another kid who'd been
through the same court that she had
and they realized they'd both been
denied something pretty important.
I said to my friend, I said,
"Man, did you have, like, a lawyer?"
And she was like,
"No, nobody has lawyers."
And I was like, "But haven't
you seen 'Law & Order?'
Like, everybody has lawyers,
you're supposed to have a lawyer.
If you don't have a lawyer, you get
one assigned to you. Isn't that…
She's like, "I guess it doesn't
work that way for kids."
That is ridiculous,
every kid in court should at least
have access to the stuff they have
on "Law & Order".
Which, as we all know,
is a lawyer, two quippy detectives,
a guy only loosely connected
to the case but played
by a suspiciously high-profile guest
star so you know that they did it,
a dead body being played by a Tisch
graduate getting their big break,
and as always, an abrupt
smash cut to the name…
Exactly.
You know, the usual.
Now, without access to an attorney,
she ended up being sentenced
to three months in a youth facility,
with six months' probation,
all for the crime of "harassment",
which, incredibly, consisted entirely
of making this Myspace page
mocking her school's vice principal.
And if you're wondering
how on Earth a kid wound up
getting locked up over that,
it's because the judge decided that
she should be. That is the whole reason.
Because in most cases,
when a kid goes to trial,
there is no jury, meaning the judge
has sole discretion
in deciding the fate of that child.
And, to be fair,
some use that power judiciously,
to dismiss or "divert" cases,
which can take many forms,
including writing an apology letter,
doing community service,
or participating in counseling
or treatment for substance abuse.
But judges can also go
the other way,
placing kids in a youth facility,
or even kicking their case
up to adult court.
We do that
for over 50,000 kids a year,
which is actually down from its
peak of 250,000 in the mid-'90s,
when there was a lot
of bullshit fearmongering
about so-called teenage
"super-predators".
Back then,
sending kids to adult court
was actually a popular campaign
promise for judges like this guy.
As judge,
if given the opportunity to try
a juvenile offender as an adult, I will.
If you're a teen
and convicted of murder, rape,
or violent crimes against
our children or the elderly,
you can expect that I will impose
the maximum sentence allowed by law.
Mark Ciavarella,
a judge to protect all of us.
Okay, I have
a lot of questions there,
starting with: what on Earth
is he walking in front of?
That setting doesn't scream
"I'm a noble warden of justice"
as much as "my homemade 'Ninja
Warrior' training course fell down,"
"so this is my backup career plan."
Ciavarella was the judge who sentenced
that girl to three months behind bars
over a Myspace page.
And she wasn't alone.
Over a five-year period,
he and another judge
routinely committed juveniles
to two private detention centers,
in many cases giving out lengthy
sentences for minor infractions.
Which sounds bonkers,
until you learn
they allegedly received massive
payouts from those centers,
totaling over 2.7 million.
It's a scandal that later became
known as "kids for cash".
And when it all came out, the outcry
tended to focus on the "cash" part.
But to be clear, funneling kids
into those facilities,
even for free, is not okay.
Especially when you learn some
of those minor infractions included
"smoking cigarettes
on school property",
"opening a yo-yo
in a convenience store",
"pranking a schoolteacher
by hiding her purse"
and "stealing a Hershey bar".
Which, I'll remind you,
is the exact crime
Pants Bear committed,
and we all know what
happened to him.
Help! Oh no!
Oh yes, Pants Bear!
In hindsight, you're just lucky
you didn't get tried as an adult!
And the fact judges
have so much discretion
means their individual biases can have
a huge impact on sentencing.
And one of the most glaring
impacts is the racial disparities
in who gets sentenced to what.
46% of kids who get
incarcerated are Black,
even though Black kids comprise
only about 15% of the nation's youth.
It's a discrepancy that this head
of a New Orleans juvenile center
points out
with some heavy sarcasm.
They're all African American,
Black, young Black kids.
Today, my population's 100%,
yesterday, my population was 100%.
My population is about 100%
most of the time I've been here.
We have an anomaly in Orleans Parish
in that white kids
don't go to detention.
Apparently, they don't commit
car burglaries.
Apparently, they don't get in
school fights and commit assaults.
Apparently,
they're not selling drugs,
'cause if they are, they're not
winding up in detention.
Okay, any time the population ends up
100% all one race, something is up.
That doesn't happen by chance.
Even at a Black wedding,
in a Black church,
somebody's got a work friend.
There are so many stories
of kids who faced
starkly different repercussions
for the same activities.
Take Eric, a 13-year-old boy
who was watching a movie
and saw someone
with a Molotov cocktail.
He thought it was "cool"
and wanted to see if he could make
something that looked like that,
so he grabbed an empty bottle and
filled it with household products,
then he taped it up with black tape
and put toilet paper under the cap
which, importantly,
is not a Molotov cocktail,
just a bottle that looks like one.
He left it
in his backpack by mistake,
and brought it to school,
where he was pulled out of class,
questioned by police, arrested
and charged with possession
of a Molotov cocktail,
which he did not have, attempted
arson, which it could not do,
and carrying a dangerous weapon
which, again, it wasn't.
Eric is Black. And when his lawyer
told that story at a conference,
a white woman
walked over and said,
"My son did exactly
what you described",
though crucially, he faced
a very different punishment,
as his school
"rearranged his class schedule"
"so he could take
a chemistry course."
And there's just no clearer
disparity in punishment
than the one between "gets arrested"
and "gets class credit".
And to see just how naked
these differences can get,
look at Rutherford County, Tennessee,
where Black children make up
around 16% of the local population,
but from 2010 to 2021,
they accounted for 38% of those
locked up by the county.
And at that rate,
you'd almost think
they were making up reasons
to put Black kids into detention.
Well, guess what?
All right, well, in Tennessee,
a judge under fire
for illegally jailing Black kids
for watching a fight back in 2016.
The alleged crime,
listen to this:
"criminal responsibility
of conduct of another."
One of the problems:
that's a fake law.
Yeah! "Criminal responsibility
for conduct of another"
is not an actual charge.
And you can't just invent reasons
to arrest people you don't like.
Personally, I'd love to put whoever
thought a cologne should be sponsored
by Johnny Depp in jail.
You have chosen one
of the only men on Earth
who looks like he constantly smells
like feet and ayahuasca.
That feels like a crime to me.
But at least
I acknowledge that it isn't one.
In the end, 11 elementary school
children were arrested.
And this all happened
under a juvenile system run
by Judge Donna Scott Davenport,
who had set up a process under which
"even kids accused of minor violations"
"must be taken into custody
and transported to jail."
And to hear her tell it,
she was just doing what was necessary
to stamp out
a wave of youth crime, saying,
"We are in a crisis with our children
in Rutherford County."
"I've never seen it this bad."
and calling herself
the "mother of the county."
I guess, in the sense that the queen
from "Aliens" was a mother,
sure, I will allow it.
Davenport even had a radio segment
where she'd talk about
how she had no choice
but to do what she was doing.
I've locked up one seven-year-old
in 13 years,
and that was a heartbreak.
But eight and nine-year-olds,
and older, are very common now.
Okay. I'm not a judge.
I'm not a criminologist.
My expertise is mainly
in sitting behind a desk,
digesting lactose poorly
and telling you which
of these guinea pigs can get it.
From left to right:
yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
That's a full house, ladies.
But I am confident in saying
that if putting eight and
nine-year-olds behind bars
has become "very common" for you,
maybe you are the one
who should be in fucking prison.
The point is,
which judge you get
is one of the big variables in
the Plinko board of your case.
The next is what sort
of punishment you get.
Because if a judge doesn't opt
for leniency,
they have a number
of tools at their disposal,
including putting you on probation.
That's the thing that
little Johnny got earlier.
Some judges will give kids probation,
either instead of locking them,
or for a time after.
And on its face, it sounds better.
Kids get to stay at home,
and at least theoretically,
get access
to community-based support.
The terms can be so easy to violate,
they can still end up behind bars
for what amounts
to standard teenage behavior.
A few years ago,
there was a case in Michigan
involving a girl called Grace.
She'd been sent before a judge
for stealing at school
and fighting with her mother,
and she was sentenced to, quote,
"intensive probation."
Which included a GPS tether, regular
check-ins with a court caseworker,
counseling, no phone,
and the use of a school laptop
for educational purposes only.
She was also required
to do her schoolwork.
But this was all happening at
the start of Covid and remote school,
which, as we all know,
was very difficult for some kids.
Grace lost some of the support
that she'd been getting at school
and missed some assignments,
and before long, she was handcuffed
and locked up, because
she hadn't done her homework.
The judge called her
a "threat to the community",
a characterization
that Grace strongly disputes.
Do you feel that at any point you've
been a threat to the community?
No, because if we called every person
who's taken something
or every person who's got
into an argument with their mom
a threat to the community,
like, I'm pretty sure
everybody would be
a threat to the community.
Exactly, that clearly
doesn't make sense.
Because if she'd done her homework,
she wouldn't
have been considered a threat,
but the second she missed
a worksheet,
suddenly,
she's Tony fucking Montana.
Studies have found
that juvenile probation
is at best deeply ineffective,
and "at worst, it leaves kids
more likely to recidivate."
And yet, the sad truth is,
it is still preferable
to the harsher alternatives.
Which brings us to the second part
of this story: youth incarceration.
Essentially, locking kids up.
That might mean
a juvenile detention center where
they await trial, like a jail.
Or a long-term facility
after they've been sentenced,
akin to a prison.
But a lot of these facilities don't
like using terms like "jails"
or "prisons," preferring to go
by "state schools"
or "academies"
or "youth centers".
But as this interview with the woman
who oversaw this facility makes clear,
those euphemisms are not fooling
anyone actually inside one.
Taylor calls itself a "center",
the state lists it
as a "correctional facility".
The leadership calls the juveniles
"clients", not inmates.
One of the young men
I talked to today said,
"They call us 'clients,' but we're
not clients, we're prisoners."
"You can call it whatever you want,
you're in a prison."
Does he have a point?
Well, we do still
control their movement.
They are still certainly
in an environment
that we are in control
of and they're not,
and that probably feels like prison.
And you have barbed wire.
And doors that lock.
- In front of you and behind you.
- Yes.
One of the toughest
things, for my job certainly,
is to always balance the needs
of the client and public safety.
Okay, putting aside the use
of the word "client" there,
it "probably feels like prison?"
Yeah, of course it does,
it's fucking prison!
Lots of people feel like prisoners,
but they actually aren't.
You know, people trapped
in loveless marriages
or a cameras-on work call,
or a studio audience
where the subject of the alleged
comedy show is "Kid Prisons",
but when there is barbed wire
and kids locked up in a cell,
it's not just a feeling,
it's a reality.
Because whatever you call these
facilities, once you're inside,
it is painfully clear what they are.
From the outside,
it looks like an office building,
but go inside
and it looks like a prison.
These are single-occupancy cells.
But look closer.
This haunting picture
shows who's inside,
children barely
taller than door handles.
Jesus Christ. And honestly?
Props to that kid
for turning the creepy factor
up to 1,000.
He saw someone
with a camera and said,
"Let me show you assholes
what it is actually like in here."
Because that looks
exactly like an adult prison.
And typically, we tend to try
and tone things down
if they're designed for children.
It's the entire business model
behind Kidz Bop.
And Kidz Bop takes a lot of shit,
but who else is changing
the Macklemore lyric in "Thrift Shop,"
"probably shoulda washed this,
smells like R. Kelly's sheets"
to "probably should've washed this,
smells like my baseball cleats?"
No notes.
12 states have no minimum age
to be sent to one of these facilities.
And some others
set the age at seven or eight.
Which is horrifying enough,
even before you discover
what it can be like inside them.
Just listen to this mother describe
the conditions of a facility
that her son was kept in
in Michigan.
They have flooding from sewage.
My son literally called me
and said,
"Ma, there's literally poop…"
I can't say the word he said,
"floating through
the hallways, urine and feces."
I really appreciate that she's going
out of her way to be polite there,
but if your child tells you they're
living in a state-sanctioned shit river,
you should absolutely be allowed
to curse on local news.
In fact, it should be
actively fucking encouraged.
One employee
at that facility even said,
"I would sell my soul if it was
my kid in there to get them out",
because the conditions are so bad.
While that facility has since closed,
there are similar stories of unsanitary
conditions all over the country.
And the thing is, these places
are supposed to be rehabilitative.
But basic services like mental health
counseling can be non-existent.
It's estimated that up to
70% of youths in the justice system
have a diagnosable
mental health problem,
but as few as 20% of them ever receive
mental health services in there.
As for education services,
they are not much better.
A child in South Carolina
reported receiving
only a single day of education
over the course of nine months.
And a lawyer in Michigan said
her young clients
didn't have anything to write with
to complete the schoolwork
packets that they were given,
and a mother there said that her
son hadn't been attending school
at the facility, but instead, had
received a word search to complete.
And clearly that is not
an adequate education.
Although, for the record,
that is also the only time
that you'll ever find me
bad-mouthing word searches,
because that shit is fun.
A letter mystery where your eyes
are the detectives? Don't mind if I do.
I'm a word slut who loves to be right.
Up, down, backwards, diagonal.
It's Cirque de Soleil for your mind.
And when you find a word
that is not only diagonal,
it's backwards, honey? Honey?!
Fuck me stupid, I'm wet for that.
It is hardly surprising
researchers have found
that detained students have
significantly worse academic outcomes,
with one study in Washington finding
only 16% of detained students there
graduated from high school, compared
to 72% of non-detained students.
And it's not just lousy buildings
or a lack of services.
There is also physical violence,
sometimes
actively encouraged by the staff.
30 L.A. County officers charged,
accused of staging what prosecutors
are calling "gladiator fights"
inside a juvenile detention center,
after video of one of those fights,
first obtained and published
by the L.A.Times last year
helped trigger an investigation.
Parents of one of the teens speaking
with NBC Los Angeles
horrified at the footage.
They say the guards appear
to do nothing to help,
even appearing to shake hands
with one of the boys who hit him.
That is horrifying.
Even the Roman emperor
who invented gladiator fights,
whoever that was,
would look at that and go,
"What the fuck is wrong with you?
Also how did you get it"
"to be light in there without a fire?
Also, what am I watching this on?"
"But mostly, what the actual fuck
is wrong with you?"
And staff can be active
participants in abuse.
There've been multiple reports
of staff at facilities doing things
like withholding sanitary pads,
or allegedly withholding
prescribed medications
as collective punishment.
And I won't even get into
all the many examples
of physical abuse that we found
researching this story,
suffice to say, a guard at one
facility in Florida
apparently beat his detainees
with a broomstick
that he'd nicknamed "Broomie".
And if all that wasn't bad enough,
which it very much is,
some facilities
also use solitary confinement,
which, as we've discussed
before, is widely considered torture.
For kids and teenagers in particular,
"prolonged isolation can cause"
"or exacerbate mental disabilities or
other serious mental health problems."
And yet, it has been used routinely.
There've been reports
of kids kept in isolation for 22
hours a day or more, often for days,
weeks, or even months on end.
Just listen to this man who went
through Judge Davenport's facility
as a teenager explain
how he wound up in solitary.
Me and my best friend,
we had gone out at night
and we had opened up
some unlocked cars.
They didn't steal the cars,
but they did take some change.
It was a non-violent offense.
But Dylan was held in solitary
confinement for four days
waiting to see a judge.
Four days doesn't sound like a lot
until there's absolutely nothing to do.
I mean, just go shut yourself
in a closet for four days
and you'll know what I mean.
Yeah,
that would absolutely be torture.
You try shutting yourself
in a closet for four days.
You will quickly lose your mind.
Sure, you'll maybe initially
check the back to see if you've got
any chance of a "Narnia" situation.
But even then, you're dealing
with some needy talking animals
and some pretty heavy-handed
Christian allegory.
You might be better off on your own.
And remember,
that wasn't even his punishment,
he was waiting to be seen by a judge.
And this happens all the time.
Though some facilities
won't use the term "solitary",
instead call it "seclusion, isolation,
segregation, or room confinement."
One even sent kids to what they
called "reflection cottages",
which honestly sounds
like a place on "The Bachelor"
where the contestants
go to masturbate.
And some facilities can be
pretty shameless about this.
Take the Richard L. Bean center
in Knoxville.
It's known
to lock kids alone in a cell
more than
any other facilities in their state.
And here's its head and namesake,
Richard Bean,
laying out his general philosophy
when it comes to juvenile detention.
And used to we'd paddle kids.
1986, we stopped when
the state ruled you couldn't.
And had a lot of problems
since then,
we didn't have any problems then.
They thought I was about half crazy.
I'd whip six or eight a year
and it run pretty smooth.
What we do is treat everybody
like they're in here for murder.
You don't have
any problems if you do that.
You know what?
I do have a problem, actually!
And it's not just
that your name is Dick Bean,
or that you have a literal kid jail
named after you.
It's not even
that you smack your lips
like you're recording ASMR
for sociopaths.
It's that you should not treat every
child in your care like a murderer!
And for the record, most
of the kids in Dick Bean's facility
are not yet convicted of anything!
Most have only been charged with
a crime and are awaiting court dates.
And yet, kids have been
put in solitary there
for things like talking back and
forgetting to bring books to class.
But when local news spoke
to the center's board chairman,
he saw nothing wrong with
what they were doing.
It's not like we're putting them
in a cage somewhere.
They're in their normal bedroom.
It's their bedroom.
This is the solitary confinement.
It's just, you go to your room.
What are you laughing at there,
you deeply weird man?
The only way that playful giggle
makes any sense
is if, just out of frame,
a Keebler elf was tickling
his balls with a feather.
And while this is by no means
the point,
I just want to take a minute to address
the episode of "Hoarders"
happening behind this man.
What is going on in that room?
I count four American flags, one
aquarium for hanging dress shirts,
two bookends
with no books between them,
a whole collection of elephants,
one Trump doll, one Obama doll
that either evens things out
or makes things much worse,
one portrait of Richard Nixon,
and one actual Richard fucking Bean!
What are you doing back there, Dick?
Sit anywhere else!
You're too old to be lurking
in the background without suggesting
some kind of "Weekend at Bernie's"
situation's happening.
Tennessee's Department
of Children's Services
has been documenting
the improper use of seclusion
at the Bean Center for years,
and yet,
they've continued to approve
their license to operate.
And while Richard Bean himself
is finally retiring later this year,
in the wake of yet
another scandal at the facility,
he's doing so at age 84, and not
only will the facility stay open,
this deviled egg is still
the head of the board there.
And that is the thing here.
Nothing I've brought up tonight
is new information.
We've known about abuse in juvenile
confinement facilities for decades.
And it's worth remembering
that if public safety is your priority,
locking kids up by the hundreds of
thousands isn't the answer to that.
Detention actually increases
the likelihood that youth
will be arrested
and punished later on.
One study in Washington state
found that
"every additional day spent
in detention increased the odds"
"of felony recidivism
by one percentage point."
Meaning that locking kids up,
over the long run,
makes no fucking sense,
as this critic of New Jersey's
system points out.
95% of kids who are locked up here
are Black.
Brothers, you matter to us!
At a cost of more than
250,000 per kid per year.
More than an Ivy League education.
Much more per year,
much more than four years
of an Ivy League education, and that
youth coming out of these places
re-offend at a rate that exceeds 80%.
So, we know we're buying
a whole lot of failure
for a whole lot of money.
Yeah. On top of everything else,
this nightmare
is not even cost-effective!
I can actually recommend a book
that talks more about that.
It's "The Purely Economic Argument
Against Ad Hoc Child Torture,"
"You Know,
If That's Something You Needed."
The truth is, we don't do this
because it works.
Because it doesn't.
We do this because we want to.
Because we're afraid of these kids,
or we're mad at them,
or we just can't imagine
that they could be ours,
and so we don't give a shit.
There's even a pervasive sense
that whatever happens to these kids
in these facilities,
it's somehow what they deserve,
even if what happens to them
is horrifying.
Kids in Louisiana's Ware Youth
Center reported enduring,
among many other terrible things,
sexual abuse from guards
as the price for phone privileges
or in exchange for food.
Despite a horrendous pattern
of abuse there,
the DA had only prosecuted three
guards in her 13 years in office
and even then,
gave them all plea bargains
to keep them out of prison
and off sex-offender registries
because she said she did
"not like the idea"
"of burdening someone with
a charge that they did not deserve."
And when asked if the cases
made her concerned
about the safety of children at that
facility, she responded,
"We're talking about armed
robbers and murderers."
"And these girls haven't even hit
the age of 18 yet, some of them."
"Do I worry about their safety?
No, I don't."
"I think that they're quite capable
of taking care of themselves."
And it is pretty telling who she's
comfortable reducing to a label there.
"These murderers
are fine on their own,"
"but let's not call these poor sex-
offending guards 'sex offenders!'"
"They have their whole life ahead
of them! They can change!"
That kind of indifference is sadly
all too common throughout this system.
And if you want to see the tragic
consequences of it,
from start to finish,
take the case of Solan Peterson,
a 13-year-old who was arrested
after an incident at his school.
His parents asked that he go
to a mental health facility,
but instead he was sent
to a juvenile detention center,
as it happens, the same one where
those guards were abusing girls.
While there, Solan disassembled
the light in his cell
and was sent to isolation.
Under Louisiana state rules,
isolation shouldn't exceed
four hours.
Solan was kept in isolation
for four days.
At one point, he reportedly told
a guard that he wanted to die,
to which the guard replied,
"If you want to be killing yourself,
just do it."
And I'll let this news story
pick things up from there.
Solan took his own life
in solitary confinement
at the Ware Youth Center
in Coushatta.
The 13-year-old was there because
he'd set a roll of toilet paper on fire
at Houghton Middle School.
Solan's death raised serious questions
about whether he should have been sent
to Ware in the first place.
He had no criminal history and was
battling PTSD and ADHD
with the help of new medications.
We feel very confident in knowing
that if Solan had lived
15 miles in the opposite direction, he
would not have been in this situation
because the judge in that jurisdiction
would have made
a different choice for his case.
Yeah, that is heartbreaking.
And yet, the Ware Youth Center
remains open.
And if you're thinking, "How can
a system treat kids like this?"
I'd argue it's what happens
when too many of us
stop thinking of them as kids.
Some of whom may have
done terrible things,
many of whom haven't
and none of whom deserve this.
'Cause look, we've all done
stupid things in our youth.
Maybe you shoplifted
or committed vandalism,
or roasted a teacher online,
or got in a fight, or, God forbid,
opened a yo-yo
in a convenience store,
any of the things that you've heard
kids get in trouble for tonight.
And maybe you didn't face
lasting consequences,
but it's worth
remembering that,
but for the variables of race,
or class,
or how the Plinko chip
happened to fall,
things could've ended
very differently for you.
So, what can we do? I would argue
the whole system I've shown you
from start
to finish here needs reform.
When it comes to the juvenile
justice process,
kids should be provided access to legal
counsel at every step of the system.
If they want to waive
their right to an attorney,
it should only be after a discussion
with one.
And if they're gonna be given
probation, it should be designed
in such a way that rewards
and incentivizes good behavior,
instead of penalizing a kid
for every mistake they make.
But in general, experts suggest
diverting kids into things
like "family-focused, multi
dimensional therapy models",
mentorship programs,
and investing in
"community-based interventions" is,
in most cases,
the best approach.
One of the most comprehensive studies
ever undertaken in this field
followed over 1,000 adolescent boys
for five years
after they'd been arrested
for low-level offenses.
And it found diversion
isn't just better for the kids,
it actually promotes public safety
through reducing violence,
which serves everyone.
The good news is,
there are lots of organizations
that have been working hard
to deliver those services.
The bad news is, they're among
the ones getting hardest hit
by the Trump administration's
massive funding cuts.
Now, when it comes
to incarceration,
I will concede there are some kids
who may be a threat to themselves
or others and may, for a time,
need to be in a secure setting.
But even then, I'd argue
any residential treatment they get
should bear no resemblance
to adult incarceration.
I'd also argue that adult incarceration
should bear no resemblance
to adult incarceration but
that is for another time.
That's for another time.
To their credit,
all these states have passed
some rules or statutes
limiting the practice of locking kids up
over minor probation violations.
Which is good!
And all of these and D.C.
have passed laws aimed at improving
conditions in youth facilities.
Though I will warn you
there that cosmetic changes
can be falsely reassuring.
There've been numerous stories
of facilities that bragged about
new approaches like pet therapy
and yoga,
only for it to then emerge
that they were home
to the same abuses as
traditional facilities,
just with more
brightly colored walls.
So reform can't be a discrete event,
it has to be an ongoing commitment
to reimagining this entire system.
And for the final time,
I get that some kids
can commit heinous crimes.
But our anger at those crimes
shouldn't be the main thing dictating
our treatment of those kids.
Especially when you consider kids'
brains do change as they get older.
Studies indicate
that even psychopathic traits
decrease with age
in the majority of youth,
whether they're involved
with the justice system or not.
The point here is,
no matter what they did,
kids deserve safety, respect,
protection and the chance
to grow beyond their mistakes.
They deserve to be treated like
individuals with potential and value,
and I would argue especially,
on their worst days.
Being an adult is hard.
Becoming one is even harder.
And we need to work
as diligently as we can
to make sure that we are not
wrecking kids' lives
by mindlessly throwing them
into these prisons,
or "academies",
or "youth centers",
or "freedom-challenged inside yards"
or whatever you want to call them.
And if we can do this,
then hopefully, one day,
we'll be able to look back on this
absolute disgrace of a system
as a thing of the past and, just like
happy, reformed Johnny, say
"Gee, that was dumb, wasn't it?"
And now, this.
And Now: KLAS Reporter Ozzy Mora
Loves to Show, Not Tell.
Think of social media
being a tree like this one,
each branch representing
a different platform.
Las Vegas is one of the places
with the highest eviction rates.
Some of these rocks that you see
here can be hidden around parks
in trees, light poles, and tables.
The ladies train
six to eight hours every weekend.
Telling me the overall goal is to
provide opportunities for women.
Every licensed educator
needs to renew their license
five to six years
depending on their degree.
This yoga course
that we're in right now
offers six hours towards the 15 hours
they need to renew.
But when you open these doors,
the opportunities are endless.
Students can end up
in any of these stations in class,
whether it be connecting wires
or cutting up some wood
or hammering away.
And the numbers showed just
how many students are struggling.
For the school year 2022/2023,
the department had 4,100 referrals
from either parents or pediatricians.
CCSD is not even halfway
through this school year
and there are already
2,000 referrals.
That's our show, thanks so much
for watching,
we'll see you next week, good night!
Oh no!