December 1, 2003

Over the past two decades, the push to treat youngsters charged with serious crimes as adults has led to the growth of a new inmate population: juveniles doing time in adult facilities. Currently, 46 states have laws allowing for the transfer of juvenile criminal cases to adult courts under certain conditions.

One group of young inmates—about three dozen teens incarcerated in the L.A. Men's Central Jail along with some 7,000 adults—has found a vocal champion in Javier Stauring, 41, a Catholic lay chaplain.

About two years ago, Stauring began counseling one of the juveniles. During his visits, he was outraged by the conditions he found. Because the law prohibits any contact between young inmates and adult prisoners, the boys are routinely locked in their individual 4-by-8 foot cells for all but 30 minutes each day.

Last June, Stauring provided details on the situation to the L.A. Times. One result: the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors investigated and declared the jail unfit for detainees under the age of 18. Another result: Stauring was banned from visiting the jail.

"The reason that my clearance was revoked is that I criticized the system," he says. He explains that other individuals who work with the jailed youth decline to be quoted by name about conditions for fear of similar retaliation. "They don't want to have to leave these kids."

Steve Whitmore, spokesperson for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, says that Stauring was banned for revealing confidential information about the young inmates—potentially making the Sheriff's Department vulnerable to lawsuits. In fact, some details that turned up in the ensuing LA Times reports—such as the attempted suicides of more than one young inmate—were confidential. But Stauring maintains that parents and the kids themselves publicized these events.

Whitmore gives Stauring credit for raising the issues. "We treat every inmate with the dignity and the respect expected of a human being," says Whitmore. "We don't think young people should be kept in adult jails. It's up to the courts to decide where they go—talk to the courts."

On November 14, 2003, four teens were transferred from the jail to a juvenile facility, where they will be able to attend classes in a group, eat meals together, and use the recreational facilities.

But there's no reason to expect that all judges will stop ordering youth to be held in the jail, either before their trials or after.

"I hope that people start looking at the issue of juvenile justice as more than just an issue of crime and punishment and realize that it's an issue of human dignity," says Stauring. And he makes it clear that he isn't naive about the costs of youth crime: a young cousin, himself a gang member, was killed by a former gang member.

On November 6, 2003, Stauring was honored by Human Rights Watch for his efforts. He recently sat down for an interview with Connect for Kids:

You've been working with incarcerated youth since 1995. What changes, if any, have you seen in the way the system works in California?

What strikes me the most is how we have become more and more punitive with kids in the system—how kids themselves are starting to feel like society has no hope for them. I think that is the real danger. When children start feeling like grownups have given up on them, they give up on themselves.

Do any instances stand out in your mind that illustrate this more punitive nature?

I saw one particular kid in court with absolutely no evidence against him, but because it was brought up that he was a gang member, he was found guilty just on that. In this particular case it was an attempted murder case where somebody got shot. The person that got shot came into the courtroom and said, "You guys have got the wrong guy, that's not the person who shot me," but the prosecutor was able to hammer away at "gang member, gang member, gang member." The jury and society at large, I think, have a certain perception of a gang member being a monster, and you don't need evidence, really.

There's a lot of research that's been done comparing kids that have been sent to adult institutions to those that have been sent to juvenile institutions. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of problems in juvenile institutions, but at least the language of rehabilitation exists there. Kids are brought out of their cells for school. Kids are allowed to attend religious services. They have mental health programs. Adult institutions took the word "rehabilitation" out of their mission statements long ago.

Some people might argue that they did the crime, so they have to be punished

I think that some people in the law enforcement see me and the other chaplains as somewhat naive. They see us as easily manipulated by the inmates. I also think that some think that something must be wrong with us. Because if we're willing to make friends with this "monster," you know, there's got to be something wrong with you.

Few people realize it's really important to reach out to these kids. That needs to change. Yes, they are often awaiting trial or sentencing for crimes as severe as murder. But keep in mind that a disproportionate number of these kids have brown faces—they're African American and Hispanic. Many are innocent. Even if a child is guilty, he needs to be counseled, not forgotten. Rehabilitation is key.

How does the Men's Central Jail case reflect a need for rehabilitation?

I have visited a dozen adult prisons in the state of California, and I have also visited maybe 10 or 12 juvenile prisons up and down the state of California. The way that kids are housed at Men's Central Jail is the most inhumane thing I've seen in any adult or juvenile institution—They don't come out for school, they don't come out for religious services; to get an appointment with a doctor takes months.

What's a day in the life like for kids in this facility?

The kids are in cells that are 4 by 8 and 15 feet tall, and if a kid stretches his arms out, he can touch both walls. So, they're locked in here in individual cages, those sizes. There's no sunlight, no windows coming in, it's just like a dim light, and many times the lights are off during the entire day and it's not until somebody comes and visits that they turn on these dim lights. Family visits are allowed on the weekend, and that consists of a 20-minute, behind-the-plexiglass-window, over-the-phone visit. Human contact is a sheriff putting the handcuffs on them and taking them to a phone call or something. Or maybe a nurse putting an aspirin in their hand.

I've always said that if we treated our pets this way, we would get prosecuted. But somehow when children are accused of a crime, all bets are off, and now they become monsters

You were visiting the jail for almost two years before you publicized these circumstances—why did you wait?

I've often asked myself, "Why did I not move quicker on this?" and I believe that part of it is that somehow you become desensitized in some ways. You are around so much suffering that you come to see many of the injustices that happen in jail as, "Well this is the norm." But it was always in the back of many of our minds, many of the chaplains that visited there. About two years ago we moved into action working with an interfaith coalition called Faith Communities for Families and Children. That's a coalition of religious leaders—we have about 60 religious leaders—that represents millions of people in Los Angeles.

What did you do to take action?

We visited every civic leader that had a hand in putting the kids there, so we visited with the sheriffs who were housing them in the jail. We visited and talked to the head of the DA and his [juvenile justice] people, we visited with probation officers, we visited with the presiding judges of juvenile court, with the judges in adult court, anybody who had some type of connection to the kids that were there.

And their response?

What's interesting is that behind closed doors every one of these people told us, "You're right, it is bad, kids should not be housed under those conditions," but they all washed their hands of it. They all said it's not our place to bring change, you know, it's somebody else ... What the sheriff would tell us is, "We're housing them this way for their own protection, we need to keep them out of sight and out of sound, out of contact with the adult inmates."

Are you able to keep in touch with the young inmates at Men's Central?

I actually got a letter from them just a couple of days before I received the Human Rights Watch award and they just wrote, "Great job. Continue to kick ass." Plus, my receiving the award has motivated a lot of my colleagues to become more active and to come on board with the advocacy work. It means a lot when you have the weight of an international human rights organization behind you.

Whose job is it to ensure national "juvenile justice"?

Legislators have their responsibility. The people who oversee these institutions have a responsibility. Faith communities have responsibility, as does the society at large. By sending kids to these adult institutions, we have to all understand that we're sending them to universities of crime. We're sending them to places where we're ensuring that they're going to end up worse than when they entered the system. It doesn't make any sense what we're doing to these kids. It doesn't make sense at any level.

Resources:

• The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
• The National Center for Juvenile Justice
• The Spring 2003 issue of AdvoCasey, "Juvenile Justice at a Crossroads"

To find out how you can get involved, visit:

• Building Blocks for Youth
• Street Law for Juvenile Justice Programs
• Human Rights Watch