Personal Narrative: Lew Sterrett Justice Center

Growing up in a small town in Iowa I was unaware of the many situations involving hardship or misfortune that were around me. Therefore, it was not till college when I received the opportunity to work for a reentry program called the Transformative Justice Initiative that I became aware of the multiple factors lead to incarceration, drug use, homelessness, and other areas of hardship. The longer I was involved with the program the more I learned how mental health is convoluted in all of these situations and in all populations. Consequently, my experiences with the Transformative Justice Initiative helped me develop my future aspirations as a professional, which include a desire to work with individuals that have mental illness.

In beginning my research on females in the juvenile justice system, I was shocked to see how many of the new female juvenile statistics had increased and were gradually catching up on the juvenile male statistics. The numbers have been growing every year, and may soon surpass the numbers the boys have held for so many years. It makes me sit back and wonder what in the world is going on with our female youth in today’s society to cause such a slight, in some cases, to drastic increase depending on the offense. In this research paper, I want to examine the statistics for female youth over the last ten years to discuss what offenses are increasing over others, investigate the reasoning behind this increase in order to try and understand where these teens are “coming from”, and if there is a way for our society to be proactive in our female youths lives in order to prevent them from entering the juvenile justice system and one day adult prison.

My whole life I felt love, but never like the love I experienced three years when I walked in the Lawrence County Developmental Center. The LCDC is the special needs program for the student of East Lawrence and I was chosen to be an aide my sophomore year. Most of the kids could not speak, if they could speak they still had problems communicating. I felt like I had walked into a totally different world, and that made me want to spend every free moment in the LCDC. My three years with those kids taught me the most incredible lesson: your life is what you make it.

Hey little brother sorry you can't call. I don't have any money on the phone. I haven't spoken with Mj in a month. I am so heartbroken. Your wife told me the great news and I am so happy for you both. Like I told Lamont I really don't talk to no one in Michigan. Kristy (1-2 times a week) Aretha and Fred (every other 3-4 months) maybe. Mom and Cass never. So that's that. You, Lamont and Mj are my concerns as long as you all let me be in your lives I will be. I love all my family dearly; however, along the way we have lost vital parts of who we are as a family. I think long incarcerations have made some feel that they are not family. Many people have forgotten who they are as simply Africans but on a basic level in this family we have forgotten

Im proud to have things that I have now,Without my generation there would be no freedom,without freedom our lives would be miserable and torn apart.Im glad our veterans fought for our country, they risked their lives for our country to stay in peace.If we didn't fight we would be controlled And be told what job to have ,how many kids we can have or they will tell us where we live.Veterans did anything they could to defeat our enemies,They never gave up ,they never stopped they kept on going until it was over.Im also glad that we have civil rights without civil rights people would still be held as slaves and they would still be getting beat by their owners.The biggest thing that i'm proud about is equal rights ,there should have never separated

People try to believe that there is very little things different between men and women. But, when we are talking about crimes, they can be very different. A study from 1980-2008 was taken to see the differences in crimes committed by men and women. One astonishing homicide statistic was the following: male offender/male victim was 67.8%, male offender/female victim was 21.0%, female offender/male victim was 9.0%, and female offender/female victim was 2.2% (Cooper).

After checking every photo taken during the investigation, the Deputy District Attorney, Michelle Trego asked the detectives to interview the witnesses again. “We want to make certain she pays for this crime,” Michelle said riding up in the elevator with Detective Wallace.

On Christmas day of 2012 I remember sitting on a dirty cold bench at the Women's Correctional Center in San Mateo County. My dad and I sat patiently waiting to see my mother behind a glass window as thick as a brick. It had been two weeks since I hugged her but not the first time I visited her in jail. She landed there plenty of times before so I knew what to expect.

In prison, women are considered to be less violent than male inmate. This difference is not taken into account upon constructing prisons for female offenders. In fact, construction is based on the correctional model about men being violent. Each gender interacts within prisons differently as well. For instance, males form gangs within prisons. They act territorially and fight to maintain power. In addition, men are more likely to congregate by race. On the other hand, females look to form small families that are not racially specific. Women will fight due to jealousy. However, they are more likely to vent their hostility upon themselves through self mutilation. The way the prison is set up also creates a difference. Prisons for males dived prisoners via classification based on the dangerousness of the crime. In contrast women’s prisons generally allow incarcerated women to mix freely (Stuart von Wormer & Bartollas, 2011).

It was my turn to go through the metal detector and enter the prison but still something just didn’t seem right, I just knew something was going to go wrong. I couldn’t turn back now that i got a glimpse of my brother and I knew he seen me i just knew it finally i sit down and he is in this box type room and he looks at me and gave a me a knod. As the were getting ready to walk out to see their families a siren went off and someone went on the speaker and said “lock down we have an escape prisoner”. We were locked up in this

I took a deep breath as I pushed open the wide glass doors. As soon as I walked in all I saw were officers running back and forth, papers flying everywhere, and the smell of pure coffee hit me like a smack on the face.It was too much and it seem pretty busy so i made my way back to the front door,but as soon as I was going to walk out of the police department a middle aged man with curly hair stopped

The moment they shut the door and I was on 24 hour lockdown I was sitting on a flat steel bed.I Had a orange jumpsuit on looking through a square glass. I Couldn’t talk to nobody but my celly. We had to meet one another get alone use the same Restroom.My celly and I had to put up a clothes line when we had to use the restroom. When me and my celly was on lockdown we had to take bird baths n a steel sink. My celly was 6’2 and Black. when he came to my cell I asked what was he in here for he told me then we was cool. He also had a orange jumpsuit on and slept on a steel bed. Me and my celly when we went to Chapel we had to walk with a Officer to go on the 6th floor. I was on a Steel bed, sitting down reading books and my 8 by 10 cell . As

I heard screams from the body bag. I needed to get help. I started to tip-toe through the grass but I stepped on a pile of leaves and knocked over a glass vase. The vase shattered and made a loud noise. I turned to look at the three men, but they were already running for me. I turned and started sprinting, but I wasn’t fast enough. They were gaining on me. I started screaming HELP! They caught up to me and tackled me very hard. I said please let me go, I won’t tell anyone. They didn’t believe me. They taped my mouth and tied my hands and legs. I heard dirt being shoveled and I knew they were burying the body. I prayed I wasn’t next . They threw me into the back of the

One day last year my dad and I were watching tv when the commercial for the mcgregor vs aldo fight came on, and i said mcgregor is gonna win, and he said you’re dreaming. So we argued for about thirty minutes until my Mom told us to be quiet.

When one thinks of the juvenile corrections system, they tend to gender this institution, focusing mainly on young boys. Due to this, one often neglects the thought there are also young girls that are in the system. This may be due to the fact that when compared to young boys within the juvenile corrections system, in previous years the girls consisted of a small portion within in this space. However, according to recent studies, girls in the juvenile system has been rapidly increasing over the last 20 years (Levintova, 2015). This is an issue which needs to be acknowledge due to the fact that young women are caught in this system for starkly contrasting reasons when compared to young males. These reasonings are described in the book Girls in Trouble with the Law by Laurie Schaffner which we will further explore.