To Do No Harm
Young people discuss their experiences being confined in detention facilities and what they had to give up, fight for, and endure to return to where they belong.
“I thought it was a dream. I thought I was going to wake up and just be back at home, getting ready for school... But I was in the holding cell for a few hours, but when I woke up in the holding cell, that's when it really set in.”
“23 hours...every day. Every day only get one hour out...23 and one.”
“You just around a lot of people you don't know. You don't know what type of time they on, what they got up they sleeve, what they want to do to you, all that.”
“I kind of was uncomfortable at first, feeling like I couldn't just go to sleep around that many people, not knowing who they was, but eventually I just started getting the hang of it.”
“The cell was so small. And then when you want to look outside, you can't look outside because you got a gate right there. So you can't see like nothing, unless you look at the sky or something.”
“I just remember the bed being by a window. Probably a four-foot room. Four by four. Had to be four by four.”
“But I say the cell because it's small and every day you going there, it's like the walls just getting smaller and smaller. I got used to it though.”
“The dorms were pretty much just 14 beds, twin size beds in the dorm, 14 dudes. The ages ranged from, what? 12 to 21. It was a back door, front door, and bathroom. That's really all, just a box and beds. You know what I'm saying?”
“I was in there for something I didn't do. Something I didn't commit. Wrong place and wrong time, stuff like that... as I'm in there, I lost 11 partners. In two years, I lost 11 partners. So I felt like, by me sitting in there, the Lord just sent me in there so I could stop doing whatever I was doing, to slow me down from whatever I'm doing before I get caught in something worse than what I was doing.”
“They had this old lady there. She was on the night staff. She always had the news on. But we couldn't watch it, so I'd have to sneak and watch it. I was just watching it, see what the weather was like. It was crazy because it was cold outside, and I couldn't even feel it.”
“It’s crazy. So, waking up in jail would be like, you'd have to wake up early, four or five o'clock in the morning. It's not really nothing you can do, so in juvenile they take you to school and stuff and whatnot. So, you have classes in juvenile. They got basketball courts, you get time to go outside and whatnot. But other than that, you’re just basically locked inside.”
“It brought me a lot of pain, but I had to stay strong for her, because if I was crying, she was going to be crying. Didn't make me feel too good. Made me feel bad though, because it felt like I was doing something I ain't supposed to, when I wasn't...I don't think they believe me still now, because I'm still on the case. It's still open…I was incarcerated for 14 months and there's still no changes”
“I had to fight. I had to really show them that I wasn't scared of them. And show them that I was young, but I was a man. I was going to stand on my ground.”
“And not everybody was assholes to me, so I did make a few friends. Some I still talked to on the outside. Some I lost contact with. Some we just never made it past the bricks, and that was that.”
“I mean, you're caged in, it's like you're caged in like you're an animal, you know, so it's like, of course. And when you're at home, you're not caged in. You're free!”
“They tell you what to do. Like, there's no freedom.”
“So it's like, yeah. Then you have to listen to these people when they tell you-“
“What needs to be done and how it's going to be done and when-“
“People tell you when to eat, sleep, drink.”
“-when and how to do things. So it's like, no, that's frustrating”
“You got time limits on everything in jail.”
“First night I was in shock because I didn't do what they arrest me for. So I was in shock. I was like, you know what I'm in here for? They still wasn't telling me until I got my fingerprints done.”
“I don't know. Just being confined, just being away for so long, you lose yourself. And just being in the system, you lose yourself. That whole experience as far as being away for so long from society and my family and my friends and stuff like that. Not knowing what they're doing and what's going on in life. I don't know, just losing yourself back there. Time passing you by.”
“I was just trying to call my people and see. So I really wasn't worried about it. I was like, I ain't do it. So I'm about to go home. Days just passing and passing and passing.”
“That's how your mind is when you're in there. You're in a box and your mind just steady turning, and your thoughts roaming, roaming, roaming. You'll drive yourself crazy. You'll overthink so much, you'll been start hallucinating and start talking to yourself and start imagining a better life or something like that. Trying to get away. You know what I'm saying? Mentally... If you ain't that strong, it'll get to you.”
“I missed a lot of my juvenile experiences that I was supposed to experience. Like I say, I grew up fast. I missed a lot of birthdays. I missed like five birthdays being in jail. It wasn't five years I was in jail, but every time my birthday came around I wound up being locked up. I missed my 13-year-old birthday, my 14-year-old birthday, my 15th, the 16th, the 17th. I was home for my 18th and my 19th, thank God.”
“Most of the time, I just felt bad being in there around the people. I ain't feel like I belonged there.”