That is why it is so important that people see the effects of the juvenile justice system.  It is one thing to theorize that children as young as six should be subjected to tough love.  It’s quite another to see just how our children–and they are our children–are treated in juvenile detention facilities.

You probably don’t recognize the name, but we all owe a debt of gratitude to photographer Richard Ross. He has spent the better part of five years photographing what happens in juvenile detention facilities throughtout the country.  In October 2011, Harpers Magazine published his powerful photo-essay, entitled “In Focus: Juvenile-In-Justice.”

And just a few days ago, Richard Ross’ work received the recognition it so richly deserves. On May 3, his work in Harpers received the award for Best News and Documentary Photography at the American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Awards.

You owe it to yourself and to society at large to look at these powerful images.

The School District’s police force has been busy.  Between 2009 and 2011, they have issued more than 10,000 citations a year, a quarter of which are given to middle school students. These and other data were obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and first appeared on their website.

So what’s a citation?  There are different views.  Here’s Mr. Zipperman’s:

“A student’s first contact with school law enforcement usually occurs in middle school. Hopefully, the contact is positive and the student learns from whatever mistake was made. . . . [A] citation is an educational tool. .  .  .”

Jesse Aguiar,  a 20-year old community organizer who is affiliated with the Youth Justice Coalition has a different view. He received  his first citation when he was 11.  Here’s how he remembers reacting to the citation:

“It was like a dream come true to me,” he said. “I grew up in a neighborhood where I listened to Snoop Dog and that stuff. When I got a ticket from police, I felt that I was official.”

Which of these quotes sounds more authentic, and which one seems like it was lifted from a 1950s television sitcom?

There is one sense in which citations given to students, especially middle school students, can be said to be educational.  Too often the citations are the where teenagers get first-hand knowledge of the juvenile system. As a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles who represents juveniles, I can tell you that citations have a nasty side effect.  A citation that is given for a minor incident, such as being disruptive in class, can mushroom from a little problem into a big problem.  As Judge Michael Nash, who presides over the juvenile court in Los Angeles,  notes, the citations can lead to misdemeanors:

Nash, the presiding juvenile-court judge, said many kids don’t tell their parents about tickets, and never show up in court. Their fines can accumulate into thousands of dollars, and they can face a misdemeanor charge for failing to appear.

This is not the kind of education we should be providing to our middle school and high school students.

Not surprisingly, the arrest received national media attention.

Could this happen in California?  Perhaps.  Nothing prevents school officials from calling in law enforcement personal to arrest a student.  And it’s conceivable that a very young student could act out in such a way that would cause a teacher or principal to conclude that the police should intervene.

It is, however, less likely that charges would be filed in California against a six-year old.  Under California law, when prosecutors allege that someone under the age of 14 has committed a crime, they have to independently establish that the child who was arrested could distinguish right from wrong and knows what it means to break the law and commit a crime.

A hearing is specially convened to determine whether the prosecution can introduce clear proof showing that “a child under the age of 14 years at the time of committing the act appreciated its wrongfulness.”  The hearing is called a Gladys R. Hearing after the 1970 California Supreme Court case that established the requirement for the hearing.  The right to the hearing can be waived if the child fills out a form indicating that they understand right from wrong.  If a hearing is convened, however, most of the testimony regarding the child’s capacity comes from parents and others know or have evaluated the child.  It is rare for the child to testify at their own Gladys R. hearing.

As a Los Angeles juvenile defense attorney, I know that the Gladys R. hearing does not, of course, guarantee that prosecutors won’t use questionable judgment and file charges against very young children.  But the fact that prosecutors have to show that the child understands what it means to commit a crime does to some extent deter the kind of charges that were at the heart of the arrest in Georgia.

Although these citations can in theory be expunged, for too many students, these citations are the de facto beginning of the pipeline to prison.  Citations for truancy are particularly easy to rack up, and with that, come increasingly severe punishments.

As a criminal defense attorney who represents juveniles in Los Angeles, I know that the “school to prison” pipeline also exists in California. The details are different, and some of the laws here are not quite as draconian as they are in Texas. But here too, the schools and juvenile court system are chronically denied necessary funding.  Here too some organizations have a vested financial interest in sending more and more people to prison.  Most of all, the same so-called “tough on crime” philosophy dominates the political process.

The tone of BBC report is similar to what we would use to introduce people to something not quite believable.  There is a certain “report from primitive America” feel to the whole documentary.  If only some of our policy makers could sense just how bizarre, disturbing, and harmful some of our juvenile justice policies are.

In a city with a population of almost 4 million, the FBI reported that in 2010 fewer than 200 crimes constituted hate crimes.  This figure is almost certainly low given that hate crimes are defined broadly.  They include assault, battery, and intimidation, and cover a wide range of discrimination, including racial and ethnic bias.  Does anyone really believe that in the entire city of LA there is less than one incident per day that meets the definition of a hate crime?  The answer seems rather obvious—there are many more incidents in which people threaten each other and use a racial, ethnic, racial, or religious slur.

So what gives? Why are the cases so rare?  Is there something unusual about the cases that make the list of official hate crimes?

The recent arrest of 7 teens in Palmdale answers these questions, and shows what is wrong with so much of the prosecution of hate crimes.  As reported in the Huffington Post, 7 students ranging from ages 13 to 16, are charged with attacking a 15-year-old student who was walking home from school.  When the facts are described in this way, the alleged crime seems fairly typical, doesn’t it?

But there are two factors that make this case stand out. One is that the teens who were arrested are black and the alleged victim is Hispanic.   Oh–and one more thing—the attack was captured and broadcast on YouTube.

The video shows as many as 10 boys surrounding the victim and challenging him to a fight. The suspects then began hitting the teen while others watched. During the beating, the teens made racially derogatory statements that were captured on the video, Ford said. After the victim fell to the ground, the assailants kicked him multiple times in the head, knocked out several teeth and left shoe impressions on his skin, Ford said. The victim was able to get to his feet and escape the onslaught, and will need to undergo dental surgery.

There in a nutshell is what causes prosecutors to file hate crime charges—an explicit statement referring to the victim’s race, national origin, religion, or some other category that is covered by the law.

This is a perverse way to try to control or deter criminal behavior, especially among teenagers.  Hate crime statutes provide for enhanced penalties for conduct that is often times incidental to the harm that criminal law is trying to prevent.  If the teens arrested in Palmdale had been caught on tape trash talking the football team that the alleged victim rooted for, would their conduct have been any less serious?  Whatever these teens did or did not do, and they are entitled to a presumption of innocence, it wasn’t more severe because of what some of them may have said during the incident.  That, unfortunately, is not the law. What is said during the incident can matter a lot.

Thus, defending juveniles who have been accused of hate crimes often requires a great deal of digging. When groups of people are accused of working as a pack, their interactions are complex.  Just because one person may have uttered an anti-racial statement doesn’t mean that they were motivated by racism.  And it is even harder to know the motivations of other teens in the group. That is why it is critical, as the defense attorney, to challenge the evidence presented by the prosecutor and paint a more complete story of what may have happened.