No Matter How Loud I Shout

Elias is missing from the writing class because a race riot broke out earlier; the exact origins unknown, although the Mexican Mafia is suspected as the instigator, and Elias was a participant so he got sent to the Special Housing Unit, aka The Box. The kids discuss what the box is like, agreeing that they hate it: Geri says it makes one sure the world has forgotten about you, whereas Scrappy talks about how you can’t think if you want to survive, and the box forces you to think.

Sister Janet is one of the few visitors kids are allowed in The Box, and she and Elias talk about how his frustrated attorney admits that Elias should take a plea deal to prevent getting sentenced to life in prison. Sister Janet thinks about the story of Elias’s crime: how he had been out with his friends when one of them stabbed a guy who later died. Elias’s remorse made the prosecutor offer him a deal that his other friends weren’t given: “The others tried as adults in the case got twenty-five to life” (182). Elias speaks with Sister Janet about his chance of getting a YA number, that is, his chance that he will serve his time at the County Youth Authority, instead of the state penitentiary. Elias speaks about how he doesn’t want to admit to being a murderer because he doesn’t want his family to see him that way. Sister Janet tries to fill the void in these kids’ lives; she is trusted and respected by all, always on-call to serve as a character witness on behalf of the kids. She tells Elias she will pray for him.

Elias accepts the deal, and Sister Janet goes to the judge to plead that Elias be housed in the CYA. Sister Janet is up against the victim’s mother, who argues the opposite, calling gangmembers cowards and animals who should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Later, she confronts Sister Janet, saying she will never forgive her for defending Elias: “Janet knows that no judge faced with such an awful scene is going to favor a convicted killer over a woman so blistered by anguish” (184). Janet writes more letters and makes more phone calls, even though she knows it is probably hopeless. Elias thanks her for her kind words and efforts.

Pete Wilson, who is campaigning for governor, is speaking outside Central Juvenile Hall about the increase in juvenile crimes and the need to hold “young predators” responsible, espousing the prototypical conservative get-tough ideology, which is gaining him increasing popularity in the polls. He shows off three mothers, two of whom had children killed at the hands of gang members. Wilson argues that the gang members, who are juveniles, should have gone to adult prison, which they will, as they were over 16 at the commission of the crime, although they will spend the first part of their sentence in CYA. Wilson is pushing a law to lower the fitness age to 14, even though murders make up less than 1% of juvenile crime and only 6% of these juveniles are under 16: Humes writes that “[s]ending 14- and 15-year old murderers to adult court would address isolated outrages like Ronald Duncan, but it is not the big fix Wilson represents it to be” (186), especially considering the legislation would also send burglars to adult court. Wilson has stacked the audience with people supportive of his message in order to bolster his political campaign, but Sister Janet slips in to ask about legislation concerning prevention programs and about why burglars are included in the new legislation. Wilson waffles a response that sticks to his message, but one of the mothers of the murdered children espouses her agreement with Sister Janet. Currently, legislators are fighting to show who can appear tougher on crime. Janet reiterates her concern to him later in a passing moment.

In the 1970s, LA County gave Sister Janet a grant to reform gang kids without any additional aid or direction. She sought out the help of Mayor Tom Bradley, who ignored her for a while until Janet saw him at a restaurant and crept towards him on her knees, begging him to participate in the gang program. Bradley ordered Janet away from him, but she got the attention of Rosie Greer, who subsequently got Jackie Kennedy involved in the program, which helped it gain traction.

Humes writes that:

Sister Janet Harris is a youthful and slim 63, with short silver hair, pale blue eyes behind metal-rimmed spectacles, and a manner that at times seems distracted, so immersed is she in the daily lives of the inhabitants of Juvenile Hall […] though theft is endemic [here], her office has never been victimized (189).

She was an aspiring actress when she was younger but then, and on a whim, joined a California nun order and got a master’s in filmmaking, during which she taught at an East LA elementary school. She began volunteering at a delinquent boys’ foster home across from the school and became entrenched within various programs that mentored and helped gang members find work and go to school.

At first, the kids were suspicious of her, but when she risked jail time because she refused to break confidentiality about a local murder, the community came to see her as trustworthy. In 1989, she became the chaplain at Central JH, offering the kids consistency that the juvenile system does not afford, as it often misplaces and/or ignores kids’ files. Janet is one of the few adults who will help kids out, no questions asked, as she distinguishes being a gang member from being a criminal. Often, kids feel like she is the only person who cares for them.

Janet is furious because a JH supervisor has lost George’s twenty-five painstakingly assembled poems, but George is resigned as this happens all too often with these kids’ most prized possessions. A few months earlier, the same supervisor had pleaded with Janet to get more books for the library, which she threw herself into for several weeks, only to find that the supervisor had left them outside for a month in the rain. Janet expresses her frustration at the apathy of the staff, sharing a story of another supervisor who had given a kid his high school diploma—which he had worked all year to make up credits to obtain—in a dirty manila folder. Janet congratulated the kid and complained enough that the staff organized a congratulatory ceremony for the kid and a few others.

George is pretty down because he was convicted in adult court for 29 years to life for his involvement in an armed robbery. There is the chance that he would only do 7 years at the CYA, but it is up to the discretion of the Probation Department and the CYA itself. George is not hopeful that this will happen because the probation officer ignored his poems. George repeatedly dreams “of playing with the sister he never knew, chasing her into the street, only to be hit by a car” (194). George and Janet talk about his background, and George takes responsibility for his crimes. George’s poetry turns up, and Janet makes copies of them at George’s behest, reading them aloud to indicate the heartbreaking reality of the boy that the system has created.

Janet is also working on Geri’s behalf, as he is having trouble contacting his seemingly apathetic defense attorney. Geri’s story has remained the same: that he was forced to help a drug dealer rob someone at the threat of death. The drug dealer got shot and killed, and he is now being charged with murder. Several factors complicate—but in no way contradict—Geri’s account, and his lawyer informs Geri that as a young black man with a gun, he is a jury’s worst nightmare, especially in the white, conservative Pomona where he will be tried. Geri is panicking, and Janet contacts the lawyer to argue that Geri is a good kid who is much loved at JH. The lawyer agrees to help him, and calls back elated at the deal he has obtained for Geri: 12 years, all of which might be able to be served at CYA. Geri is not as excited, thinking about how long 12 years will feel and whether he should try his luck with a jury. He asks Janet what she thinks he should do, and she silently worries that 12 years will break him but tells him to take the deal.

Probation Officer Sharon Stegall gets a call before dawn that one of her probationers, a graffiti tagger named Dondi, has been shot and is on life support and presumed braindead. It was a case of mistaken identity, as the Hoover Street Crips had been looking for another of Stegall’s probationers who had witnessed a murder and had been relocated to Florida for his safety. Stegall is upset because Dondi had been making a conscious effort to turn his life around. She goes into work and a kid comes in high with a gang symbol on his belt; Sharon loses it and immediately takes him to JH.

Stegall’s probation office is inconveniently far away from the Inglewood court but just as desolate, and situated next to welfare offices. The kids often cannot make it there on time from court, and if they miss school for a probation appointment, they can be docked for truancy. Sharon believes that the probation offices should be moved next to the courthouse, “but such a sensible system has never been considered. It would require an investment of time and manpower the Probation Department increasingly cannot spare” (202). Every reform idea requires more money than the departments have, especially due to recent budget cuts. Racial tensions exist even amidst the probation offices, and some POs blatantly disregard laws, like going to strip clubs during work hours or padding their case files with dead or imprisoned juveniles. Kids get lost in the disarray and probation reports are frequently late or rely on police arrest reports: “Once an error is written into a probation report, it can be repeated many times over, since each writer uses the preceding report in a file for background information (203).

In LA, 17,000 kids are HOP (home on probation), about 1/3 of which will be rearrested later on new charges. One of Stegall’s kids tells her he passed all of his classes that he had been flunking, and Stegall remembers showing him her Jaguar automobile, to impress upon him that hard work pays off. Stegall chastises him for not cleaning underneath his fingernails and realizing that no one has ever taken the time to explain hygiene to him, patiently and neutrally explains how to clean his fingernails, which the kid commits to memory. She thinks about how many of these kids had never had anyone care about them so they often lack empathy: “Sociopaths are made, not born” (206). Any happiness Stegall feels at the success of this kid is mitigated by Dondi, who was doing so well and who Stegall talked to just last week, although he admitted—like most of her other probationers—to still hanging with the same crew.

The rest of Sharon’s probationers trickle in throughout the day; there are three no-shows, one of whom is pregnant, a girl who is going to junior college, a kid who doesn’t want to go to school anymore because he has no protection after leaving his gang, and another straight-A 7th grader who brought a gun to school to protect himself from gangs. The father of another, Jesus, brings a bag of cocaine into Sharon’s office, saying that he found it in Jesus’s room and wants to know if it’s drugs. Sharon is frustrated because Jesus’s previous PO had sworn that Jesus was doing fine even though he had been chronically truant and disappeared for days at a time. Stegall goes and arrests Jesus. After a week in JH, Jesus seems transformed and much calmer, and Stegall remarks about how these kids have to be locked up in order to relax and turn into kids again.

Stegall was a teenager during the Watts riots and witnessed racism firsthand from police: “She knows her kids face the same sort of situations even now, children for whom violence appears from all sides, children for whom there are no good guys” (208). She has seen kids play drug dealer and crack house. Most of Sharon’s probationers express how they are already dead, and she spends a lot of her time trying to get them to imagine a future, showing them how she has succeeded in spite of obstacles.

In the Commissioner’s courtroom, Stegall watches as the Commissioner hears the case of Doughnut, a repeat 16 percenter who was arrested in connection with Dondi’s assault. The policeman who arrested Doughnut is sitting with Doughnut’s mother, who is crying and has no one else to turn to. “Now, after so many years of inaction, she complains, the system wants to hammer her boy” (211), charging him with attempted murder even though he did not shoot Dondi. Doughnut’s mother asks how this can be possible, and the detective explains the felony murder rule to her, and that Doughnut confessed to the shooting. The detective explains that he knows at heart Doughnut is not a killer and that Doughnut simply didn’t want to look like a punk in front of his friends. He says it’s lucky that Doughnut is only 15. She and the detective discuss Doughnut’s options. The Commissioner remands him to lockup until his trial, and Stegall thinks the idea of the trial is useless because he will be sent to CYA until he is 25 because of the evidence against him. The same detective tells the story of the next kid to the Commissioner; the kid turned himself in because his parents were forcing him to sell cocaine. The kid was supposed to be on probation, but no one ever checked on him, and now he will be punished for it.

Carla James comes into court, all smiles, as Stegall talks about Carla’s continuous refusal to abide by the terms of her probation. Carla tries to argue, but the Commissioner shuts her down. The Commissioner threatens to commit her to the CYA, which is a much harsher punishment than the camp sentence Carla was expecting; at the camp, Carla has friends and is respected by the staff. The commissioner is frustrated by the lack of options for kids who do not have wealthy parents that can afford to send them to treatment programs: “For kids with money behind them, justice—at least when it comes to sentencing—is for sale” (215). Otherwise, kids go HOP, to probation-supervised foster homes, detention camps, or the CYA, which is essentially juvenile prison and rife with the same racial tensions and violence of adult prison. The first three are pretty ineffective, as they provide no support after the child is released back into the same violent environment that spawned criminal activity, and CYA is seen as a last resort, an admission that the State has failed because of the high recidivism rates of CYA juveniles. The Commissioner sends Carla to the CYA for a 90-day evaluation, in order to shock her into considering her life options.

Elias, Geri, and Carla are now all in the CYA for evaluation. Elias gets kicked out of CYA for bad behavior, and his caseworker writes a negative evaluation, which all but ensures that he will serve his time in adult prison. Elias admits to Sister Janet that he did this on purpose so he could exact revenge upon his grandmother’s killer, feeling hopeless because two of his best friends had been killed, his infant nephew died, and the CYA refused to allow him to marry his baby mama, all of which happened within the space of a year and a half. Elias realizes his mistake, as the chance that he will get into the same prison as his grandmother’s killer is almost impossible, and now he might be sent to an institution far away from his daughter. On the other hand, Geri is the model of good behavior, although he sees things at the CYA which give him pause, like rapes, assaults by the guards, and rampant racial tension. He worries what will happen to him if he stays inside too long. Geri wants to get transferred out of the CYA into a 4-year college program in Ventura, but the decision is up to the judge.

Carla is in a CYA facility up in Ventura, along with other hardcore girl criminals, which make up only 3.2 percent of the total juveniles housed in CYA. Even though Carla attempts to impress CYA staff with her good behavior, they see her as being manipulative, although their recommendations of what to do with her are relatively useless and vague. They recommend she go back to camp, which is exactly what Carla wants, although she remains suitably fearless of the allegedly-terrifying CYA. The Commissioner’s tactic has failed, so he sends her to Dorothy Kirby, a small county-run program for non-wealthy kids outside of the usual four options. Carla has to wait two more months for a spot to open up and says she’d prefer the CYA to Kirby, which she believes is full of psychos. When she moves, Carla is housed with a bunch of other gang members, as well as the girl with schizophrenia who tried to kill her sister with a machete. The program is coed, consisting of exercise, school, housework, and intensive group and family therapy.

Carla is transferred from Stegall to Shabazz, who she believes she can manipulate, but she finds that Shabazz and the other girls in the program force her to take a hard look at herself. Carla gets angry and frustrated, which Shabazz says is how most new kids act. Shabazz talks with her about the courage it takes to apologize, and then talks about a reformed former kid, who comes in later to talk to the group. Carla listens to the girl and says nothing. Shabazz shares another story of a girl who refused to give up the life and got shot when she turned 18, rendering her permanently blind: “The thing about gangbangers, [Shabazz] explains later, is that while they may laugh off fears of dying, the idea of being disabled for life never really occurs to them” (225). Shabazz says the girl is still gangbanging, which horrifies the girls. Later, Carla asks if she can reach out to the successful girl to ask her some questions, and Shabazz knows his plans have worked, despite Carla trying to feign nonchalance.

JH is in lockdown because contraband indicating an escape was found. Sister Janet and Humes beg the detention supervisor to allow the kids to have their writing class, although he think it’s a waste of time. Geri, recently released from CYA, is the only kid who is excited to read his autobiography, which he got a lot of time to work on in CYA.

In his autobiography, Geri is 9 and worries that his mother, recently released from prison, will not be able to stay clean. Geri remembers going to his mom’s friend’s house, who offered Geri’s mom a pipe. His mom took it but eventually let it fall and ran out of the house. His mom met a new guy who Geri really liked and he and Geri’s mom got married. They started fighting and the guy eventually left, and Geri started acting out on purpose, smoking and mouthing off and staying out late, but his mom didn’t seem to care.

Later, he finds his mom in the closet smoking crack and he runs away, crying, and falls off a slide. He gets placed in foster care two weeks later. Geri’s classmates commend him on his writing, and one kids talks about the meaning of foster homes:“‘It’s like you’re no better than trash. You’re so low, not even your own parents want you’” (229). Humes tries to argue that it wasn’t Geri’s fault, it was his parent’s fault, but the kids explain that that is how it feels: kids always think it’s their fault.

Everyone in Dorn’s court is irritated because it’s very hot and most cases are being put on continuance. Dorn is in his chambers, in a private meeting with a girl and her desperate mother, which he does often now, alternately yelling at the child and telling her mother to file papers so he can sentence her on status offenses.

Everyone is annoyed that Dorn delays his scheduled cases for these meetings, but Dorn ignores them, although “his failure to cajole the girl into obedience has left him in a foul mood” (232). Dorn believes in the importance of his status offense meetings to nip recalcitrant teen behavior in the bud. Later, Dorn has another status offense meeting: a kid who he makes sit through two hours in Dorn’s courtroom, seeing what becomes of kids who succeed versus those who fail. The kid becomes more and more frightened, and when Dorn finally meets with him, Dorn threatens him with detention, even though he legally has no basis for this. The kid seems appropriately apologetic and Dorn orders him to stay away from the older kids leading him astray. A year later, the mother reports that Dorn’s intimidation worked.

Prosecution and defense attorneys alike complain that Dorn is wasting court time and probation resources, but more than forty kids a month come to Dorn for these meetings. Dorn’s claims of a 95% success rate are unproven, although it does seem to be more effective than the justice system. Dorn is trying to get other districts to replicate the program, but there’s no funding. There have been many complaints that Dorn is skirting the law, a repeat of what happened with Gault years ago: “Locking up status offenders is illegal, but Dorn finds ways to do it anyway, relying primarily on a judge’s power to hold anyone who disobeys a judicial order in contempt of court” (235).

Prosecutors complain that time and resources are being taken away from other kids. Dorn detained one kid, Rolando—a chronic truant who had stolen money from his grandparents—before prosecutors even filed charges against him, and the judge had used his authority to coerce the boy to admit to a felony. Beckstrand thinks that Dorn’s goals are respectable, but she worries that he doesn’t want to be a judge, but rather a king.

At age 12, Keesha complained of hearing voices that tormented her; her older sister was afraid to bring friends over, but Keesha was a good student so her over-worked and addict-in-recovery mom, who had other children to handle and an abusive ex to get rid of, had neither the time nor the money for counseling. Humes argues that most kids end up in JC after their parents ignore the warning signs and it’s too late. One night, Keesha took out a machete and threatened her older sister with it, chasing her around the apartment. Keesha abruptly stopped and told her sister to call the police. Her sister locked herself in the bedroom with their other sisters, and the police came to find Keesha threatening suicide. The police fired the stun gun three times—the first two missed—before subduing Keesha, whom they took to the hospital and charged with assault. Keesha was admitted to JH instead of a psychiatric facility because nobody noted that she needed psychological testing. Because of the limited notes on Keesha’s case, which only admitted that she might be prone to suicide, Beckstrand wants to try Keesha in adult court for attempted murder.

Dorn is furious at Keesha’s fitness hearing, believing that Keesha needs help, not punishment. He demands to talk to Beckstrand and reprimands her for filing a fitness hearing, forcing her to read the psychiatric evaluation obtained by Keesha’s defense attorney. Dorn pleads with Beckstrand to let Keesha stay in JC, and Beckstrand is annoyed at the position Dorn is putting her in. Having never withdrawn a fitness motion before, Beckstrand believes this will make her look weak but, weighing this against how badly she feels for Keesha, decides to withdraw the fitness motion, clarifying that this will be a one-time thing.

Keesha pleads guilty and returns to court weeks later, looking much better after being medicated, but the bureaucracy has messed about and it seems purposefully waited for Keesha to turn 18, so the Kirby Center could refuse her. The older sister is still terrified of her and Keesha’s mother does not have the means to obtain psychiatric counseling for her daughter. The adults are worried what will happen if Keesha stops taking her medication, as people with schizophrenia sometimes do after they feel they’ve improved. Dorn tries to send Keesha to CYA and her defense attorney protests. The probation officer tells Dorn that he can force Kirby to take Keesha, which Dorn did not know, and this is what Dorn decides to do. Keesha is upset because she believes that she has gotten better and wants to go home, but Dorn promises her that this is for the best and that it’s not punishment. Keesha goes to Kirby as a housemate to Carla James.

Another kid, Chris, was a chronic truant and tagger before his mother sent him to live with his aunt and uncle because Chris did not get along with his stepfather. His aunt made Chris’s education a priority and got him a job: “It seemed curious to Andrea Jones that the juvenile system had spent a year with Chris, yet had not taken any of these steps” (247).

Chris thrived under a supportive and structured home life. But when a car that Chris was riding in got pulled over, he was arrested for having an outstanding warrant for running away from his group home a year before, after which he lived on the streets for six months. His mother had tried to contact his probation officer but to no avail. Dorn remands Chris to detention, in the process overstepping his bounds. Andrea objects, and spends the next few days arguing and trying to sort everything out with the probation department, only to be told they cannot find her nephew’s file, which was never opened or assigned. Dorn is furious, and the defense attorney begs that Chris be released to his aunt, but Dorn refuses. His aunt tries to contact probation and Chris’s case gets delayed further. She finally finds a sympathetic PO who works with her, but Dorn sentences Chris to camp, infuriating Andrea, who knows this will deprive Chris of his diploma. The defender says that Dorn “’is going to teach Chris a lesson even if it destroys everything good this kid has accomplished”’ (251).

Dorn believes his choice is completely valid, as the judge effectively is the Juvenile Court. Many public defenders have grown to despise Dorn’s capricious nature, although private attorneys are mostly neutral. Many lawyers feel like their obligations to their clients, which necessitate they paper Dorn, conflict with their obligation to bring home paychecks. Lawyers start to covertly elude Dorn by asking for probable cause hearings, then plea bargaining. The Public Defender’s Office and the DA start keeping track of Dorn’s repudiations of the law. At one point, Dorn starts screaming at the prosecution because a new DA was called in at the last second on a trial. Dorn calls over Beckstrand and then berates her, telling her that her place is to listen to him, and her boss comes to talk to Dorn, observing the illegal handcuffing of a status offender and using this against Dorn. Relations between the DA office and Dorn are more cordial for a bit, until Dorn violates a kid’s civil rights by refusing to allow a social worker to visit the kid. The public defender’s office gives the order to paper Dorn: “That’s all it takes to declare war on Judge Dorn, and, in the process, cripple the entire Los Angeles Juvenile Court” (255).