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Sara's Story - homeless teen in prison gets second chance

Comunidad para Mujeres girls's prison

Sara* was living on the streets, sometimes with different friends, moving from place to place, when she was arrested by the Mexico City police. She was arrested for petty robbery. Sara, like all kids arrested in Mexico City, was first taken to the police detention for juveniles, Agency 57. After three days she was moved to the pretrial detention facility, Comunidad para Mujeres [Women's Community].

Matching Donations - 40 / 25 Challenge

Our board of directors is putting out a challenge - 40/25. 40 new donors to IJC’s Children in Prison Project, each giving $25 or more, by June 15th, and the board will match it. 

All donations go to support the Children in Prison Project in Mexico. Our current projects include: working with judges to create a pretrial release program in Mexico City, equipping a group home to care for homeless kids coming out of prison, and consulting with various state governments on the need for pretrial release alternatives. As a new non-profit, we need to get the word out about our important work with kids in detention in Mexico. If you have already donated to IJC, send this to your friends and family, and ask them to donate just $25. 

Click Here to Donate Now

Children's Day in Mexico - Don't Forget the Invisible Children

(ESPAÑOL) Today is Día del Niño or Children’s Day in Mexico. Around the city there will be parties, free rides at the fairs for children, even free McDonald’s hamburgers. I am sure that my daughter will come home from her school party with a large bag of candy to rival the Halloween spoils of children in the United States.

Mexico City Reforms its Juvenile Justice System

The Mexico City Assembly passed a new Juvenile Justice Law (Ley de Justicia para Adolescentes) last week. The new law creates an integrated adversarial system for all crimes. This will replace the existing hybrid system where "non-grave" crimes were tried in a semi-adversarial system with oral trials but "grave" crimes were tried under Mexico's traditional inquisitorial system. The differences between the adversarial system and inquisitorial system are significant. The inquisitorial system in Mexico is an off-shoot of a Spanish-style written system, where prosecutors file written briefs and written evidence, the defense gives written responses and the judge makes written rulings. Each step of the process is painful and drawn-out. The adversarial system uses oral hearings where lawyers state their cases orally, the judge responds and provides a ruling at the end of the hearing.

Spring Break in Prison

Visiting Day at adult prison in Mexico City

This week in Spring Break in Mexico. Kids actually have two weeks off from school for spring break. But don't worry, school goes until July14th.

As we are finishing up our work for the week and planning to get out of Mexico City for a few days, it got me thinking about what spring break is like for kids in prison.

Homeless and In Prison - Losing all Hope

I had the great pleasure of meeting with Casa Alianza- Mexico today. They gave me a tour a two of their five youth homes for homeless teenagers in Mexico City. It was an amazing experience. Casa Alianza, known as Covenant House in the US and Canada, is an organization that works with homeless teenagers through North and Central America. They have been in Mexico City for 26 years! There is an amazing amount of overlap between the homeless youth population and children in prison.

Excessive juvenile detention worsening Mexico's security problems?

There has been a lot written about Mexico's security problems. The drug war has led to tens of thousands of deaths. Certain municipalities, cities and large parts of some states are very dangerous places, where narco-gangs operate with impunity. We have met many families who have moved from more dangerous parts of the country to start life over in Mexico City - internally displaced people.

As a result of the insecurity, political pressure to get "tough on crime" has led to very draconian juvenile justice laws. Many states in Mexico allow kids to be imprisoned for one year or more while awaiting trial. Some states have excessive penalties juveniles, as high as 20 year sentences in some cases.

Is juvenile justice policy actually contributing to the security problems?

Criminal justice reforms and legal education - creating a juvenilejustice clinic

In recent weeks I have been exploring the possibility of working with Mexican universities to create a juvenile justice law clinic. There are a few public and private law schools in Mexico City that have clinical programs, but none work with juveniles in prison. But the universities that I have spoken I with are very excited about the possibility.

Is anyone paying attention?

I became interested in juvenile justice, at least partly, because it seemed to be a forgotten and overlooked area for many. The problem of kids in prison was never the "flavor of the day" for human rights activists at my university. Even my first project in Bolivia with Save the Children was part of a side-project that Save had just started with kids in detention, and then shortly after I left ended the project.

With Mexico's ongoing criminal justice reforms, it would seem like fertile ground to be advocating for reforms to the juvenile justice system. Both the Mexican and US federal governments have been pouring resources into the criminal justice system reforms for years now. Mexican and US universities, and non-governmental organizations have been researching and advocating for reforms that recognize prisoners' rights. But among all of these efforts, very little has been directed towards juvenile justice reform.

Why is this? It is partly a question of expertise. Many criminal justice reform organizations state that they don't have the expertise in juvenile. Children's rights organizations don't have criminal justice expertise. It is also partly it is a question of resources and numbers. There are limited resources and organizations want to reach the largest number of people or reform the largest systems. So, prison reform and criminal justice reform focuses on adults because there are more. Whereas children's rights organizations focus on education and health because they impact more children.

But I believe that in reality reforms to the juvenile justice system impact a much greater number of kids than is immediately clear. Because juveniles can only be in the juvenile justice system until 18, those that re-offend are often over 18. Thus, the failure to respond to juvenile crime proportionally, excessive detention and the lack of community-based treatment and reintegration programs, means that the juvenile justice system is contributing to an over-burdened adult system.  Kids who are failed by the juvenile system re-offend as adults.

Furthermore, the problems that children's rights advocate are trying to address - lack of education, health and nutrition, even the lack of registering birth certificates - are all more acute for juveniles in conflict with the law. Many of these kids come from the most at-risk communities.

It is unfortunate that both among non-governmental organizations and the government, that juvenile justice is an afterthought. The ripple-effects from the failures of the juvenile justice system are impacting both criminal justice reform efforts and efforts to improve the situation of at-risk children. We need these communities to engage on juvenile justice reforms.

Justice reform is more than good intentions...

Bolivia imprisons 16 and 17 year old juveniles in adult prisons. Bolivia's prison system has some of the worst conditions in Latin America and the world. When I visited San Pedro prison, an infamous men's prison in the center of La Paz, Bolivia, I was genuinely scared and anxious to get out as soon as possible. I took a short tour of the facility, a converted convent that was at 200% of capacity. My college and I had chosen a visiting day to meet with the prison social worker and psychologist, so when we were ready to leave we had to fight the crowd at the front gate and get the guard's attention so he would pick us out of the mass of prisoners.

Considering the deplorable conditions of the adult prisons in Bolivia, it was no wonder that a Brazilian NGO had dedicated resources to build a modern facility outside of La Paz to house the juveniles that were being detained in San Pedro. The new facility was centered around treatment and rehabilitation. They had hired a full staff of social workers, psychologists, and prison officials. They had obtained all of the government permissions required. The building was built and ready to go. Except for one thing. It was completely empty of juveniles. 

The reason: only 12 of the 200 juveniles in San Pedro had been sentenced. The rest were awaiting trial and the judges would not approve their transfer. How do you rehabilitate somebody who has never been convicted? 

When I talked with the NGO in Bolivia I was not surprised. I had already finished my research for Save the Children and discovered that at least two-thirds of the juvenile prison population was awaiting trial in Bolivia. Many people talked about the deplorable prison conditions and the overcrowding - government officials, human rights advocates and NGOs. But the reality is that many of the problems in the prison system are a result of problems in the justice system. The justice system is broken and is simply sending too many people to prison for too long, often without even sentencing them. Its like a leaky dam causing a river to flood and blaming the river banks. What are the prison officials to do?

The Children in Prison Project is dedicated to creating systematic reforms to the juvenile justice system. In order to be effective, our projects have to be based on solid research and a holistic understanding of the justice system as it exists.  Justice reforms have to be more than just good intentions.

Read our research on the Mexico City juvenile justice system.

Kids For Cash and the International Crisis

"Kids for Cash" is a new documentary just coming out that follows the corruption in the juvenile justice system in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. A juvenile court judge would get kids accused of crimes and their parents to waive their right to an attorney and then send them to a private detention center. The owners of the detention center then gave the judge kick-backs for each kid. I all $2.6 million in kick-backs and 3000 kids were involved. The documentary follows some of the specific stories of kids whose lives were ruined by detention, mostly kids who had committed non-violent, petty offenses.

When I first found out about the Kids for Cash scandal I was living in Bolivia working with Save the Children on a project in detention. What was an anomaly in the US and "rocked the nation" (according to the movie poster) was common practice in Bolivia. Kids who were arrested for any manner of crime (sometimes just failing to pay off the police) would sit in prison. If they were under 16 years old they would be trapped for 180 days. If they were older, 18 months. These were kids who had never been convicted of any crime, and most never would be. Two-thirds of the juveniles in Bolivia's prisons are "awaiting trial" or in "preventative detention". The reality is that the trial never comes for for most. The law limits the time in preventative detention to 180 days or 18 months, depending on age. After the time limit, most kids are released and the prosecutors don't bother following up. The only exception is if the victim or victim's family bribes the police and prosecutor to investigate and bring a case to trial.

The "Kids for Cash" shows how prison can destroy young lives. But the same thing is happening all over the world, kids are thrown into prison with serious criminals, often times adults too. They leave months or years later broken.  Kids for Cash-type corruption is occurring all over the world.  Corrupt systems that trap kids in prison.

Lying About Getting Coffee... Laying the Groundwork

Because the Children in Prison Project is new, I have been spending a lot of time "laying the groundwork" for future projects. Or insert your favorite business euphemism, "networking", stumbleupon, or try this one. What it really means is that I send out a lot of emails, make a lot of phone calls and then count the days until I think it is not rude to email again or call again until I get response. When I am lucky enough to make contact, I usually ask for a meeting over "coffee", which is a white lie, as I am a total caffeine addict and can't touch real coffee.

The truth is that I have had some meetings that will be very important for our future work - with Mexican NGOs, government officials in the federal or local government, even the US and Canadian Embassies (these are great examples of networking as "stumbleupon" networking as my wife's photography clients were the ones to put me in contact with people at the embassies).

In fact, a very promising project I am developing is a partnership with corporations' corporate social responsibility programs to raise funds to get more kids out of prison and into alternative programs. We are still developing the proposal, but I am trying to partner corporations with local Mexican NGOs that work with kids on release programs in order to increase their capacity to take in more kids. We may even be able to provide legal defense to some of these kids. I can't get more specific yet.

So in between emails and un-returned calls, exciting things are happening. February and March promise to bring more of the same, so stay tuned...


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The Children in Prison Project Launch Video

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For more information or to donate go to www.internationaljusticeconsulting.org.

Children in Prison in Sierra Leone

I ran across an organization working with juveniles in prison in Sierra Leone called Free Minor Africa. It was started by a photo journalist, Fernando Moleres. Anybody interested in juvenile justice and the excessive use of pretrial detention should check out their website.

The images from the Moving Walls exhibit are amazing and heart-breaking.

© Fernando Moleres http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/moving-walls/20/juveniles-waiting-justice

NGO Launching

International Justice Consulting, Inc had our official launch party with a few friends and board members this past Friday. It was a great event, where we shared some authentic and non-authentic Mexican food (Tinga, Sopa Azteca and nacho cheese dip!).

Most excitingly, I got to share the mission and vision of International Justice Consulting and the Children in Prison Project. I think we are developing a great support network in Minnesota and we are close to raising enough support to keep our work going strong.

Also, our website is close to going live.

The only disappointment is that our 501(c)(3) application hasn't been sent back from the IRS yet. But we are hoping it will be soon!

Happy Holidays

Movement in Mexico City

There has been significant movement towards reforming the pretrial detention system in Mexico City. The Tribunal Superior de Justicia is proposing to create a pretrial services division that would make recommendations on releasing juveniles and then supervise their release (like a probation officer for pretrial release).

Then today the Federal District's legislative assembly proposed to pay bail for first time offenders (juveniles would only have to pay $500 MX or about $45 USD rather than the usual $5000 MX).

Here is the news article (in Spanish): Plans Announced to Cover Bail for First Time Offenders

Mexico City Report on Juvenile Pretrial Detention

From January to May I completed the research for my Fulbright Fellowship on Juvenile Pretrial Detention in Mexico City. This included 51 interviews with juveniles in detention, 12 interviews with judges, prosecutors, public defenders and other experts, and collecting data from the Mexico City government.

Here are some of the key findings of my research:

• 41%: Proportion of juveniles in detention that are awaiting trial.

• 42%: Juveniles accused of any crime that remain in pretrial detention.

• 63%: Juveniles accused of grave crimes that remain in pretrial detention.

• 37%: Juveniles accused of robbery offenses that receive pretrial release.

• 7%: Non-robbery offenses that receive pretrial release.

• 25 Days: the average number of days juveniles wait in detention before being granted pretrial release.

• 79 Days: the average number of days juveniles are in pretrial detention awaiting trial.

• 10%: Juveniles that remain in pretrial detention because they cannot afford bail.

• 2%: Juveniles in release that fail to fulfill release conditions.


What does this mean? If a kid is arrested in Mexico City for a "grave" crime (anything from robbery to drug possession to rape and murder), he or she can expect to be in detention for about 25 days. Then IF his or her parents attend every hearing, and IF they collection evidence of good behavior and IF they pay the bail in full ($450 usually), he or she MAY be released. If not, expect another four months of detention while the trial process drags on. Unless he or she is from Mexico State and not Mexico City, then there is no chance of release regardless.

Poor kids, kids accused of drug crimes, kids who´s parents can't always make the hour + commute to the court, or parents who don't have the means to collect evidence to prove their kid deserves pretrial release, sit in prison. There are even cases of kids who don't qualify for pretrial release or can't pay bail, who even when found guilty that the crime is so petty the judge sentences them to probation. I met one such boy and his mother the day he was released from detention (which was oddly the same day he was found guilty).

While I worked in the juvenile trial division at the public defender's in Washington DC, I probably saw a hundred kids plead guilty and never have to wait for a trial. No so in Mexico. At the first hearing many juveniles do confess. But that won't shorten their time in pretrial detention by one day. Every step in the trial is still taken.

The judges and prosecutor are theoretically concerned that the kids won't show up for the trial if they let him or her out. But less than 2% of juveniles granted release fail to appear. And that is without dedicated pretrial services supervision.

The complete report will be available soon.

The Forgotten of the Forgotten

It seems that fighting for juvenile justice reforms is a no-man's land. Governments typically don't care much about the juvenile justice system as the courts, jails, government offices, public defenders and prosecutors are all more under-funded than the adult system. A simple walk through the juvenile court building in Mexico City is all it takes to see the holes in the walls, paint chipped entirely off the walls, and offices stacked with people in small desks where they can barely function.

The criminal justice reforms that were passed in 2008 to modernize the courts and guarantee rights for defendants and victims alike, have barely touched the juvenile justice system. The federal agency overseeing the implementation of the reforms, SETEC, has barely included the juvenile system in its discussions. The US Embassy is supporting these reforms via the US Agency for International Development (USAID). When I asked the USAID director for the criminal justice project in Mexico what programs they have funded related to juvenile justice, he cited just one, four years ago. He stated that was because SETEC hasn't prioritized juvenile justice.

The international community is little better. Criminal justice and rule of law projects that work on prison and court reform almost always work in the adult system to the exclusion or near exclusion of juveniles. One NGO director that specialized in prison reform told me that there just aren't very many juveniles in prison compared to adults. On the other had, children's rights organizations let you sponsor children to pay for their health care and schooling, but rarely venture into children's prisons or have the expertise to advocate for juvenile justice reforms.

Kids in prison are truly the forgotten of the forgotten. Mostly petty criminals, they are left to sit in prison for months or years, missing school, losing important connections to family and community. Even when their government begins taking serious steps to improve the criminal justice system, they find out there are not enough of them in prison to warrant much attention. How many of these kids will one day help to fill up the adult prisons?

Mi Libertad - My Freedom

In my last post I told about some of the boys in detention that I had met and the songs that they had written for a music concert. On a return visit I asked the staff for a copy of the lyrics to the songs and they gave me the entire song book that the boys had written. Each dormitory wrote songs for the concert.  About three quarters of the songs are about girls and the rest about prison. Considering they are 14-17 year old boys, I was lucky that any of the songs talked about prison life!

The song "Visiting Day" was written by the boys of Dormitory 1 which is the "new comers' " dormitory. These kids have been in prison for maybe four or five days, which in my mind make the words of "Visiting Day" sting a bit deeper. Here is another song written by Dormitory 1 called "Mi Libertad" or "My Freedom":

“I WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE

SO THAT MY LIFE CAN CHANGE

TO BE DIFFERENT TO EVERYBODY

AND TO BE ABLE TO EMBRACE MY LADY

AND NEVER AGAIN TURN TO ROBBING

AND WITH MY FAMILY I CAN ENJOY

MY FREEDOM, MY FREEDOM.”

“TO GO TO SCHOOL AND STUDY

THE CHANCE TO HOOK UP WITH A GIRL

AND I CAN MAKE IT LIKE A NORMAL MAN

I START TO SING WITH ALL THE BAND

AND ALL THE BAND WILL TELL YOU

VALUE YOUR LIFE AND YOUR FREEDOM

YOUR FREEDOM, YOUR FREEDOM

YOUR FREEDOM, YOUR FREEDOM.”