California Photographer Captures Young Faces of Juvenile Detention {video at link}

[xchrom]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june12/amgrad_02-02.html#disqus_thread

RICHARD ROSS, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara: I'm Richard Ross.

I'm a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And I have been working on a project with kids in detention, confinement and treatment for the last five years, photographing, interviewing and just participating in lives of kids that are under stress and in some of the most difficult situations of kids on the planet.

I have visited 30 states, including District of Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii. I have been to over 300 sites. I have interviewed over 1,000 kids and administrators.

Every kid that I spoke to, I would go into these cells, I would go into their environment, and I would sit on the floor, frequently a concrete cell. I would spend, like, half-an-hour sitting there taking notes, and I would always start with introducing what I was doing and asking them if it was okay if I talked to them.

I called up my cousin, who's a prosecuting attorney in El Paso, Texas, and asked if I could have access there. And when I asked him, "Do you think that there is a possibility that you will ever be so successful that you'll be out of a job?" his response was, "I will still have a job as long as Texas keeps on making 10-year-olds.