No Matter How Loud I Shout (66 page)

In interviews with the author, teenagers who have been incarcerated at CYA stated that gang activity, violence, sexual assault, and, to a lesser extent, drug use flourish in the youth prison system. While some of the facilities have the feel of campuses, others are grim, high-security lockups. Waiting lists for substance abuse programs and other therapeutic and rehabilitative services tend to be extremely long—longer than many offenders' sentences. Most juvenile judges in Los Angeles—as well as caseworkers in the CYA system—view CYA as a last resort for youths who have little hope of straightening out, a dire alternative that compares favorably only to adult prison.

5
. Los Angeles County Juvenile Court makes this admission an average of five times each workday, 1,200 times a year. Out of the 8,664 juveniles housed at CYA at the end of 1993, 42 percent came from LA—a tragically high rate of failure, given that LA County is home to only 30 percent of the state's children.

6
. CYA figures are as of January 1994. Male domination of juvenile crime of all sorts—serious and minor—is also pronounced, though not as overwhelmingly. Eighty-two percent of the nation's 1.5 million juvenile offenders in 1992 were boys, according to the
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics—1992
(Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice).

1
. The intake problem in Los Angeles grew worse shortly after Keesha's arrest, when earthquake damage to Central Juvenile Hall destroyed its ability to perform the intake function. Los Padrinos had to take over, doubling its intake load, accepting new detainees, then shipping some of them later on for housing at Central—a logistical nightmare of delays and misplaced children. Eighteen months after the January 1994 earthquake, Central intake was still down.

2
. When prosecutors file petitions in Juvenile Court, they are either detained, which requires that the kid be locked up, then tried relatively quickly, or nondetained, which allows the child to remain at home, with a much longer amount of time allowed before the case is brought to trial. In this case, the boy was arrested on a nondetained petition. In order to put him in Juvenile Hall, Judge Dorn had to make a legal finding that there had been a change in circumstances in the boy's life that required his incarceration for his own protection and the safety of the community. Dorn found that his truancy was the change in circumstances, but as his lawyer pointed out, that was no change at all—he had not been going to school before his arrest, either. Once again, it seemed to be a case of Dorn doing the right thing—taking steps to get a truant kid back in school—rather than the precisely legal thing.

3
. From the author's interviews with Deputy District Attorneys Tom Higgins and Peggy Beckstrand.

1
. National statistics compiled by the U.S. Justice Department show that while white youth make up the majority of delinquents, African-American youth have delinquency rates more than twice as great. For every thousand youth at risk for referral to a Juvenile Court, 41.7 whites are actually found to be delinquent; the rate for African-Americans is 107.8. (For this study, the Justice Department includes Hispanics with whites, so separate figures are not available.)

In Los Angeles, racial and ethnic disparities are even more pronounced, with the Juvenile Court population dominated by Hispanics. The Sixteen Percent study that examined six months' worth of first-time offenders found that 16 percent of them were white (white juveniles made up about 27 percent of the total juvenile population in LA County at the time), blacks accounted for 24 percent of first-time offenders (and about 12 percent of the juvenile population), and Hispanics accounted for 56 percent of the first-time offenders (and just under 50 percent of the juvenile population).

2
. The account of the in-chambers discussion is based upon the author's interviews with James Cooper and Peggy Beckstrand.

1
. One of the best measures of how hard a judge is working is how often he orders continuances on his own motions, rather than at the behest of defense or prosecution. Systemwide, for the first five months of 1994, about 20 percent of all continuances in Los Angeles Juvenile Court were on the court's own motion. Workaholic Judge Dorn's
percentage was under 15. But 81 percent of delays in Judge Luke's courtroom were at his own behest, a continuance rate unrivaled by his peers.

Trials are another good measure. During the same five months, Judge Dorn had 545 trials scheduled, and managed to reach verdicts in 39 percent of them, a startlingly high rate, especially because his trial workload is much higher than the average judge. Systemwide, the rate of bringing trials to a conclusion hovered near 33 percent, with the balance continued to a future date. Judge Luke, with 111 fewer trials scheduled than Judge Dorn, only managed to conclude 17 percent of them during that five-month period, and all but a handful of those were through quick plea bargains rather than full-blown trials.

2
. Judge Luke later transferred to adult Civil Court.

1
. “The presumption that sending juveniles to adult court is a tougher response to crime is not necessarily borne out. The reality of the current system . . . is that youths sent to adult court 1) sometimes are not convicted at all because a jury cannot bring themselves to find someone so young guilty; 2) sometimes are put on felony probation when the juvenile court would have incarcerated them; 3) may benefit from a plea bargain designed to avoid the cost or uncertainty of a trial; 4) may be sentenced to a determinate period and earn half-off credit for good behavior in the adult system when they would have spent a greater time incarcerated in the California Youth Authority” (
The Juvenile Crime Challenge: Making Prevention a Priority
, California's Little Hoover Commission, September 1994, p. 83).

1
. Crime rates have declined slightly in the last two years—leveling off at a perilously high level after years of growth—but most experts in 1994 believe this is a temporary lull in a storm that will rage for decades. Based on recent acceleration in juvenile crime rates, and factoring in the growth in the nation's juvenile population that census data show will occur, Shay Belchik, administrator of the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, made this prediction in a recent report: “By the year 2010 the number of juvenile arrests for a violent crime will more than double and the number of juvenile arrests for murder will increase nearly 150%.”

Other experts make similar assessments. James Alan Fox, dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, said at the 1995 conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: “The really bad news is that the worst is yet to come. I believe we are on the verge of a crime wave that will last out the century. Unless we act today, I truly believe we will have a blood bath when all these kids group up. . . . There are 40 million children in this country right now under the age of 10. By the year 2005, the number of teenagers in the U.S. will increase by 23 percent, which will undoubtedly increase the levels of violence.”

All of these predictions will turn out to be wrong—hugely wrong. Juvenile crime will drop sharply and stay well below early 1990s levels for the next two decades. But the false predictions and ensuing drumbeat to dismantle juvenile court protections would
lead to more and younger children tried and sentenced as adults nationwide. These “reforms” would remain in place long after their rationale was shown to be a mistake.

2
. Statistics are from
Juvenile Court Statistics 1992
, and
Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A Focus on Violence, 1995
, both by the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and the
Bureau of Justice Statistics Sourcebook.
The same funnel holds true for the state of California (247,000 arrests in 1992, with only 64,000—26 percent—resulting in actual consequences) and Los Angeles (50,000 referrals to the Probation Department, but only 13,000—26 percent—sentenced to formal probation, foster care, or detention).

1
. Ronald's lawyer, James Cooper, spent much of the disposition hearing trying to undo the damaging psychiatric report that he initially requested. He said the daily beatings occurred only while Ronald was in second grade, when his behavior was particularly bad; that it was never actually proven that Ronald possessed cocaine at school; that the fire-setting involved igniting some gasoline on a pond and had done no damage; and that Ronald had joined a gang in Juvenile Hall only for protection against other inmates who had threatened him.

1
. Blinky is Elias's gang name; Clanton Street Locos is the name of his street gang.

2
. Uncles, aunts, cousins (male), cousins (female).

3
. Grandfather.

4
. According to Elias, this is Spanish slang for a gang conflict.

5
. Grandmothers.

6
. Busted, locked up.

1
. Statistics provided by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles School Police Department.

2
. “When Youth Violence Spurred ‘Superpredator' Fear,”
New York Times
, April 6, 2014. DiIulio briefly served as a senior advisor on faith-based initiatives to President George W. Bush, but resigned after finding the administration too dominated by staffers he famously referred to as “Mayberry Machiavellis” and joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania.

3
. The charges are almost always provoked by a particularly outrageous case. In Illinois, for example, hundreds of kids will be tried as adults because an eleven-year-old and a twelve-year-old in Chicago dangled five-year-old Eric Morse from a fourteenth-floor window, then dropped him to his death, for refusing to steal candy for them.

A note about the index:
The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system's search function.

Accomplices after the fact,
114
,
131

Adult court,
58
,
60
,
138
,
263
,
271
,
279
,
294
,
307
,
327
,
329
–30,
337
,
353
n,
357
n1,
364
n1

appointed attorneys in,
266

automatic transfer of violent crimes to,
329

hearings on transfer to,
see
Fitness hearings

and incarceration in Los Angeles County Jail,
64
,
67
–68

juries in,
282

plea bargains in,
284

procedures imported from,
256
,
261

support services in,
108

Three Strikes and You're Out sentencing law in,
292

and two-tier system,
150
,
358
n2,
359
n5

AIDS,
13
,
78
,
179

American Association for the Advancement of Science,
365
n1

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
xvii

Anderson, Cedric,
149
–50

Angel dust,
210

Appeals,
60

of fitness rulings,
80

Arizona,
329

Armed robbery,
see
Robbery

Arraignments,
54
,
55
,
58
,
233
,
281

uncontested,
261

Arrest warrants,
53

Arson,
xvii
,
312
,
352
n3,
356
n3

Asian Mob Assassins,
310

Assault,
6
,
278
,
356
n3,
359
n3

aggravated,
254

in CYA,
363
n4

with deadly weapon,
55
–58,
90
,
103
,
195
,
212
,
242
,
279
,
326

increase in rates of,
14

in prison,
161

sexual,
see
Sex crimes

At-risk children,
47
,
55
,
71
,
352
n2

Auto theft,
see
Car theft

Baskin Robbins murder,
35
–44,
48
,
49
,
141
,
161
,
168
,
203
,
240
,
329

intake in,
xviii
–xix

pretrial hearings on,
39
–40

police interrogation on,
40
–42

sentencing for,
311
–14

trial for,
113
–31,
139
,
214
,
233
–42,
244
–52

trial date set for,
19
–20,
47

Battery,
58

Beckstrand, Peggy,
10
,
11
,
16
,
31
,
35
,
39
–49,
184
,
211
,
225
,
265
,
283
,
295
,
297
,
357
n1

and Baskin Robbins murder case,
19
–20,
39
–44,
47
,
49
,
113
–31,
139
,
214
,
233
–42,
245
–52,
311
,
313
–14