Reaction to "Juvies" video

I think that watching the "Juvies" video was an eye opener for many people, especially for those who have never known anyone who had similiar experiences in Juvenile detetention facilities. This may be the case, particularly for people who have grown up in suburbs where there isn't as much violence and as many gangs. We have learned from reading and our own experiences that drugs, gangs, violence, etc exists in any type of area, not just inner cities. However, the problems are more prevalent in inner cities, therefore one would think that more people living in those areas would have a greater background knowledge and/or know a young person who faced jail time for those problem-related activities. Either way it's interesting to hear the teenagers themselves in the video discuss their situation and their hand in the crimes committed. It is also good for viewers to see that some of the teenagers in jail are or were at one time good kids with good intentions. An example is the boy, Duc, who faced jail time because he got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Before watching the video, I hadn't been aware of a gang association law, which can convict young people if they befriended a gang member and was present at the time a crime was committted. He was in the car with a gang member that shot and killed someone, yet he is facing up to 30 years or close to it. It says something about the juvenile system and how it effects the lives of such young kids, for the long term. I was relieved to hear that Duc later got a sentence reduction,but one still has to consider other kids like him going through the same situations.
As for the other kids in the video, some of their sentences may have been justified due to the seriousness of their crimes. However, when such young people are in the same prisons as adults they are susceptible to even more dangerous activity. For example,drugs start to play a role in the lives of people who may not have been using drugs prior and with more frequence as well. This is why I think that teenagers should not be in adult prisons to begin with. The adult prisons often don't assist in the rehibilitation of young people, as we learned in the video. The question of whether to try teenagers as adults is complex and muti-faceted. On the one hand, families who have lost their own children at the hands of other children have every right to want justice. They are going to want long sentences and harsh conditions because their own children do not get to live the rest of their lives. On the other hand, can we just throw away these teenagers in an adult prison with dangerous criminals to fend for themselves? The question is not easy to answer,which is why debates over whether to try teenagers as adults are ever present. The problem is not black and white and I personally believe that it gets harder when deciding where to draw the line. Has a 16 year-old developed the same cognitively as an 11-year old? No, however, because of life experiences, a 14 year-old may be more mature than an 18 year-old.
For teachers ,these issues may appear in classrooms where a child may have an older sibling, parent, friend, or other family member who is in jail or prison. Teachers need to realize this and take this into account when determining possible reasons for behavior changes. These problems at home, of course make school learning difficult. School work may not be considered as important because of the immediacy of the problems. Teachers need to be supportive, but also careful not to intrude too much in the lives of their students, which is not an easy task. I think it's important that students just know that you are there for them and in extreme cases other school personell may need to step in for assistance.