America's convicted juveniles: The stories of those growing up behind the razor wire

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Jesus Macedo-Perez was out driving with friends in his neighbourhood of Elkhart, Indiana, an industrial city on the banks of the St Joseph River known as the "RV capital of the world", but locally renowned for high crime rates, unemployment and communities ravaged by drugs.

While cruising the streets, Macedo-Perez, who had been running with gangs for as long as he could remember, bumped into a rival, Braxton Barhams. "He was making gang signs or something," Macedo-Perez says, when he reflects on the evening of 22 June last year.

"He said something, and I got possessed or something. I don't know, something came over me." His eyes widen with disbelief as he thumps his chest with his fist, his voice failing him suddenly. What he is unable to say, and has never said out loud, is that moments later, around 6pm, Macedo-Perez pulled a gun and took a single fatal shot at Barhams. Both were 16 years old.

Macedo-Perez is one of 40 young people at a maximum security prison in Carlisle, Indiana. A 90-acre compound carved into lush countryside fortified by a 15ft fence topped with razor wire, a second electric fence and six guard towers Wabash Valley is home to 2,000 of the state's most notorious criminals. Among them are the residents of Block D: teenagers who have reoffended in the juvenile system or are deemed so troublesome and violent that they have been tried and convicted as adults.

In the only Western country that tries children in the adult justice system, these young people are serving between 10- and 65-year sentences for crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

Their home, in a building separate from the adult inmates, is the subject of Kids Behind Bars, a touching and troubling new documentary from Wild Pictures. During five weeks of intensive filming, it was Macedo-Perez who had the greatest trouble sharing his story. "It took until the second-to-last week for him to say he had killed someone, he was so terrified of being judged," interviewer Eloise King recalls. "He didn't have a trial, he accepted a plea, so no one had ever heard his story. He was a child."

Finally, Perez recalls the moment he pulled the trigger: "I seen his face too, remember seeing him like, surprise face. I know that like me and him didn't get along, but damn, feel me, I just took his life."

For the past two years, Block D has also been home to Blake Layman, serving 55 years for felony murder.

He is one of five young people who, with Jose Quiroz, Anthony Sharp, Levi Sparks and Danzelle Johnson, broke into a stranger's house in October 2012. During the break-in, the homeowner, Rodney Scott, returned. He shot at them and killed Danzelle Johnson.

Under Indiana law, Scott's actions were deemed legitimate, and Layman, Quiroz, Sparks and Sharp (the so-called "Elkhart Four") were held responsible for their friend's murder and charged accordingly.

After celebrating his 18th birthday with a cake that he made from biscuits, Layman reflects on his actions. "My biggest regret about that day is the whole day. I mean, hell, I should have just went home."

His mother, Angie, who works with disabled children, visits every two weeks with his two younger siblings. She is nervous about her son moving to the adult wing, and believes every child should be tried as a child: "As teenagers, we all... make dumb choices, we do things we wish we wouldn't have done. They're not adults, they don't think like adults."

Casework manager Aleta Burnett says many of the boys come from generations of drugs and prison: "We have several in there right now who've seen a parent kill another parent. [Many] may feel like the whole system... has given up on them long before they even got there."

For Eloise King, leaving the young people she met, many of whom will never have a single visitor, was trying: "They're children and they've done lots and lots of terrible things, but been let down so many times."

But for Macedo-Perez, there is no escape: "When [the shooting] happened, my life stopped too... I hate myself for what I did. I understand why people hate me, I get it, I know why," he says. "I hate myself, too."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americas-convicted-juveniles-the-stories-of-those-growing-up-behind-the-razor-wire-9644627.html

[Karee 4,191]

I don't understand how the govt. can charge a juvenile as an adult, but yet tell the rest of the juveniles they are not old enough to make their own decisions. Another weird double standard in this country.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I don't understand how the govt. can charge a juvenile as an adult, but yet tell the rest of the juveniles they are not old enough to make their own decisions. Another weird double standard in this country.

Very true.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Liberals want tougher gun laws.. When they are enforced you complain

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Is a humanitarian perspective something you can actually understand on a basic comceptual level or do you view the world and everything in it through iron sights?

[lostinblue 1,989]

Is a humanitarian perspective something you can actually understand on a basic comceptual level or do you view the world and everything in it through iron sights?

Where is the humanity for the person whose life was lost. The killer should be hung by the neck until dead....... not sitting in a prison cell

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Beautiful.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Macedo-Perez had already been through the juvenile court system before — It was mentioned during the hearing that Macedo-Perez was a member of the Latin Kings since age 14

The Latin Kings is a Chicago and New York based street gang with cliques located throughout the United States. Formed in the 1940s by Puerto Rican immigrants, the gang is built around the concept of Hispanic pride.

The Latin Kings are well known for their involvement in violent crimes, murder and the distribution of drugs. Currently their primary source of income is from the street level distribution of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.

Members consider themselves to be a community-based organization. Some King chapters even have formed their own religion called Kingdism. They are known to use church after school programs to recruit new members. During meetings, members may recite the Latin King pledge, prayer and continually pledge to be prepared to rise to the call for their King or Inca. These meetings are often used by members to plan retaliation against other gangs.

http://gangs.umd.edu/Gangs/LatinKings.aspx

Hook up with a gang well known for their violence including murder....You get sent out to kill someone and a liberal writer cries about such strict punishment

Hang him high.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The point you are missing is firstly, that the USA has the highest jail population in the western world and this has no appreciable effect on the crime rate, despite the presence of the death penalty in some states.

Secondly, how people get into these gangs - a concept lost on the self righteous who don't consider that that sort of activity has a set of very distinct causes.

Thirdly, that the penal system has no interest in attempting to rehabilitate anyone and is simply a factory for turning out increasingly violent criminals. Perhaps if jail time wasn't handed out like candy for crimes that don't merit it the money spent in corrections could be reduced and better spent.

[lostinblue 1,989]

The point you are missing is firstly, that the USA has the highest jail population in the western world and this has no appreciable effect on the crime rate, despite the presence of the death penalty in some states.

Secondly, how people get into these gangs - a concept lost on the self righteous who don't consider that that sort of activity has a set of very distinct causes.

Thirdly, that the penal system has no interest in attempting to rehabilitate anyone and is simply a factory for turning out increasingly violent criminals. Perhaps if jail time wasn't handed out like candy for crimes that don't merit it the money spent in corrections could be reduced and better spent.

Folks on here demand that we have tougher gun laws..... For the children ... Now you complain about a tough justice system. Nothing is suitable for you. You are correct about the revolving door. This one should never get out....Kill someone because they flashed the sign... Someone kills an attacker in self-defense and its a great tragic event.....We cannot allow that... A thug guns down another thug and ... laws are too strict laws are too strict. .....You are importing gang members from the south every day that would slit you throat over a piece of gum ... Violence from gangs will expand on a scale never seen in this country.Perhaps 100,000 gang members in Chicago area alone... Each one looking to preserve their own turf.

In the past the gangs were very organized from the top down," said Sgt. Matthew Little of the Chicago Police Department's gang enforcement unit. As more gang leaders are arrested, convicted and sent to prison, the gangs they left behind have become "very splintered," he said.

Young men on the city's streets agree.

"There is no one to control this, so it has become haywire," said Devon Tims, who identified himself as one of the Chicago Vice Lords, making him one of the city's estimated 70,000 gang members.

In interviews, McCarthy said the "fracturing" of larger gangs into smaller ones has doubled the number of factions and conflicts. "These kids have guns and they end up using them," he said.

Robert Ray / AP

A heroin pouch lies next to a sidewalk on Chicago's Homan Avenue. In a section of Chicago's South and West sides, narcotic sales is big business and is attributed to some of the recent surge in violence and murders.

McCarthy said the gangs are far more territorial and rigid than those that operated when he was a ranking commander in the New York City Police Department and the chief in Newark, N.J. And that means trouble when a gang member simply crosses the street into rival territory.

"If we see a car with three of (one gang's) guys three blocks over there (on another gang's turf), they are probably going to shoot someone," said Leo Schmitz, a gang enforcement commander who was redeployed in January to command Englewood's police district.

The demolition of the city's infamous public housing complexes in recent years also played a role. While the high rises long were considered a massive failure that warehoused the city's poorest families and became magnets for gangs, tearing them down caused a new set of problems by scattering gang members to other parts of the city.

Some of them eventually settled in the thousands of houses that were abandoned during the nation's recent financial crisis. There the battle for supremacy started anew.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/47778690/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/fractured-gangs-behind-chicago-homicide-surge/#.U9981KNhuSo

Johnson's great society .... How did that work out.....

.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

If you are talking to me about my views, you should talk to ME about MY views. Not some weird conglomeration of other opinions held by others that you ascribe to me.

Why is the US "the only Western country that tries children in the adult justice system"?

[SMOKE 1,426]

If you are talking to me about my views, you should talk to ME about MY views. Not some weird conglomeration of other opinions held by others that you ascribe to me.

Why is the US "the only Western country that tries children in the adult justice system"?

to get violent offenders off the streets

[Operator 1,927]

Why is the US "the only Western country that tries children in the adult justice system"?

They aren't.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Casework manager Aleta Burnett says many of the boys come from generations of drugs and prison: "We have several in there right now who've seen a parent kill another parent. [Many] may feel like the whole system... has given up on them long before they even got there."

For Eloise King, leaving the young people she met, many of whom will never have a single visitor, was trying: "They're children and they've done lots and lots of terrible things, but been let down so many times."

But for Macedo-Perez, there is no escape: "When [the shooting] happened, my life stopped too... I hate myself for what I did. I understand why people hate me, I get it, I know why," he says. "I hate myself, too."

[lostinblue 1,989]

If you are talking to me about my views, you should talk to ME about MY views. Not some weird conglomeration of other opinions held by others that you ascribe to me.

Why is the US "the only Western country that tries children in the adult justice system"?

If your heart bleeds perhaps you could visit a few of them in prison. Choose the life of being a thug ,,, Wonder why they are in prison......... If he was not caught how many more people would be dead. ....Then you cry about gun laws not strict enough...... That must mean not strict enough for the law abiding folks .... right. Not the thugs..