![]() ![]() Native American girls are “extremely overrepresented relative to their share of the total youth population.” 1 African American children are five times more likely, and Native American children three times more likely, to be incarcerated than white children. Even though Black children make up only 14 percent of all kids under 18 in our country, they make up 42 and 35 percent, respectively, of all incarcerated boys and girls. Black and Native American children are disproportionately locked up, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Rather, what happened to Michael was an example of everyday violence and is emblematic of how we treat poor children and children of color in our “justice” system.Įvery day, an estimated 36,000 kids are incarcerated in jails, detention centers, and prisons. What happened to Michael in the criminal punishment bureaucracy was neither unique nor inevitable. Michael went home to survive and fight another day. ![]() A short time later, our legal team at the public defenders got the charges dismissed due to insufficient and misrepresented facts in the arrest warrant hastily secured by the New Orleans Police Department detective. One day, Michael jumped head first from his top bunk bed onto the concrete floor. Unsurprisingly, solitary confinement neither helped Michael heal from his trauma nor kept him safe. Far from his family and legal team, Michael was confined to 24-hour lockdown prison guards said this was necessary for “his own protection.” Again, they cited his vulnerable age and “mental health condition” as reasons for subjecting him to solitary confinement. Thirty petrochemical plants surround this prison located along a strip of the Mississippi River labeled Cancer Alley for the high cancer rates shown to correlate with air pollution levels. Citing Michael’s age and “mental health” issues (years of abuse and criminalization from family, teachers, and police), the sheriff transferred Michael upriver to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, the “mental health” prison. Prosecutors recommended Michael be incarcerated pretrial in Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), not the juvenile jail known as the “Youth Study Center.” I first met Michael when I represented him as a staff investigator at the public defenders’ office in New Orleans. He faced a sentence of life without parole if the Jim Crow jury (referring to juries that make non-unanimous convictions) found him guilty. Michael was Black, and his family had struggled to make ends meet. Michael was 16 years old and had been charged with first degree murder. All names and key facts have been modified to protect the identities of the children involved in the cases reported. Malcolm Lloyd worked for five years as a staff and juvenile investigator at the Orleans Public Defenders office in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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