Previously oncereal. I don't care if you lose my worstenemy.
I'm not telling themyou.
I don't care what youdid.
We need people out there in the community that are concerned with blacklives, with brownlives, whitelives, or purple lives to step out and dosomething.
Shit, I'mtelling, I helped my age at the best way Ican.
Tellingages, telling thetruth.
I told them I should havedied.
Listen, I went through the things that I was going through when I was younger because I was young anddumb.
From this American life inW.B.E.Z.
Chicago, it'scereal. One courthouse told week byweek.
I'm SarahCainig. When I began thisproject, I didn't plan on covering any juvenilecases.
juvenile records are public for onething.
And Ifigured,eh, we got plenty to look at right here in the adultsystem.
But after awhile, juvenilecases, juvenilecrime, became impossible toignore.
The newly elected county prosecutor seemed to be talking about juvenile violence at everyopportunity.
Youngpeople, 14 to21, are crimedrivers, who issaying.
And the data supported hisalarm.
More and more juveniles were being charged with the worstcrimes.
Justiceassaults,robberies,rapes,homicides, all rising for the past fiveyears.
Once these juvenile crimes made their way into the juvenilecourts,though, and once the juveniles themselves made their way into juvenileprisons, they disappear fromview.
Juvenile courtrooms are tightlycontrolled.
The names of juvenile defendants aren't publicized for goodreason.
The crime's children commit should not forever markthem.
But as aresult, I didn't have a picture of what juvenile justice looked like in KyogaCounty.
I'd hear mutterings at the JusticeCenter,though, mostly from defenseattorneys, grousing to eachother, you're not going to believe what just happened to my juvenile client or tome.
You think this place isbad?
You should head over tojuvenile.
And Ithink,why? What are you talkingabout?
But then I metJoshua. He was 19 at thetime.
So not achild. He'd tell you he wasgrown.
But he was still in the juvenilesystem.
You can stay there until you're21.
Keep in mind the juvenilesystem, its mission is different from that of the adultsystem.
The point isn't topunish.
It's not aboutretribution.
The point is torehabilitate.
In the juvenilesystem, that's where we're supposed to think likeparents.
Where the standard shouldbe, mychild.
Is this what's best for mychild?
Would this help mychild?
So I'm going to tell you aboutJoshua.
Joshua sometimes starts off a storywith,okay, soboom.
Boom is big inCleveland.
Short handfor, let me try toexplain.
Forreal. I'm going to see how I feel like all the waylike,boom.
All the tape I have with Joshua is fromprison.
So the sound is mostly a tinny thread ofterrible.
I'm sorry aboutthat. The prison system wouldn't allow me to interview Joshua inperson.
But I can tell you as his longtimeinterlocutor, I like it when Joshua saysboom.
Or betteryet,boom,boom.
Means I might start to understandsomething.
Which is how Joshua came to inhabit his currentpredicament.
One night in June of2014,Joshua, freshly16, had gone to sleep after a night at abar.
Next thing heknew, FBI agents were pulling him from hisbed.
They took him to an interrogation room in ClevelandHeights.
They told him they had him for somerobberies.
No, it was my boomboom. So they had to useit.
We got some video going this and then I first heard just an honor thing and then my show with the likethese, like all thesepictures.
Instagram,Facebook, seems 15 year olds are rarely criminalmasterminds.
There he was posing with all these otherkids.
The FBI agents weresaying, not only do we have video evidence of what you'vedone, but thank you socialmedia, we also know who you runwith.
The crimes Joshua was charged with wereserious, armed robberies for many monthsback.
Two of them were gasstations.
He and a friend held up two BPs in one day and a third robbery of aPopeyes.
Joshua said he was coerced into that one by an older gangmember.
They barely got anymoney.
He said they left with this pathetic little plastic bucket that had small bills init.
According to a policereport, around 150bucks, which he handed over to theboss.
But the restaurant had people in it who'd had to lie down on theground.
That's a multiple kidnapping indictment rightthere.
Joshua had jumped over the counter and pointed a gun atsomeone.
Andagain, according to the policereport, itsaid, you have five seconds to open the safe or I'll shoothim.
Joshua said his gun had no bullets init.
That his code of evidence gun wasbroken.
The firing pin wasbusted.
But the customers and workers at Popeyes that Wednesday morning didn't knowthat.
The FBI agents were tellingJoshua, we've got you onvideo.
So let's run through ourchoices, shallwe?
We can hand you over to the adult courtsystem.
That's called abindover.
And Ohio children as young as 14 can be bound over to adult court for certaincrimes.
ToJoshua, adult court soundedserious.
And itwas. In the adultsystem, Joshua would be facing in between 20 and 30 years inprison.
Or the officersaid, anotheroption.
We cantalk. And if wetalk, we can keep you in the juvenilesystem.
We won't bind youover. You'll get out when you're21, five years fromnow, with no adult felonyrecord.
Wannatalk? Joshua was operating on a couplehours'sleep.
If he remembersright, he washandcuffed.
He said the officers weren't rude or abusive tohim.
Thosecool, hesaid. They left him alone for a while to think about the deal they wereoffering.
So at anypoint, did you say tothem, I want to talk to a lawyer or I need to speak to my mom orlike, was there any adult or any lawyer involved in any ofthat?
No, I'm almost definitelydead.
I wanted to talk to mymom, but that's from the time they didit.
Let me talk toanybody. It was just me upthere.
I don't have nobody rightthere.
It was to be in thepolice.
Did you say can I have a lawyer orno?
No, I never saidthat. I never bothered with thelawyer.
I just put on mymom.Right,okay.
Like I didsay, my friends have a daughter with melike, give me something likethat.
Sayagain, am I supposed to haveone?
Anadult? An adult orme?
It's about16, I have tosay.
When they said I'm supposed to have an adult here withme, what did theysay?
Imean, I first would behonest.
I only think they responded tome.
Theyjust, I only think they responded tome.
And how long did they keep youthere?
I was there for a balllike, welllike,five, nolike, four or fivehours.
With no adult knowing where youwere.
No.Really? Oh myGod. Doesn't this soundillegal?
It'snot. It'sallowed.
My children haven't robbed any gasstation, so I feel the apples and orangeshere.
But I have to sign a permission slip from my teenager to go on a quote unquote field trip that's a five block walk from herschool.
I have to check the box to allow my son's photo from summer camp to be used for promotionalpurposes.
But here wasJoshua,16, fogged by exhaustion and the prospect of everlastingincarceration.
And no adult to put a hand on hisshoulder, to crouch down and whisper in his ear what I believe most of us would have whispered if we'd been in thatroom.
Ask for alawyer. Do itnow.
Ask for alawyer. If Joshuahad, the interview would have should havestopped.
And maybe his story would have should have gone anotherway.
As itwas, Joshua took the deal thatfast.
It was June of2014. Two monthsearlier, his daughter had beenborn.
Those two months with her he told me were the happiest of hislife.
He couldn't handle the idea of being locked up until both he and she were decadesolder.
Andalso, Joshua's relationship inside the gang he wasin, the heartlessfelons, werecomplicated.
I know it's hard tosquare, but Joshua says he was an armed robber who wasn't intoviolence.
He said the only benefit of joining the heartless felons was the protection they offered from the heartlessfelons, fromthem.
He said they extorted people into committingcrimes, especially the younger kids likehim, who wouldn't do serious time if they gotcaught.
Soyeah, he did stuff with them and forthem, but he didn't feel anything for most ofthem.
The only one he had considered a friend he toldme, even that guy had pulled a gun on him once during anargument.
So he took thedeal. Juvenilelife.
With acatch, something called a seriousyouthful,offender, dispossitionalsentence.
Usually people just call it anSIO.
It works like a suspended adult prisonsentence.
You young man are going to stay in the juvenilesystem.
That's thecarrot. But we're hanging a ghostly adult sentence over yourhead.
That's thestick. Which we can invoke if you can't keep it together in juvenileprison.
So if you want to stay injuvenile, you have tobehave.
Joshua believed he couldbehave.
He took thedeal. That same day he gotarrested.
Joshua says he drove around with thecops, showed themplaces.
He identified people inphotographs.
People associated with the heartlessfelons.
In the comingmonths, he'd meet with investigators a couple moretimes.
Joshua has terrific recall for all manner ofinformation.
And he'd give themdates,addresses,times.
He'd tell them details of crimes about which they already knew and about ones theydidn't.
As asource, he was achampion.
Hereally, Joshua is extremelyunusual.
This is LisaRankin. She was Joshua's publicdefender.
She was assigned his case only after Joshua had agreed tocooperate.
When I'd called her to ask aboutJoshua, who'd been her client for only a couplemonths, three yearsearlier, she remembered himimmediately.
She used to clients refusing to cooperate with thepolice, refusing even to tell her information that might help theirdefense.
So for him to be so open and volunteeringinformation, and I think that's how this whole thingstarted, is that when he had met with the officers before the arrangement and before he wasrepresented, he had volunteeredinformation.
And he really helped them on a number of investigations because they didn't have startingpoints.
This is when the heartless felons really started coming intoplay.
They were wreaking a lot of havoc in Kaya County and I believe to this day stillare.
And so the police were very desperate to get as much information as theycan.
And Joshua really connected a lot ofdots.
And I think he explained it in a way that really was almost like atutorial.
He could tell youeverything.
He could explainhierarchy, how thingswork.
There's really no such thing as a gang expert because there aren't people in thesegangs, studying thesegangs.
They kind of study them from a sociologicalstandpoint.
And I felt like Josh was probably one of the clearest historians that they've had in a longtime.
He really put himself outthere.
And because ofJosh, other major crimes weresolved.
And the hope was that much more dangerous individuals were being taken off the streets because ofJosh.
This gang is affiliated with the heartlessfelons, the gang operated in the glindal neighborhood betweenSt.
ClairSuperior, East 105 Streetarea.
Seven months after Joshua begancooperating.
A bunch of important people in Cleveland would hold a pressconference.
Themayor, the Cleveland PoliceChief, people fromATF,FBI, County Sheriff'sOffice, CountyProsecutor, and they said six months ago we began aninvestigation.
They announced a 13 personindictment.
All members of a heartless felons affiliated group called the Cut Throats from Joshua's GeneralNeighborhood.
We looked at these gang members for crimes ranging from FlorenceAssaults, aggravatedrobberies,kidnappings, various weaponsviolations.
They're also tied to at least one homicide that we know of rightnow.
There were drugcharges, ricocharges, gangcharges, more gang-related arrests wouldfollow.
The FBI didn't talk to me about Joshua's case or hiscooperation, by theway, nor did the ClevelandPolice.
Almost everyone in the Cut Throats indictment pleadedguilty, but a couple of people went totrial.
Andagain, Joshua kept up his end of thedeal.
A year had gone by since hisarrest.
He thought he was all donehelping.
But then off they took him to the JusticeCenter, where he got up in front of his dangerous urst-well friends and outed himself as aninformant.
He knew they'd hate him forit.
He knew he could get killed for it if these guys got thechance.
But he also figured everyone on that Cut Throatsindictment, all thesecases, they wereadults.
They'd be going into adultprisons.
He was staying injuvenile.
He testified at the trial of one guy charged for a drive-by shooting that guy wasacquitted, and also in a murdertrial.
For thatone, Joshua's only job was to identify thedefendant, just tosay,yeah, I knowhim.
Joshua had no first-hand information about thecrime.
But the state put him on the standanyway.
I asked theprosecutor, MoaAdala, why put Joshua up therethen?
You had other people ideing yourguy, including an ATFagent, including the defendant's ownmother, whosaid,yeah, that young man sporting the distinctively energetic ponytail in the surveillancetape?
That's myson. So why put Joshua upthere?
You don't want to leave evidence notused.
You haveevidence. We're going to use it to ensure that something likethis, a homicide where a person's life is taken from him for noreason.
And another person who is gravelyinjured, that we don't leave it thechance.
You guys ever hesitate to use juveniles because you're justlike, let's try to keep them out of thisstuff?
Sometimes.Again, it depends on thecase.
Our problem is a lot of ourshooters, our people who are killingpeople, areyoung.
And those are the people they hang outwith.
The prosecutor from the othertrial, the drive-byshooting, toldme, of course they never want their witnesses to gethurt.
He alsosaid,quote, in terms ofJoshua, after he was donetestifying, I didn't really give him anythought.
LisaRankin, the publicdefender, happened to be in the courtroom when Joshua was on thestand.
He wasn't her clientanymore, but she recognized him and shethought,wow, they are still usinghim.
This is still goingon. Youknow, I was very concerned for Joshua's safety because we know how these casesgo.
Youknow, he knew it was akid.
Other defense attorneys told me they do not advise their clients to cooperate unless there's no othersolution.
Too often the benefits aren't what they're cracked up tobe, while the risks crack gone foryears.
I talked to another public defender in the juveniledivision, MorganPierce.
She told meshe,quote, rarely ifever, has a kid cooperate with lawenforcement.
Unless your kid can jump on aplane, shesaid, they're either going to go to juvenile prison and be indanger, or they're going to go back to their neighborhood and be indanger.
And I don't very much trust the system to follow through on what theysay.
The prosecutors are not beholden toanything, so the kids areused.
They'renaive. Lisa Rankin remembered how much the police officers had seemed to like Joshua when they interviewedhim.
How they'd encouragedhim.
There was talk of him getting out ofprison, going toschool.
There was a lot of talk that they would check in onhim, and Iguess, youknow,ideally, you hope that that means somehow protectinghim.
Juvenile prisons in Ohio are run by the Ohio Department of YouthServices,O-D-Y-S.
And if a juvenile prison system could have a goldenage, this would be it forOhio's.
Ten yearsago, the system was forced to remakeitself.
Under lawsuits and a stateinvestigation, then a federalinvestigation, andfinally, it consent tocreate.
Back in2007, a court-ordered investigation found what sounded like childabuse,essentially.
Severely overcrowded housingunits,untrained,confrontational, poorlysupervised, sometimes even vengefulstaff, using excessive forceand,quote, reckless and maliciouspractices, chokeholds that created extreme risks ofasphyxia.
If we'd use these tactics in strategic locations to avoidcameras.
Kids were also being harmed by otherkids, and they had no real avenue to complain or to gethelp.
Sometimes they threatened suicide just to get intoisolation.
Then came federally mandated and fairly massive reforms that sought to do away with solitary confinement as apunishment, barred staff from using force-accepting extremecircumstances, and added lots of educational and therapeuticprograms.
Mostimpressively, they really did redefine what juvenile prisons should befor, or rather whom they should befor.
Unless your child is hurting otherpeople, using agun, committingrape, setting housefires, he is probably not going to an ODYS closedfacility.
He's going to go to a smaller residential or non-residential program in his owncommunity.
And while some young hotwires and spray painters still do end up in ODYS prisons for the wrongreasons, a derth of alternatives in their own rural counties or a wrong-headedjudge, generallyspeaking, Ohio is not locking up kids like thatanymore.
In2004, there were 2,000 kids in Ohio's juvenileprisons.
Now there are about 500kids.
In2015, the Department of Justice issued areport, celebrating a turnaround that hasquote, resulted in what is in many ways a modelsystem, what we are calling the Ohiomodel.
Excellentprogress,yes?
The one downside is that the kids who do get sent toODYS, to borrow a phrase from DonaldRumsfeld, are the worst of theworst.
Or if Donald Rumsfeld had a compassionate social workeraunt, she mightsay, the kids arriving at ODYS now are more traumatized and higherneeds.
And instead of being divided among 9institutions, they're now corralled into3.
A higher concentration of sometimesviolent, always strugglingchildren, living together in a smallerspace.
The facility where Joshua landed in September of 2014 is called IndianRiver.
It's not officially maximumsecurity, but functionally it operates like JuveeMax.
One bigbuilding, housing at thattime, about 140kids.
They have their ownschool, which is across theyard.
I've been inside the mainbuilding.
It'sclean, brightlypainted.
Life-size posters of basketball stars are decorating thehallway.
It has 8units, roughly 20 kids to aunit.
Single rooms with doors thatclose.
Each unit has a day room with aTV.
They can play videogames, they can playcards, though dice arecontraband.
The kids go toschool, intotherapy.
They might have jobs cleaning the cafeteria or doingmaintenance.
At first things went okay for Joshua at IndianRiver.
No one knew he cooperated with lawenforcement.
Joshua's own family didn'tknow.
He saw that the heartless felons were in charge of some of theunits.
Controlling the video gameremote, taxing kids for theirfood, forcing them to clean up or to make three-way phone calls forthem.
All of which Joshua hadanticipated.
The heartless felons were invented in Cleveland's juvenilelockups.
And Joshua had been inside one of thembefore, when he was about13.
That was the first time he saw how tightly they operated insideprison.
Joshua had already passed the various tests to get absorbed into thegame.
They call it gettingtwisted.
You won't gettwisted. Pusted is in and thefast.
If you don't want to be perpetually bullied andassaulted, if you want to be able toeat, that's a bigthing.
Other kids taking yourfood.
Joshua said you try tojoin.
And tojoin, you have to get threebodies, assault threepeople.
Other juveniles orstaff?
Like, it can be truenow, but there already had nopreference.
Mostly, when they talk to astranger, because you come there with thatpressure, they put all them in and they don't want to be the onlyone.
That's theoutside. At IndianRiver, Joshua was aninsider,well-positioned.
Nobody was asking him where hefrom, always the first loadedquestion.
He was friends with the leader of the HeartlessFelons, thegodfather, orG.F., who vouched forhim.
So he was good for about ayear.
But then he'd had to testify at the trialsdowntown.
And a slither of rumors started back at IndianRiver.
The Joshua hadtold.Like, it just happened up likeEric, a couple ofmonths.
Like, to begin at the2000s, like December2015, like you can't probablyknow, if how there was25th, then it probably began asJanuary.
It died down for aminute.
It popped up in theend. Sowait, when you say it poppedup,like, what are you talkingabout?
What specifically is happeninghere?
Whenever I asked Joshua what it was like totestify, how he felt about cooperating with thepolice, his answers are rushed and a littlemechanical.
As if the subject triggers a tiny guillotine window in his brain to zipclosed, protecting the more fragile synapses fromexposure.
What he can recount with practically digitalaccuracy,though, is when the troublereally, reallystarted.
Joshua had been an Indian river for about twoyears.
And then he transferred to a minimum security juvenile prison called KayaogaHills.
Summer of2016, that's when the bare bones rumors about Joshua started to take onmeat.
And then byJuly, like the middle ofJuly, it waslike, ohyeah, we knowhim.
And then people have had cellphones.
They had to cellphones.
They werelike, they're called to thestreets.
And then the streets werecalled,like, somebody from an institution called them by a realphone.
And then every person that worked on an institution withme, they had to belike,yeah,like,yeah, this isit.
Like, he did do this or stuff likethat.
Kayaoga Hills is in a suburb right outsideCleveland.
Lots of people from his neighborhood or rival neighborhoods coming andgoing, family membersvisiting,calling,gossiping.
And someone from the drive-by shooting case that Joshua had helped the policewith, not one of the defendants from thatcase, but thevictim.
He had been shot in the leg with an assaultrifle.
Thatvictim, he was also at KayaogaHills.
Joshua said they'd seen each other a year earlier at the Justice Center when Joshua had had to testify thetrial.
And now at KayaogaHills, that kid was telling people who Joshuawas, what Joshuadid.
It was openseason.Oh, I'm not looking at it everyday.
KayaogaHills, unlike IndianRiver, it's eight units with opendorms.
There's one seclusion room per unit incase.
Andotherwise, kids are mingling all thetime,which, if you're atarget, is to hand them out to ahellscape.
A quick look at the ODYS rundown of incidents involvingJoshua.
And you see the rush of assaults as soon as he gets to KayaogaHills, like a blood pressurespike.
July3rd, July7th, July19th, July22nd.
Joshua canfight. A few staff members told me he can reallyfight.
He told me his moves got the attention of one guard who was also a gymteacher.
Joshua said the guy used to watch the surveillance videos of his fights andadmiration.
Anyway, Joshua foughtback, but he said more and more people were assaultinghim.
First, it'd be threepeople, then fourpeople, then sixpeople.
The worst assault in terms of the physical damage done to Joshua was in September of2016.
It happened in theschoolhouse.
He'd been staying clear of school because he knew it wasn't safethere.
But he said they told him he wouldn't be allowed to take his GED tests if he didn't have90%attendance.
Then, next thing youknow, I was walking through the schoolhouse with my papers and stuff in my hand going toclass.
And then I got a sword frombehind.
And I blackedout. I don't remembernothing.
I got knockedout. I woke up in thehospital.
That's all Iremember. Oh myGod.
Really? So you have no memory oflike, like you weren't even able to fightback.
Youjust, youknow,no.No,no.
Yeah, I got asword. I hit my head on thedoor, hit my mouth on theground.
I hit my eye on the door knob when I was on the waydown.
And I was just layingthere.
I had aseizure. I was coughing upblood.
I did like this also that I wastold.
I don'tremember. I just know I woke up in the hospital close full ofblood.
Like I don't rememberit.
How long were you in thehospital?
I was just there for a couple of hours and I can't wait back to aninstitution.
Now they put me back in the same part of the institution withhigher, higher rank and higherattendance.
Backwhere,where, and some back at squareone.
Anotherattack, December30th,2016.
Joshua was jumpedagain.
This time he firmly believes a guard made thathappen.
He just been moved to a new unit and he started arguing with the guard onduty.
Joshua said he went and took the unit phone from the guard'sdesk.
He was employed to get someattention.
He put it in his foot locker by hisbed, wouldn't give itback.
Meanwhile, the guard had ordered pizza for some of the kids on theunit.
Joshua said when the guard came in with the pizzaboxes, he told somekids, go get the phone back fromJoshua.
Then you can have yourpizza.
Knowing fullwell, Joshua says that that would likely lead to anassault.
Itdid. Three kids jumpedJoshua.
It got out ofhand. Joshua said the guard then cuffedhim, started to walk himout.
But then a bunch morekids, Joshua thinks it was about five ofthem.
They joinedin, got Joshua on theground.
So now he's got about eight kids onhim, all heartlessfelons, while he'shandcuffed.
Joshua said the guard didn't call a signal 88 task forhelp.
That's for a serious fight orriot.
Instead, a different guard called a signal5, which means other staff are more likely to mosey over tohelp, rather thanrun.
But Joshua says more guards finally did comeover, and one of them put his own body between Joshua and the kids who are stompinghim.
That's why our government is trying to cover meup.
But then he and the kids kicked him ahead and got knockedout.
Rightthere, the rest of the family already called a signal88, but they're in theorder.
The rest of the family camein.
They got the breaking day up and then they picked me up and took me to theclinic.
Three guards were alsoinjured.
Joshua says afterthat, they took him tooperations.
And he sat there for another hour or twohandcuffed.
Then Joshua went into seclusion cell for awhile.
I ran all of what Joshua told me byODYS, but the department would not answer any questions aboutJoshua.
They do not discuss juveniles in theircustody, nor would they provide anyone for me to interview about their policies or procedures or philosophygenerally, because they said it would be in service of a story about a particularyouth.
They did send me a generalstatement, which I'll get tolater.
Joshua said all along he'd been telling the administration at Kaya HogaHills, I am not safehere.
I heard similar complaints from other kids atODYS.
I toldthem, but they didn't really doanything.
You see it in institutional reports and lawsuits over the years aswell.
Allegations that staff knew kids were in danger from other kids and didn't do enough or anything to protectthem.
Joshua said he practically begged the people in charge at Kaya HogaHills.
You got to send me back to IndianRiver.
When I first got a slaughter downthere, I told him to send me back to IndianRiver, because it's not going tostop.
They basically just brushed itoff.
I kept coming back and back for twomonths.
The whole time I never stopped to send him back to IndianRiver.
I kept tellinghim. They didn't stay still to doit.
That's why I had to sit down with the superintendent at the institutionalhealth.
He basicallysaid, you were my fault that I was gettingflooded.
Then ODYS did not comment on Joshua'scase, including whether he asked to bemoved.
I don'tknow. He basically said that I was bringing everything onme.
How?Like, saying that I tried to boss peoplearound.
I'mlike, I'm the high rank and all of thesudden.
He knew I was down to the hardestfeeling.
He just toldme, you better stop or something or this is what's going to happen toyou.
He thinks your heart wasstill?
Yeah. That's what hethought.
Yeah. That's what he wassaying.
I kept tellinghim, I kept telling him explainhim, but he was just like flicking it off and just making it like bringing it back onme.
Like, you need to keep your mouth closed and keep your mouthclosed.
After about six months atKaiohoogahills, Joshua met with a couple oflawyers, a defense attorney who said he'd figure out if he could get Joshua early release from ODYS and a civil rightsattorney.
Mr. Paul Kristallo is a matter offact, whom you might remember fromEromas'case.
That's how I learned about Joshua fromPaul.
Both attorneys wereshocked, theysaid, that it seemed like the heartless felons were colluding withstaff.
They considered asking the state attorney general's office to launch aninvestigation.
In themeantime, Paul had called the facility tosay, I'm no juvenile justiceexpert, but seems like you might want to move thiskid.
AndPS, we might be suingyou.
More after thebreak. That's my subscription to the New York Times have me doing thisweek, preparing a strawberry pretzelpie, solving spelling bee with nohints, planning a trip to one of the 52 best places togo.
Getting to the bottom of the big pantstrend, and I'm finally replacing my vacuum with the recommendation I cantrust.
What will your subscription to the Times have youdo?
Why not find out with generous welcome offers that include a seven day freetrial?
Go to nytimes.com slash freetrial.
I have to think back now to access a more innocent time around 18 months ago when I was stillincredulous.
Give me asecond. There itis.
How could the government take ateenager?
An unrepresentedteenager.
Persuade him to do the thing almost nobodydoes.
The thing law enforcement has been desperate for someone to step up anddo.
Co-operate. Get him to generously spin through his heartlessfelons'roletex.
Then put him on the witnessstand, notonce, buttwice.
Then put him back in juvenile prisons packed pretty tightly with heartlessfelons.
Offer a parting handshake and a general note to behavehimself.
Remember that SIO hanging over yourhead?
And how could that same government then sit back and watch him get jumped again and again andagain?
How could they call an ambulance to take him to thehospital?
A month later according to Joshua arranged transportation to a couple of neurologist appointments to attend to the brain bleed he said he was diagnosedwith.
Oh, and then that other trip for a CATscan.
How could all that have happened and behappening?
And yet I couldn't hear anyone aside from Joshua raising analarm.
So Iconsidered, as anyone in my positionwould, there's probably more to this story that I'm notseeing.
I set out to fact checkJoshua.
I began with MissTurner, ShaylaTurner.
She ran a literacy and social action program inside Indian River in Cairo Gahills called FreedomSchool.
It's a curriculum designed by the Children's DefenseFund.
Joshua says Freedom School was by far the best thing that happened to him insideODIS.
It changed his wholedemeanor, hesaid, from anenraged, suspiciousscowler, into a young man who was beginning to recognize his feelings and managethem.
Every time I gotmad, she'd asked mewhy, hesaid.
It was the first time somebody actually ever sat down and listened to me vent and tried to coach me and worked withme.
Joshua stayed in the program for twoyears, longer than anyoneelse.
When the program lostfunding, Miss Turner positioned herself as Joshua's mentor and kept intouch.
I asked Miss Turner about Joshua's version of the pizzaincident, because I figured she knows himwell, she's seen his worst and bestbehavior.
I figured she'd know whether he wasexaggerating.
But a guard really have handcuffed Joshua and then more or less allowed more kids to assaulthim.
I'm hearing stufflike, youknow, the guard put handcuffs onhim.
That'sreal?Yes, that is absolutelyreal.
And the way that I verify that isjust, when acting to be able to see the footage and their inability to dothat, the only reason I knew any of information about it is because they called me to calm Joshuadown.
They calledyou?Yes. The ability called me with Joshua in aroom, because they know I'm his mentor to calm himdown.
That is the most angry I've ever heardof.
I could hear himcrying.
I couldn't even manage thatmyself.
So I told them that I needed to seehim.
I needed to be able to talk to him in person and we went to go seehim.
That's when I saw the bruises and thebeading.
Joshua was verystrong.
He's afighter. This is what got him intofirst.
This is something that you're very comfortablein.
So to see him that bad and be able to talk to him and find out whathappened, it washorrible.
And then the guard was firedafterwards.
The guard wouldn't have been fired if the guard wouldn't have been in thewrong.
I eventually got the personnel records for thisguard.
He wasfired. Though later through a settlement with theunion, he was allowed toresign, along with a pledge to never again work inODIS.
The guard wasn't sanctioned for Joshua getting jumpedthough.
He was sanctioned because of thepizza.
He admitted to taking 20 bucks from one of the kids and using it to buy thempizza.
It's against therules.
It seems like every time he's telling me astory, it feels like inside ofthere, certainly at Kaya HogaHills, but also to a certainextent, at the unionriver, that it's just chaos forthem.
Absolutechaos. It is absolutechaos.
I think that's not what we'reclearly.
It is absolutechaos. And that the kids seem incharge.
Or is that nottrue?Yes.
I would absolutely agree withthat.
Really?Yes. And I was wondering if it was our program was so beneficial because the children were on side with theprogram.
If we were to have relied on just thestaff, I would not have feltsafe.
So thechildren, I wanted to speak to other kids who'd been atODIS.
To know whether Joshua's situation was real and whether it was commonknowledge.
It wascrazy. I don'tknow.
I used to talk aboutit, but it wascrazy.
It was real bad forhim. It wasbad.
This isMalik. He's18. He was at Kaya Hoga Hills withJoshua.
He's an adult prisonnow.
Malik said he saw Joshua get jumped multipletimes.
I feel bad forhim. He had a whole inclusion againsthim.
I'd gotten Malik's name from a former staff member who'd suggested he might be a good person to talk to about what life was like at Kaya HogaHills.
He'd given me a couple of names of remarkably frank former ODISkids.
She didn't knowJoshua.
She definitely didn't know that Malik is actually Joshua'scousin.
If you overlay Cleveland atODIS, you see a lot of coincidences likethis.
It's a pretty smallworld.
Malik told me Joshua had it worse than anyone he'd seen come through Kaya HogaHills.
He said he himself had been high up in the heartless felons when all this was goingon, but he loved hiscousin, so he stuck up forhim.
When it got to a startpoint, I had to spend beinglike, like yousaid, thatfamily, I could just keep learningthings.
The things that happen to themkeep, continue tohappen.
So I won't point at some ideas that they'd been and did tell themlike, this came fromyou, going likethat.
And I kind of had words with a couple ofthings.
Here'sPaul. He had words with a couple of the guys hesaid.
Asked them to coolit. Did you personally get any blowback of why are you friends with this kid or why are you like thiskid?
The heartless felons started to turn againstMalik.
Stardust deal fromhim, hesaid.
One night when he wassleeping, someone hit Malik in the face with a combination lock right between theeyebrows.
He needsstitches. I talked to another guy named Leo fromToledo, who'd been at Kaya Hoga Hills at the same time asJoshua.
He remembered the assault in the school when Joshua woke up in theambulance.
Somebody just clapped him and all ofthem.
Clapped meanshit. He was a bigdoe, they punchedhim.
He punchedhim, he went tosleep, but he hit his face on the concretewall.
And then he was at thepoint, that part was going to aseason.
And his whole face just swore it wascrazy.
And then he had one foot off forthat.
Leo said it was because Word had gone around Kaya Hoga Hills that Joshua was asnitch, that he was giving the prison staff information about the heartlessfelons, thefamily.
Yeah, he knew a lot of stuff about thefamily.
It was telling a lot of what he was trying to do about a sentence orsomething.
Giving the last people a lot of good namesup.
Okay. When youheard, ohyeah, this guy's asnitch, did you have any feeling aboutthat?
Personally, one way oranother?
We werelike,okay,no, that's what hedeserves.
Like, what's the feeling aboutthat?
I was heavily involved inthat, and the gang andI, so youwere.
He was snitching onme, not onme, justme, just a lot of otherpeople.
Okay.So, did you know this hit on him was going to happen orno?
Yeah, Iknow.Oh, youknew?
Okay. Can Iask, did you orderit?
Am I talking to the man who orderedit?
Uh,yeah. At thetime, Leo said he was in charge of a section of the gang calledYF, YoungFelons.
So he called the hit onJoshua.
Coincidence, he'd later become thegodfather.
Joshua said he wasn't telling on the heartless felons at Kyoga Hills that they were conflating his past cooperation with thepresent.
Regardless, Leo said he was mostly hearing about Joshua from theguards.
No matter if that's telling you shit abouthim, that's how I found out that he was onsnitching.
Wait, what do you mean staff were telling you abouthim?
Well, he would try to write a kite to hisdad.
In KyogaHills, a kite is how you get a message to theoffice.
Like, all I need to talk toadministration, all I need to talk to the operationis, and I like to superintendent inthis.
So, then something likethat, youknow, he bought your nameoff.
Like, he told itnow, he told itnow, he wants to talk tofolks.
Staff was informing onJoshua, Leosays, to the most dangerous people in theprison.
I spoke to a couple of other former and current ODS youths from differentfacilities.
I also spoke to current and formerguards, notdisgruntleds, people who liked theirjobs, also current and former ODS socialworkers.
I spoke to the adults on background for fear ofretaliation.
What they described reminded me of a blackmarket, as if the juvenile prisons have their own subterraneaneconomy, sucking in both youth andstaff, who trade infavors,power, and alsocash.
Ofcourse, I know corruptionexists, and I know juvenile prisons in particular are prone to bullying andtumult.
But this was a system recently out from under consentdecree.
Metamorphosed, the Ohiomodel, whose stated mission is not topunish, but to habiltate youth and empower families andcommunities.
Kyoga Hills has won a national award for how it treats the children and itscare,twice.
Andyet,well, I'm just going to run through some of what Ilearned.
Takecontraband. I interviewed a formerguard, EdwardKennerley.
He's the only guard who agreed to go on therecord, possibly because he's got nothing tolose.
He lost his job already after he was charged with domesticviolence.
When wetalked, he was actually inprison, as aprisoner.
Beforethat, he worked the other side as a guard at KyogaHills.
They called them YSs and ODYS youthspecialists.
Edwardsaid, guards bringing incontraband?
Yes.Uh, bring it to cellphones.
We black andmild. Youknow, I heard this meant for people whoskinned.
One guy camewith, came inwith, he was bringing weed in for a wholeyear.
And they had to know aboutit.
Everybody knew aboutit.
The guy worked on one of the most unrulyunits, Edwardsaid.
But when he was onduty, everyone was curiouslychill.
Edward said that guard ended up gettingfired.
Edward said he himself didn't bring anything in likethat.
But he said kids did ask himto.
We'll keep the unit under control if you bring in a cell phone or someweed.
Yeah, forsure. We have a lot of fields on hand that I deal with on that type ofsituation.
That'sMalik, Josh was cousin and quite thebusinessman.
He was bringing stuff into the north and southbuildings, hesaid, with the help ofguards.
To our three at any onetime, hesaid, they'd go pick up stuff from his people on the outside and bring it back in so Malik could sellit.
And for theguards, this wasn't just about keeping the unitscalm.
It was about makingmoney.
Malik would paythem. How much were theygetting?
How much were they to givethem?
Maybe it depends on how much they have on bringingit.
They bring it allin. Sometimes I pay them 1100here, 700here.
It depends on what I have onbringing.
Oh myGod, that's like realmoney.
Yeah.Dude.Wow. Oh myGod.
How much does a cell phone go forit?
Kind of like ahealth.Well, it depends on what kind of phone isit.
It has ahand-dry, maybe like 5,000 or halfphones, about1,000.
So there's that much money moving around inthere?
Great. Itis. That was just crazy onthere.
The Heartlessfelons, they're also called the family or thefam, which has anothermeaning, forever aboutmoney.
Leo, the former GF toldme, they take itseriously.
You got to moveproduct.
Malik estimated there was anywhere from 7 to $10,000 in cash circulating at Kaiohoag Hills at any onetime.
Most kids send their money home sometimes throughvisitation.
By the time Malikleft, he said he'd sent home about $2,500 and he had about 900 onhand.
The commodity running alongside and sometimes feeding into the contraband market isviolence.
Three guards I talkedto, onecurrent, twoformer,said, the guards feel hamstrung sometimes because some of their best tools for controlling the kids were taken away byreforms.
Certain physicalrestraints,seclusion.
They couldn't even put kids to bed at 7 pmanymore.
Couldn't make them keep their hands behind theirbacks.
The kids can beviolent, the guards areoutnumbered, and you can't count on swift back up from operations if there's a fight or ariot.
Soyeah, the guards will sometimes provokekids, taunt them or insult them so that the kid will respond inkind, and then the guard has an excuse to shut them in their rooms and not have to deal withthem.
I talked to a former social worker named KaciHalkowski, who told me she saw that kind of thing alot.
Kaci worked at the Kaioge County Detention Center as a therapist until lastsummer.
The Detention Center isn't technicallyODYS, but there's a lot of cross-pollination withODYS, especially with Kaioge Hills in terms of staff and kids and gangculture.
Um, staff would standand, youknow, the doorway of their room really dosomething, do somethinggo, youknow, you saythat, dosomething.
Or, youknow, when you comeout,like, when they're in theirtransition, so they're locked up in theirrooms,oh, when you comeout,like, I want to seeyou, I want to see you dothat.
Youknow, if another fighthappens, you can lock down the whole unit and then you just sit in the day area for the rest of yourshift, muchTV.
And you would see stuff likethat?
Yeah. Kaci told me a story about two kids who'dfought.
And then when the loser of the fight was being in pain in this one guard'sass, the guard asked the winner of the fight to go after the kid a secondtime.
He offered that use extra commissary to assault himagain, so to fight himagain.
Did that guy getfired?No.
Incidents likethis, staff orchestrating youth on youthattacks, everyone I spoke to from ODYSsaid, it'scommon.
Edward, the former Kaioge Hills guardsaid,yeah, a guardal former relationship with the highest ranking gangmember, or else the strongest youth on theunit, and used that kid to keep the rest of the kids inline.
Did you ever experience that where a guard said toyou,like, can you go take care of so and so or call the hiton?
Sure.Yeah, forsure. I did that all thetime.
They justcome, come to me or one of my friends and my headsaid, it's like getting upthough.
We take care ofyou. So we're going to take care ofyou.
Wait, who was taking care ofwho?
TheCEO. The CEO is going to take care of whatever we need or whatever we want todo.
I'm gettingit. If you didwhat?
Beatall, beat all whoever they put into the beatall.
And why were they wanting you to beat on a certainkid?
Imean, this isstressful, giving them a harshshift,whatever.
And what would you get inreturn?
Full, that kind ofband, whatever Iwanted.
Mining you whatever Iwanted.
The final thing I'llmention,sex.
Sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults and alsosex.
Both Leo and Malik said they'd had sex with multiple female guards who were in their 20s and 30s at KyhogaHills.
Before Joshua was transferred to KyhogaHills, back when he was doing okay at IndianRiver, he was swimming along in this corrupt watertoo, taking advantage ofit.
He could get anything inthere, hesaid.
He'd earnweed,lighters,tequila.
He said he never jumped anyone formoney, but he did operate as amiddleman.
Guards would payhim,maybe $20,maybe $40, to arrange hits on certainkids.
Joshua said sometimes the hits were in retaliation for something violent a youth had done to aguard.
Maybe the kid through pee on them or attacked afemale.
The guards aren't supposed to strikeback, so they use the kids as theirproxies.
And then they notice the hitman will fightthe...
Right. So they're using you guys to fightback.
Right. The only mercy that's thething,they...
Like... It's all no man'slife.
Many people I spoke to aboutODIS, they'd hit an explanatory wall likethis.
They'dsay, youjust...
You have to seeit, you haveto...
Ican't... Joshua's best effort I thought was when he explained it as a kind of Madman'svacation.
A vacation for a few of that fuckedup.
A vacation for theyouth?
You mean a vacation for theguards.
Oh, for afew... For both ofyou, bothstars, for a few of that fuckedup.
Would there have been a way for you to come in and belike, I'm not going to touch any ofthis.
I'm going to be a totally squeakyclean.
Just do mytime,kid, and not get pulled intoanything.
Is that possible to exist likethat?
Well, becausepeople, they take that for a week and it'shonored.
So you will definitely benominated, fighting orsomething.
Yeah.Yeah, it's hard toexplain.
Youths,guards, socialworkers, they all toldme.
For a kid to quote unquote succeed atODIS, to gethelp, stay out oftrouble, and get backout.
You'd need arare, rare confluence ofluck,grit, andinfluence.
I spoke to four social workers who worked at different ODISfacilities.
Their experiences span 2012 to2018.
They all said there were plenty of people who wanted to help the kids to advocate forthem.
But there was noway. One former Indian river guard toldme, everything washush,hush,hush.
The social workers said they were discouraged from raising problems or calling outcruelties, guards who added kids as sex offenderssay, or look the other way when a child gotjumped.
The social workers said there was a strong no-snitchingculture, among thestaff.
A couple of them told me it was made clear tothem.
They might not be protected if they were to be assaulted on theunits.
One person told me the clinical note she was writing in herkids'files.
For reports that had to go to the courts every sixmonths, we're being edited by another staff member until her boss put a stop toit.
And that when she went to look back at a note she'd put in one kid'sfile, describing a salts on him that appeared to have been facilitated bystaff, her documentation was missingentirely.
Several social workers told me that they started to lose their own sense of what wasnormal, what wasethical.
They felt like the kids had no protection from abuse or fromcoercion.
So rather than trying to stopit, they'd help the kids navigateit.
One told me there was nothing I coulddo.
Another toldme, Imean, I just had to be realistic aboutit.
To pretend like they were getting rehabilitated wasfoolish.
I'd tell the kids all thetime, the system is not designed to helpyou.
She worked at ChihogeHills, National Awardwinner.
It was almost like the place had a maskon, shesaid.
Every story I heard aboutODYS, every allegation from youths andstaff, current andformer, we ran it byODYS.
Again, they didn't comment on anythingspecific, but they gave us thisstatement.
Whenever there are allegations ofmisconduct, we swiftly investigate and take appropriate action theywrote.
DYS has increasedprogramming,security, and supports to serve the most challenging youth in the state who have lengthy criminal histories and often have gang affiliations that they bring into thefacilities.
January of2017, Joshua went back to IndianRiver.
Thistime, they didn't keep him on one of the heartless felonunits,A.
Alpha,B.Bravo, andNovember.
Instead, they put him onD.
Delta.D. Delta was the closest thing Indian River had to protect ofcustody.
A mix of kids fromColumbus,Cincinnati,Youngstown, a fewClevelanders.
When I first started talking toJoshua, that's where hewas,D.
Delta, on unitrestriction, meaning he couldn't go to the normal places in thefacility.
Yeah, I don't even go toschool.
Okay, the teacher comes toyou.
Yeah, because I can't go toschool.
If I go toschool, I'm going to be a father all thetime, like now Istop.
He can't go to theschool, to thecafeteria, to thegym, to theoutside, towork, all the thing that Iknow.
How long has that been going on that you're not leaving theunit?
Imean, it's been likebest, like an hour orso,January.
It was nowmid-May, five months of unitrestriction, for Joshua's ownprotection.
He felt safe-ish on hisunit.
He said he was cool with most everybody inD.
Delta. His hopes were set on earlyrelease, and then who knows maybe alawsuit, but early release was the main thing hewanted.
I talk to Joshua every couple ofdays, sometimes everyday.
Earlyon, he started describing what sounded like an uptick in the usualchaos.
Past like couple ofdays, it wascrazy,and...
What do youmean? Like a whole other junior in RAN and RAN on modulenames.
It was like a bigass, like a bigride.
He said about 15 kids fromA-Alpha, a heartless felon'sunit, had yanked the door open and stormed the kids onD.
Delta. Joshua said the heartless felons were trying to conquer theirunit,basically, because their unit wasn't joiningHF, wasn't submitting toHF.
D. Delta was moreHB,headbusters, arrivalgang.
D. Delta had kids fromColumbus, andCincinnati, and kids from thoseplaces, if they're in agang, they tend to beHB.
That was most of thetension, and then persona non-Jasua was onD.
Delta2. The distressed dispatches keptcoming.
His unit had been rushed on their way toschool, dozens of kids swarming at them from across theyard.
Staff hurried them back inside before anyone washurt, but it was reallyscary.
There had been anotherriot, this time onA-Alpha.
It's seen staff attack a youth in hisroom.
There are so many people walking around here on my unit with black eyes andstuff, hesaid.
We just got two new dudes on ourunit.
Dude fromToledo, they jumped him twice in oneday, and a dude fromCleveland?
Dude fromCleveland, he was on A-Alpha with all thehard-filling.
They kept being on his own for a weekstraight, and just kept jumping him and beinghim.
And it'sthat, myfans, they were still not knowingnothing.
And the whole week they could have killed him within one of thosetimes.
It was just a longhit. Sometimes in thecalls, Jasua was soundingjangled.
He said he couldn't take itanymore.
It's too much stress onme.
I don'tknow, I don't want to go to thisforever.
I willlike, I'm offbrain, I can't take nomore.
In earlyJuly, Jasua's unit was put on AOVprotocol, active violenceprotocol, sort of likelockdown, 7pmbedtime, noextras.
Meanwhile, he said the heartless felons were larkingaround, TV and video games allday, getting to gooutside, and their Nikeshoes, joggingpants,watches.
Hisunit, all state issuestuff, stuckinside, watching the heartlessfelons, theaggressors, through thewindows.
An Indian riverguard, I spoke toconfirmed,yes, they had been putting some units on AOV protocollately.
But bebravo, the unit where the heartless felon leadersare, toodangerous.
Yeah, this guardsaid, they won't eventry.
Jasua said hisunit,united.
They discussedit. This isn'tfair, we're notsafe.
The staff isn't protectingus.
It feels like the superintendent is siding with the heartlessfelons, protectingthem.
And we're the ones being punished for fightingback.
They all wrote upgrievances, which they sent to the ODYS CentralOffice.
It was about 15grievances.
Ohman. In 30letters,yeah, and then we did a Upetition, oneargument, or area U from my unit signed thepetition, and said that we don't feelsafe.
Like nobody on my unit can go nowhere without getting a thoughtof.
What, whose idea was to dothat?
This ismy.Activism, look atthat, respectful to whom it may concernactivism.
A staff member at Indian River had helped Joshua withit, told him where he should send thepacket.
That you go toColumbus, in care of JulieWalburn, assistant director ofODYS.
Joshua didn't know who Julie Walburnwas, but the judges down in juvenile court in Clevelanddid, including Joshua'sjudge, KristenSwini, who's also the administrative judge for the juvenilecourt.
Here's how she described Julie Walburn tome.
A drenching spring rain after months ofdrought.
Julie Walburn had come to work at ODYS thatApril, a month before I started talking toJoshua, and he started describing the Mayhem at IndianRiver.
Julie Walburn had come to a recent meeting of juvenile judges in KaahogaCounty, and shesaid, we know about the violence and the rulebreaking.
We're going to fixit. Judge Swinithought,finally, I'm trying to thinklike,wow, how long has it been that I have felt like the entirefamily.
Like the institution is sort of not taking some of the violenceseriously.
I would say probably at least four or fiveyears.
At least four or fiveyears.
Mindyou, that's in the post consentdecree, post reform era ofODYS.
One of Judge Swini'scolleagues, Judge DeniseReeney, she was Malik'sjudge, gave me the backstory of how the spring rain came tobe.
She'd gotten a case back inDecember, a kid at IndianRiver, a heartlessfelon.
Inside his case file werepictures.
Here's JudgeReeney. And I'm looking at all these photographs and their photographs of youth smokingmarijuana.
Well,wait, I haveit.Okay.
Judge Reeney keeps the case folder on her desk to remindher, sheexplained, of how we're failing these youths when we let heartless felons run the facilities instead of theadults.
We look through the stack of photostogether.
So this is frominside. Alreadyright?
There, they're definitelysmoking.
Definitelysmoking, listening to maybe aniPod, something likethat.
Gangsigns.Well, I don't know from gangsigns, but I assume that's what thatis.
So thenmoney, holding a lot ofmoney.
Wait, was he posting from inside areally?
The kid had a cell phone and an Instagram account where he was posting thesephotos.
So Judge Reeney saw all these images in December of 2016 and she flipped herlid.
Theimpunity, the message they're sending to otherkids.
Go toODYS, smokeweed, makemoney, kick it with yourfriends.
Judge Reeney sits on a state judges committee for juvenile law andprocedure.
And they just sent them to all of themembers.
So they started calling ODYS and saying this isunacceptable.
InJanuary, officials from ODYS came to a judgesmeeting.
Judgesmeeting. And they were trying to explain why this wasoccurring.
And I was visibly distraught to say theleast.
Where Judge Floyd put her hand on my little arm andsaid.
Because what was theexplanation?
Like how do you explainit?
It was an isolatedincident.
I'mlike, he has 37pages.
How isolated isthis? I'm in the facility everyday.
This doesn't reallyhappen.
It's onInstagram. What do you mean it doesn'thappen?
So they were basically just kind of like whitewashingit.
My biggest issue was you are not helping ourcommunity.
You take these youth and you put them in here and they come out and they're absolutely they have notrade, they have novacation.
And they have no ability to actappropriately.
So what are we doing besides housingthem?
In a facility where we're not teaching themanything.
A few months after thatmeeting, the assistant director of ODYS abruptly resigned and Julie Walburn took herplace.
As soon as she came onboard, she walked through the she according toher.
She walked through all thefacilities.
She met with all of the heads of eachfacility.
And shesaid, youknow, we're going to take back the facilities and we are going to ensure that these youths are not only safe because there was a lot offighting.
But the ones that are the bad actors are going to beremoved.
So today'sgoal, we had to be in with some more intended all the SIOs and the food andlight.
Inmid-June, Joshua told me that the superintendent of Indian River had gathered theSIOs.
The kids who had adult time attached to their sentences that could kick in if they didn't do well injuvenile.
ODYS hadn't been invoking those adultsentences, but now the superintendent toldthem, new sheriff intown.
We now have a zero tolerance policy forSIOs.
Any infraction doesn't even have to be violent and we can seek a bindover.
You are now onnotice, behaveyourselves.
About a month afterthat, lateJuly, anothercall.
Joshua told me he just found out he had a courtdate.
It'stomorrow.Tomorrow?
Yeah. Why would you have any courtdates?
Why would you have a court date comingup?
To see if they'd be trying to invoke my SIOs as atutor.
Oh, you'rekidding. They try to saythat.
On the two defying foot of theinstitution, the two you can't control your foot and stuff likethat.
I told Joshua I couldn't imagine anything drastic was going to happen tohim.
How couldit? The system knew hissituation.
But Joshua wasn't hearingthat.
I don't know what todo. I'm sick ofsomething.
I can't even eat rightnow.
I'm soworried. I'm goingcrazy.
I don't know what todo. I got kids and someyears.
I got to look at the 18 years lifefolks.
If Joshua got boundover, that was the adult sentence he was lookingat.
18years. That was hisSIO.
Joshua wasn't going to the court datetomorrow.
But I could go and watch the adults figure out where Joshuabelongs.
That's next time on our final episode this season ofserial.
Serial is produced by JulieSnyder, a manual Jochi Ben Calhoun and me reporting by EdelieSkowski, editing on this episode from Ira Glass and NancyUpdike.
Whitney Dangerfield is our digitaleditor, research and fact checking by BenFalen.
Sound Design and Mix by StoweNelson.
Music clearance by AnthonyRoman.
Seth Lind is our director ofoperations.
The serial staff includes EmilyCondon, JulieWhitaker, CassieHalley, FrancisSwanson, and MattTierney.
Our music is by Adam Dorne and HalWilner, with additional music from Matt McGinley and NickThorburn.
Our theme song is also by Nick Thorburn and remixed by AdamDorne.
Special thanks for this episode to AlfonzGerhardstein, KimberlyJump, SamAmata, head of the Cairoga County Public Defenders JuvenileDivision, AbeHammade, GabriellaCeleste, LauraAustin, and BrookeBurns.
The animation and illustration on our website was done by the talented team and mathstudio.
Thanks to DavePrasser, DanielChester, MarieMargot, SecuriusGamadovitz, LukeDoyle,I4Ashton, and HanadaGarcia.
You can check out their work at ourwebsite,cerealpodcast.org, that'scerealpodcast.org, where you can also sign up for our email newsletter and be notified when new episodes arereleased.
