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Richard Ross Gets His Photographs In Front of Many Eyeballs

petebrook — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:10:24 +0000

Referred to as the “Wall of Shame,” the mug shots here serve as a reminder to staff of the kids that have been killed on the street. Miami-Dade Regional Youth Detention Center, Miami, FL. © Richard Ross

These days, I contend that if photographers are to progress with their craft, they must be both excellent image-makers and energetic self-marketers.

I’ve known Richard Ross‘ work for a long time now so the former has never been in any doubt. Having seen the way his project Juvenile-In-Justice has been rolled out, it is clear he’s in full control of the latter too.

Ross has been featured on NPR and The TakeAway. The edit of his work in Harper’s Magazine is a finalist in the News and Documentary Photography category at the National Magazine Awards.

I wrote an article Uncompromising Photos Expose Juvenile Detention in America, published on Wired.com last week about Ross’ 5 years of photographing in juvenile detention facilities. (The article was well received and has led to a follow-up piece about the issue. Stay tuned). Ross was also a PPOTR interviewee.

Furthermore, the project will be presented as a traveling exhibition that will premiere at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV in August 2012. A photobook is also in the works with essays from Ira Glass and Bart Lubow.

After 40 years of photographing, one presumes that Ross has contacts and allies to help him “market” Juvenile-In-Justice and get it in front of the maximum number of eyeballs. The distribution of this work has been robust and effective – and it could hold some lessons for younger photographers.

I’m just thinking out loud here. My main purpose of this post was to share this five-minute feature on Ross’ juvenile detention work put together by PBS.

Police: Girl, 5, Said She Drowned Boy Over Crying

Justin Wingerter — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 08:23:16 +0000

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Juvenile justice experts expressed shock Thursday that police said they were treating the death of an 18-month-old boy who drowned in a bathtub as a potential homicide, after a 5-year-old girl told social workers that she held him under water to stop his crying.

Kansas City police said the girl, who was left with other children in the care of a teenager, was considered a possible suspect in the toddler’s death last week, raising complicated legal questions about how a court could proceed with a case against such a young suspect.

Bart Lubow, the director of the Juvenile Justice Strategy Group at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national child advocacy organization based in Baltimore, said a 5-year-old is incapable of forming intent, and likely wouldn’t even know what drowning means.

“You can imagine a child responding to other children’s crying by saying, `I know how to stop that.’ But the notion that there was intent there is silly,” Lubow said. “For a 5-year-old, this is well beyond the pale of what our criminal or delinquency laws are intended to address.”

He said the case should proceed with a “very child-centered approach.”

Police said the 5-year-old was not arrested, and the case was referred to the Jackson County’s family courts division. Police originally ruled Friday’s death accidental, but said that changed after social workers reported that the girl told them she brought the toddler into the bathroom and drowned him.

“The 5-year-old became upset when the child wouldn’t stop crying and took the 2-year-old into the bathroom and drowned him,” said Officer Darin Snapp, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department. He said the two children were related, but it was unclear exactly how.

“As of right now yes, from her statement, she is a possible suspect,” Snapp said.

The children had been left along with others under the supervision of a teenager while an adult in the home went to pick up the father of the 18-month-old, Snapp said. He said the father had recently arrived in Kansas City to take the infant back to their home in St. Louis. It was unclear how long the adult was out of the home.

Mary Jacobi, a spokeswoman for the Jackson County Court, said she could not comment on the girl’s current whereabouts.

“We cannot speak at all to the child’s current living arrangement,” she said.

She said in an email that the Missouri Children’s Division had been notified and that a juvenile officer involved in the case had filed a petition for a child in need of care for the 5-year-old. Such a petition would allow the court to determine what services the child needs.

Seth Bundy, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Social Services, said the department could not comment on the case, as did Debra Walker, spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health.

In Missouri, a child has to be 12-years-old before he or she can be certified to stand trial, said Vivian Murphy, executive director of the Missouri Juvenile Justice Association. Murphy, who said she was not involved with the Kansas City case, said in general, a child in such a situation would undergo a mental health evaluation and that there would be an investigation into the child’s living situation.

“It’s all about what’s best for the 5-year-old,” she said. “The family court in Kansas City is going to do a good job of just looking at the circumstances holistically with the 5-year-old and looking at their environment and look at what’s going on.”

More than 12% of youths in juvenile prisons are sexually abused while in custody

BBVM — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:14:53 +0000

More than 12% of youths in juvenile prisons are sexually abused while in custody there, according to a Justice Department study out Thursday, and the vast majority of cases involve female staff and boys under their supervision.

In the worst facilities surveyed — in Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina and Texas — more than 30% of youths reported they had been sexually victimized. The study, the first of its kind, shows a rate of sexual assault more than seven times higher than that indicated by a 2008 Justice Department report that collected sexual abuse claims to juvenile facility administrators. It is also higher than a similar study of adult prisons because of the “very high rate of staff sexual misconduct,” said Allen Beck, who directed the survey for the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The survey of 9,198 youths ages 13 to 21 — all in custody by order of a juvenile court — included methods to eliminate interviews considered unreliable. The survey covered 195 facilities, at least one in each state. Approximately 26,550 juveniles — 91% of them boys — are held in more than 500 such facilities around the country.

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The survey showed that 10.3% of youths reported the sexual contact was with staff, compared with 2.6% who reported sexual victimization by other youths. In nearly half the incidents with staff, youths reported having sexual contact as a result of force.

The study sets a wider definition of sexual contact than rape, Beck said. Nonetheless, “these are all things that in the outside world would be considered violent or, by definition in law, they are illegal,” he said.

Sexual victimization of youths in custody “is one of those hidden closets of the system,” said Bart Lubow, director of the juvenile justice and strategy group for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which advocates for children. The rates at the worst facilities are “so high they’re stunning,” he said. “I am, on the other hand, never surprised as people peel the layers of the youth corrections onion and expose more and more things that make you cry.”

Linda McFarlane of Just Detention International, an advocacy group focused on eliminating sexual abuse in prison, called the highest rates of abuse “shocking beyond belief.”

“The incredibly high rates of staff misconduct is shocking and disturbing,” McFarlane said. “We just need to do a better job with training and recruitment and hiring and supervision.”

The survey showed that gay youths reported higher levels of sexual abuse from other juveniles, and so did youths who had been abused before coming to the facility.

That makes the survey valuable for juvenile facilities other than the type covered in the survey, she said. “While we can’t say we know what’s happening in, say, the smaller group-home settings … we can look at the information in this report and use it to protect those (particularly vulnerable) kids.”

In Maryland, where 36% of youths surveyed at Backbone Mountain Youth Center said they had been victimized, the state Department of Juvenile Services said in a statement Thursday there will be an independent investigation by the state human resources and health agencies.

At Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility in Indiana, which also had among the highest rates of abuse in the study, four female guards were suspended a month ago after a report of sexual abuse, said Edwin Buss, state corrections commissioner.

Indiana officials say their own surveys show a much lower rate of sexual victimization.

“We’re not denying that this happens,” said Amanda Copeland, executive director of research and technology for the Indiana Department of Corrections. “We would be foolish to say that it never happens. We’re just questioning the extent to which it’s being reported” by the Justice Department. But the survey “gives us something to work with. Whether we agree with the percentages or the ratings or not, we recognize that we have issues and we need to address them, and we’re taking steps to do so.”