Behind Bars: Two Teens in Prison Tell Their Stories

‘I was a chronic runaway’

Elizabeth, 18, awaiting sentencing


What’s a typical day like?

Six o’clock in the morning we get up. We keep our clothes outside the room. We have to get up and grab our clothes. We have about 4 or 5 minutes to get ready. Breakfast is at 7 o’clock. That’s usually disgusting. Then we go to school for a couple hours, go to lunch, go to school again, come back, eat dinner, we get one hour of recreation, take our showers.


What was it like when you got arrested?

Really? I was high. So all kinds of things were going through my mind. Just like shock. I couldn’t even cry. I just sat down quiet.


Was being a troublemaker exciting?

It was for me, back then, just my lifestyle.


Were you into school? `

When I was around fifth grade. My mom put me in a placement because I was running away. I kept running away. I was a chronic runaway. They’d put me somewhere and I’d run away from it.


I had, uh, problems at home (softly) … and um, out of sheer boredom I guess. Mostly neglect. Well, I’d been molested for years. Finally, I told my grandmother about it. That it was my stepfather. She called the cops and I ran away and right before he was supposed to go to court he shot himself in the head. My sister had a brain tumor and my mom was always busy at the hospital. We had to move into this tiny duplex and I was by myself all day. I was 11 or 12. It’s really boring in Texas. That’s where I’m from—Austin, Texas.


One day I’d just go out to have fun and I wouldn’t go home the next day. It kept on escalating. I’d spend a day in jail and keep on going. My mom had a boyfriend, and he used to physically abuse my sister. I tried to intervene one day and he grabbed me by my neck. I started talking s—- outside the house, just yelling at him and he came out with a knife. So I really had to run. This lady called the cops and what did they do? They arrested me. They arrested me on a runaway charge. Nothing happened to him.


My mom made me seem like this bad kid. I just wanna go and have some fun. My mom didn’t have very much money, and if you don’t have clothes, you’re an outcast [at school]. I had good grades, all A’s and stuff like that, but I just couldn’t take being in school so I dropped out.


How do you feel compared to the average teen?

I feel like a totally different species. I feel older actually, ‘cuz I’ve seen so much. They don’t even know, they’re in school, they have their proms, and they’re going to college. And I just can’t relate. I feel I can’t even hang out with them, they’re too different.


Did your parents try to discipline you?

My mom’s form of discipline was just to get rid of me. It makes me mad today. She paid my brother to kick my a— for leaving, you know, paid him. He didn’t want to but he did it for the money. It just made me more mad and I ran away again.


What do you think your parents could have done that would have helped?

If my mom had set me aside and talked to me, asked me what is it you want, why are you running away. That would have helped me.


What do you say to people who think Juvenile Hall is easy, watching TV all day or something?

We rarely ever get to listen to the radio at all. TV, we get only one hour a day. We don’t get the news so we don’t know what’s going on in the world. TV and radio, that’s nice to have but you wouldn’t want to sit there and watch TV all day, that’s not a luxury. [Juvenile Hall is] really dirty to me. The girls, I wasn’t scared of them, because I’d been living on the street all over so I wasn’t scared of anything, especially not some little girls.


How does it feel to lose your freedom?

It hurts more than any kind of punch, slap, anything that was ever done to me. Having my freedom taken away is the worst thing that ever happened to me. It’s not the fact I’m in jail that I’m scared. For a while I didn’t know when I was gonna get out. It felt like the whole world was going on without me, and I was stuck. I have a little sister born after I started running away and I don’t even know her. My family came out twice this year. You have special visits, half an hour.


For the past year, I’ve seen someone I know from the outside for one hour, that’s it. It’s pretty hard being out here all by yourself. I can see what they’re doing to us. How kids are sent to jail when they just need a slap on the head or something. I used to really, really, hate the cops. Hate ‘em, hate ‘em. I still don’t approve of what they’re doing but I understand. I used to hate other people’s lifestyle. Now I know it’s different people and I don’t hate them anymore. I can associate with different people. I’m a lot more open-minded, don’t hate so quickly, don’t judge so quickly.


Elizabeth is awaiting her sentence in Central Juvenile Hall.


‘Can I get a second chance in life?’


Mark, 17, serving 13-year sentence


Have you been in here before?

Two times before. [When I was arrested] I was just trying to figure out what was going on. I was like ‘Man, this is a bad dream.’ I was just waiting to wake up. Ain’t waked up yet.


Was your life exciting before you came in here?

Exciting like I was always watching my back? Or the parties? Robbing and stealing. It was like an adventure, yeah. But it was an adventure going nowhere.


What’s a typical day here like?

Wake up, wash up. Same thing, different day. That’s how it is.


What were you doing when you were free?

I was playing football. I’m mad missing out my teenage days. I regret what I did, and it’s like ‘Damn.’ If I live in the past, that’s where I’m gonna stay, in the past. Damn, it’d be fun [if I was free]. It’s the new millennium. I haven’t even been on a date, know what I’m saying. I ain’t gonna see none of that. Don’t grow up too fast, ‘cuz you’re gonna be mad if you do.


Did your parents try to discipline you?

I’m stubborn, I know I’m stubborn. My parents they did try to discipline me but I was too wild. It was like I couldn’t be tamed at the time.


Do you have any talents?

I like to rap. I can write. (He writes plays with theater group called Usual Suspects.) Writing is one of my skills. Give me a beat and I can freestyle for you right now.


How does your family deal with you being locked up?

I know they don’t like me being in here but I been in here before. When I hit 13 that was when I really stepped up the criminal ladder. It was the adrenaline rush and all that and I didn’t think about my family. I try to let them know it’s gonna be alright. It affects my family a lot. Even when I had a bad day I still smile. I just try to make them feel good when they’re here.


How does it feel not to control your fate?

Dang, somebody else got control my life. I should be believing in God more. I should but I really started to lose faith. No … well, I didn’t lose it, I just didn’t know where to put my faith. If I walk into court one day and the judge had a bad weekend, his wife trippin’ on him or something, he could take it out on me. I expect the unexpected when I go in the courtroom. My fate is sealed already but my fate isn’t in the court’s hand, it’s in my hand. Fate really has to do with what you feel inside than what people make of you. If God wants me to be in jail, it must be I got some kind of gift that God wants me to spit to other cats in here.


What do you think about Prop 21?

Why should I walk around with a label on me because I made a mistake when I was young? Can I get a second chance in life? When you go to the pen, you don’t do nothing. All you do is time, get contraband, learn to hate somebody. I want to be a positive person, somebody that helps somebody, somebody who helps the community.


Prop. 21, it’s like a spear in this whole community’s heart. My little brother was sitting in a car, somebody was shot, and my brother got to do adult time for that. They taking our rights away. You putting little kids in adult facilities, that’s forcing them to grow up already. This little kid, he did this crime right here, but they don’t see this as his first time doing it. (Little kids out there won’t be deterred by longer sentences) the homie got 25 years to life, they look up to that. I don’t know why but they do. “He gonna ride it out, he’s a rider.”

Society’s a fool if they don’t see that. Little kid, he has so much to prove. Them older hounds—”I ain’t got nothing, I got life. Let me go and send this kid up the river too.” That little kid, he’s believing the hype. “You want me to shank him, okay, I’m gonna do that, go in the hole, go to Pelican Bay, don’t see my momma.” Little kid, he should be put in a program. When you send them to the pen all you making is a better criminal.


Mark is serving 13 years in L.A. County Men’s Jail.