DWAYNE REGINALD BETTS

In 1996 – a time when the media and politicians were calling kids superpredators – the state of Maryland sentenced Reginald Dwayne Betts, a 16 year old high school class treasurer and honor student, to nine years in adult prison. Since release, Dwayne has graduated from Yale Law School, published 5 books of poetry, and is part of a growing movement to close youth prisons led by people who know first-hand how traumatic and ineffective it is to incarcerate children. Since the early 90’s, youth incarceration in the US is down by almost 70% and community programs that keep youth free are blooming across the country. Now is our moment Lets make sure not a single kid is growing up writing poetry from prison. Dwayne’s story is a snapshot of history. To understand how we got here, we need to look at the events and patterns that caused the youth prison system to grow in the first place. Dwayne Betts photo credit Mamadi Doumbouya

1646 The “Stubborn Child Law”

Enacted by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay, The "Stubborn Child Law" is the earliest-known legislation about childhood misbehavior, stating that teenage boys who disobeyed their parents could be put to death. Changes to the law were made that removed death as a penalty and added punishment for disobedient daughters. The law was not repealed until 1973.

1819 Civilization Act Fund of 1819

Civilization Act Fund of 1819 was enacted by U.S. Congress to fund missionaries, and partner in building schools in Native American communities. Their goal was to force assimilation in youth by replacing their Native American traditions and culture with Christian practices.Native parents were bound by law to send their children to government run schools specifically designed to erase Indigenous culture.

Elliott, Charles Loring, artist. “Thomas Loraine McKenney.” 1856. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee. https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2011.62 (accessed March 28, 2021)

1824 Yates Report

New York City commissioned the Yates Report, which recommended that poor children in overcrowded cities be institutionalized “to avoid cruel treatment, idleness, and inadequate moral and educational development.”

New York (State) Legislature. Select committee appointed on the subject of the poor laws. The select committee, appointed on the subject of the poor laws, respectfully report. [Albany, 1823]. Library of Congress, Broadsides, leaflets, and pamphlets from America and Europe. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.11600500 (accessed March 28, 2021)

1838 Ex Parte Crouse Supreme Court decision

In this case, the courts held that Houses of Refuge were reformatory, and could be used as a solution for any behavioral issue. This meant that the State was able to intervene and institutionalize children, even when they did not commit a crime.

1850 Creation of industrial schools

Industrial Schools were also known as training schools and reform schools. They worked to imprison youth under the guise of a greater emphasis on education. In 1859, the San Francisco Industrial School was created and throughout its turbulent 30-year history, the Industrial School was the subject of frequent scandals stemming from physical abuse to managerial incompetence. When the facility was finally ordered closed in 1891, the city’s judiciary denounced it as a failed system.

Butcher, Solomon D., (artist). Cauliflower field, State Industrial School, Kearney, Nebraska. Photographic print. Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, NE, ca. 1908. From Library of Congress/ Nebraska State Historical Society: Butcher, Solomon D. (Solomon Devore), 1856-1927. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/psbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(p2908))

1856 Lancaster Industrial School for Girls is opened.

First State Industrial School for Girls was opened in Massachusetts. While celebrated as a model for progessive correctional facilities, girls were subjected to severe forms of punishment, often locked alone in "strong rooms".

Leslie, Frank (Illustrator). “State Industrial School for Girls, Middletown, Conn. [4 images]: 1. Expostulating with a vicious girl; 2. Graduate; 3. Learning to cook; 4. Making paper boxes.” 1 print : wood engraving. Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, vol. 53, no. 1364, p. 197. 1881. From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=99614071&searchType=1&permalink=y (accessed March 28, 2021)

1866 The Freedmen’s Code of 1866 was applied to the children of newly freed enslaved people.

It allowed former slaveholders to maintain guardianship of Black children until they reached adulthood under the guise of apprenticeships.

Taylor, James E, artist. “The Misses Cooke's school room, Freedman's Bureau, Richmond, Va.”. Sketch. Richmond: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. 1866. Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/98510871/ (accessed March 28, 2021).

1870 Beginning of Jim Crow laws

Jim Crow laws were enacted mandating racial segregation in all public facilities withhin states of the former Confederacy.

Wolcott, Marion Post. “Negro Going in Colored Entrance of Movie House, Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi”. 1939. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017754826/ (accessed April 26, 2021).

1879 Founding of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

The first federally funded, off-reservation boarding school was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Created by a civil war veteran to “kill the indian, save the man”, The Carlisle Indian Industrial School attempted to assimilate native youth to white culture using harsh techniques and discipline. Native youth were forced into hard labor and exposed to sexual abuse at this school. ⅓ of the children who attended died.

[Native American men and a boy posed outside of Carlisle Indian School]. Photographic print. ca.1890. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/99471846/ (accessed February 24, 2021).

1880 The U.S. operated 60 schools for 6,200 Native students,

This included reservation day schools and reservation boarding schools. The boarding schools hoped to produce economically self-sufficient students by teaching work skills and instilling values and beliefs of possessive individualism. This emphasizes personal ownership as a core value and opposed the basic Indian belief of communal ownership, which held that the land was for all people.

“[Ciricahua Apaches at the Carlisle Indian School, Penna., 188-?: after 4 months of training at the School.]” Photograph. c188-?. From Library of Congress: National Photo Company Collection. https://www.loc.gov/item/2006679978/ (accessed March 28, 2021).

“Flandreau Indian School, South Dakota, choir.” Photograph. c1909-1932. Library of Congress; National Photo Company Collection. https://lccn.loc.gov/90711013 (accessed March 28, 2021).

1912 The Federal Children’s Bureau was established.

President Taft’s stated purpose in creating the Bureau was to report “upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people.” This has led to reporting on infant and maternal death, child labor, orphanages, delinqunecy and juvenile courts, famility economic security, abuse and neglect, and foster care.

1920 Black Child Saving Movement

Black child-saving movement began to make substantial inroads in the provision of rehabilitative services for black youths

1942 The Bracero Program was established

Was created to bring in temporary workers from Mexico to fill the labor shortage caused by WWII. The children of Braceros faced discriminatory treatment in juvenile courts and hostility from law enforcement as they created new subcultures in the cities they immigrated to.

Lange, Dorothea (photographer). “Eloy District, Pinal County, Arizona. Mexican irrigator.” ca. 1922. From Photographic Prints Documenting Programs and Activities of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and Predecessor Agencies, ca. 1922 - ca. 1947. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/521048 (accessed March 28, 2021).

1951 Student Walk Out, Farmvile VA

16 year old Barbara Rose Johns led 450 student & teacher walkout at R.R. Moton High School, an all-black high school in Farmville, Virginia, founded in 1923, suffered from terrible conditions due to underfunding. Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (Docket number: Civ. A. No. 1333; Case citation: 103 F. Supp. 337 (1952)) was one of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1954

1954 Brown vs Board of Education

1955 Lynching of Emmett Till

An African Amerian 14 year old was accussed of whistling at a white woman in a grocery store. The two white men accused of lynching Till were exonerated, and then they admitted to the lynching avoiding further prosecution.

Mann, Dave. Photograph. 1966. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Lauren and Michael Lee. https://www.si.edu/object/till-boys-funeral-burr-oaks-cemetary-sic:nmaahc_2013.92?edan_q=emmett%2Btill&oa=1&edan_fq%5B0%5D=media_usage:CC0&destination=/search/collection-images&searchResults=1&id=nmaahc_2013.92 (Accessed March 28, 2021).

1963 Childrens Crusade in Birmingham Alabama

More than one thousand students skipped classes and gathered to march to downtown Birmingham, Alabama. As they approached police lines, hundreds were arrested and carried off to jail. When hundreds more young people gathered the following day for another march, white commissioner, Bull Connor, directed local police and fire departments to use force to halt the demonstration. Images of children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, being clubbed by police officers, and being attacked by police dogs appeared on television and in newspapers, and triggered outrage throughout the world. Despite the violence, children continued to march and protest until an intervention from the U.S. Department of Justice. The event moved President John F. Kennedy’s to express support for federal civil rights legislation and the eventual passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

1966 The first Supreme Court case to modify the long-standing belief that juveniles did not require the same due process protections as adults

1967 Supreme Court settles in re Gault case.

In re Gault. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Constitution requires that youth charged with delinquency in juvenile court have many of the same due process rights guaranteed to adults accused of crimes, including the right to an attorney and the right to confront witnesses against them.

1973 "Homosexuality" is removed from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM)

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed the diagnosis of “homosexuality” from the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Prior to this, youth could be involuntarily placed in institutions and subjected to abusive forms of conversion therapy.

1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act enacted.

In order to recieve funding grants, states were required to deinstitutionalization/incarcerate minors charged with offenses such as trunacy or curfew vilation.It also prohibited contact between minors and adult offenders.

1978 Indian Child Welfare Act.

Native American parents gain the legal right to deny their children’s placement in off-reservation boarding schools.

1980 Reagan reinforces Nixon's War on drugs

Centering narratives that drug use was the number one enemy of America, Reagan addressed addiction with criminalization, funding campaigns for zero tolerance and minimum sentencing instead of treatment. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law offenses increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997.
https://drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war

1994 The 1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act was amended

Amended to include provisions that would allow states to try juveniles as adults for some violent crimes and weapons violations. Minimum detention standards were also put into place in some states. The anti-crime sentiment of the period caused changes to be implemented to the juvenile justice system that made it increasingly similar to the adult (criminal) justice system.

2000 Zero Tolerance Policies adopted nationwide in response to 1999 school shooting at Columbine HS in Colorado

Prior to Columbine, Bill Clinton signed the Gun Free School Act in 1994 a measure asking states to expel students who brought a gun to school for at least a year. After Columbine widespread Zero Tolerance initiatives that treated small infractions of school discipline the same as more serious violations were adopted nationwide. The applications of these policies have been explicitly racially discrimintive. They have resulted in over 10,000 police in schools, not 1 school shooting stopped and over 1M students mostly BIPOC, arrested for routine school rule violations.

https://commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1094&context=mcnair

https://harvardcrcl.org/more-cops-in-schools-wont-keep-kids-safe/

2003-2012 "Singing the Blues" for Mississippi's imprisoned children

In 2002, the United States Department of Justice released an investigation describing conditions in Mississippi’s youth prisons (euphemistically called training schools). Although the conditions documented by the federal government shocked some people, they were well known to Mississippi’s children and families. In these prisons, children as young as 11 years old were beaten, stripped naked, and confined to dark rooms with nothing but a hole in the floor as a toilet. They were sexually abused and denied access to medical and mental health care. The then-Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights called the prisons the worst the federal government had seen in 20 years. In the wake of the US DOJ report, Mississippi’s community organizers, racial justice advocates, attorneys, and other advocates built a powerful coalition to advocate for legislation that overhauled Mississippi’s juvenile justice system, reduced the number of children in custody, and ultimately closed a youth prison, two detention centers, and a prison built specifically for children tried as adults.

2006-2011 Texas’ legislative campaign to reduce youth incarceration

In the wake of a devastating sexual abuse scandal, Texas advocates seized a moment of opportunity and shifted the debate from one that centered on reforming abusive prisons to one focused on shutting down facilities and reducing the number of children who live behind bars. The advocacy efforts were driven by a legislative strategy and required strong collaborations between lawmakers, advocates, youth, and their families. The resulting landmark legislation transformed the Texas juvenile justice system and significantly reduced the number of children held behind bars.

2010 Graham v. Florida.

the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Graham v. Florida that sentencing a juvenile to life without the possibility of parole for a non-homicidal crime is in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

2011 Stop & Frisk Peak Year

In 2011, Blacks and Latinos were dispropionately stopped, frisked and had force used against them.
The NYPD stopped Black and Latino people nearly 575,000 times and used physical force against them almost 130,000 times. That’s 84% of all stops and 88% of all force used in stops that year. 341,581 of those targeted were aged 14-24 (51 percent).

https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/08/17/stop_and_frisk_press/

2012 Miller v. Alabama.

Ruling made it unconstitutional to sentence someone who was under the age of 18 at the time of the crime to mandatory life without parole.

2016-2019 Footage of widespread School Resource Officer abuse goes viral.

Student Cell Phone Videos and body camera content begin to go viral on social media revealing incidents of extreme brutality from School Resource Officers against studens

2020 Covid Outbreak

In 2020, amidst a global pandemic, youth prisons immediately became virus outbreak hotspots
putting youth, staff and families at risk. Since their inception, youth prisons have been a public health crisis.