Indicting the Judges

Through the Eyes of the Judged: Autobiographical Sketches by Incarcerated Young Men, Stephanie Guilloud, editor, Published and distributed by the Gateway Program, Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA 98505; 360/867-6215

When Simeon Terry was two years old, his father walked out, leaving him to grow up in a single-parent home. By the age of four, he had stolen candy from the supermarket. By the time he was 11, he was familiar with drugs and alcohol. At the age of 13, he began to carry a gun on a daily basis, at 14 he stole his first car, and at 16 he went to a juvenile maximum security facility, only to escape a few months later. By age 17, he had been recaptured, booked on charges of suspicion of murder, and returned to a juvenile maximum security facility called Maple Hill, where he would remain until May 12, 2001, his 21st birthday.

Jonathan Smith, contributing author

The first 20 years of Simeon Terry's life are told in detail in Through the Eyes of the Judged, a new book providing autobiographical sketches of eight incarcerated young men in the state of Washington. Like Terry, the other youth who share their stories in Through the Eyes of the Judged are incarcerated for a combination of charges of robbery, car theft, drug possession, and physical assault.

The eight incarcerated youth all admit to their crimes and take full responsibility for their wrongdoings. However, the reader is left to consider the role the environment the youth grew up in had on their actions. Terrance Turner, one of the incarcerated youth, states in his autobiography, "I solely believe that my environment was the major contributor to my present reality." Each youth provides details about his childhood and early environment, and most of them come from poor, dysfunctional families. While growing up poor or in a dysfunctional family does not justify the crimes the youth committed, it does leave the reader to wonder whether going to jail is really the right punishment for youth coming from difficult childhood environments. By sending youth who have made mistakes to prison, Turner says, "they're (the justice system) allowing minds of innocence to be corrupted by hopeless convicts and career criminals."

Art by Jonathan Smith

The eight incarcerated youth who share the details of their childhood environments and mistakes differ from the thousands of other youth incarcerated throughout the country in one respect. These eight youth have had the opportunity to participate in the Gateway Program, a program that offers high school or college credit to incarcerated youth at Maple Lane. Through programs like Gateway, incarcerated youth are able to graduate from high school and get college credit, giving them more opportunities when they are able to return to society. In each autobiography, the youth vows to make a successful return to society and to steer clear of trouble. Unfortunately, the reality of this happening for all eight of the incarcerated youth is slim. An estimated 80 to 90 percent of all incarcerated youth return to prison at some point in their adult life. While programs like the Gateway Program are a positive factor in a youth's return to society, they do not guarantee a problem-free return.

The autobiographical sketches in Through the Eyes of the Judged not only provide powerful details into the lives of incarcerated youth, but also raise many controversial issues--notably, the use of incarceration in the USs. After struggling through poverty or a difficult childhood, is incarceration really the right solution for rehabilitation of youth? One contributor sums up the incarceration system well, saying, "Incarceration should be for the system that incarcerates, not for kids that have made mistakes in life."

--Mary Biggins is a recent Peacework intern, and an incoming first-year student at Colby College in Waterbury, ME.

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