She sits alone in a cinder-block cell, an Oglala Lakota teenager with a long braid and tattoos. For five months she has been locked up on this remote prairie reservation for drinking and disorderly conduct.
When she behaves, she can watch television. Mostly, though, she passes the time with two books — a Bible and “The Hunger Games” — and her journal, in which she records the monotony of her long days. The journal, with an eagle on the cover, also holds the names of nearly a dozen friends and relatives who have died — some from drugs, violence or suicide.
"It's so boring in here," the 17-year-old says before coming to a realization that would have startled her just a short while ago: "I miss school more than anything."
For the teenager, whose name is not used because she is a juvenile, and nine other Native Americans at a facility for minors here, there is no schooling, no vocational opportunity and no counseling. There is simply detention.
[For more of this story, written by Sari Horwitz, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/11/28/from-broken-homes-to-a-broken-system]
Comments (0)