When Chené Marshall got into a fight in high school, she assumed she might be suspended. Instead, the police arrested her.
Then a 17-year-old junior with no criminal record, she did not realize that Louisiana was in the dwindling minority of states where all 17-year-olds are treated as adults by the criminal justice system.
She was charged with battery, with bail set at $5,000. She was booked and clothed in a jumpsuit at the Orleans Parish Prison, a notoriously violent facility where she bunked along with women of all ages and histories.
“I had a fight that first night,” she recalled of her jailing in 2011. “It’s called ‘testing your weight,’ to see if you’re scared or they can own you.”
She spent three nights in the jail before her great-aunt, who had raised her from infancy, could come up with a bondsman’s $650 fee and secure her release.
[For more of this story, written by Erik Eckholm, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05...rref=www.nytimes.com]
Comments (0)