It’s a bright and sunny Tuesday morning in bustling Washington, D.C., and I’m headed to jail.
The roads are bumpy, the ride is jerky, and I’m nervous. I didn’t expect to travel to a juvenile detention center when I woke up this morning. I’m 17 years old, no longer a kid but not yet an adult, the prime age to suffer the consequences of the ongoing conflict between my developing adolescent brain and desire to finally be a “grownup.” If I were a black male from a struggling neighborhood in inner-city D.C., I might be on my way to an orange jumpsuit and a yearlong stay here. But I’m not. I’m a white girl from an affluent suburb in Maryland, so I’m just at New Beginnings Youth Development Center for a two-hour visit.
[For more of this story, written by Emma Soler, go to http://jjie.org/the-secret-beh...reform-youth/148885/]
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