Los Angeles Sentinel: Criminal Justice Reform Needs Girls' Voices

When Esché Jackson was 12 years old, she and her sisters were removed from her mother’s home in South Los Angeles. From a very early age, she struggled under the weight of trauma from her experiences at home. Then in middle school, she got expelled for bringing a knife to school and was put in alternative education. In both foster care and alternative education, she met more troubled children and gang members who became like her family. She ended up running away and struggling with homelessness before moving in with her boyfriend. At 15, she was arrested for trying to protect her boyfriend, who was a gang member against a murder charge, and she was sentenced, like far too many of our girls, to time at Central Juvenile Hall.

Esché is one of thousands of young women in our community whose childhoods are shaped by their experiences with trauma, foster care and incarceration. Studies show that as many as 90% of girls in juvenile detention have experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse at some point of their lives. This trauma has a lasting impact on these girls and can help to explain why the majority of girls in prison were arrested for so-called status offenses. Charges for truancy, running away, curfew violations or underage drinking are too often cries for help that are completely ignored by our current system as they slip through the cracks.  

Now 25 years old, a USC college graduate and an advocate for criminal justice reform, Esché has overcome a lot of hardship thanks to therapy and mentors in the InsideOut Writers group who taught her how to heal and express herself in a positive way. She insists a restorative approach—rather than a punitive one—could have helped her before she was ever arrested. The courts—and before them, the teachers, social workers and foster parents in her life—did not take time to listen to her story or understand the deep-rooted issues that brought her to the point where she was facing charges.

Earlier this month I held a briefing on “Girls and Juvenile Justice,” featuring Esché and two other formerly incarcerated young women who addressed the needs of women and girls in prison. Along with three juvenile court judges, these women spoke about the need to change how we view girls caught in the system. Girls in the juvenile justice system are not always “bad girls” or hopeless, and we cannot allow society to write them off when they are incarcerated. We need a criminal justice system that recognizes these girls for what they typically are: traumatized and struggling with major societal problems like poverty and domestic abuse.  The panelists stressed that counseling, meaningful social work engagement and treatment--without fear of punishment--could prevent crime far better than our current system of mass incarceration.

In Congress, Rep. Bobby Scott’s (D-VA) “Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2015” presents a great opportunity to help incarcerated children. The bill will change the provision that allows states to incarcerate youth for status offenses like truancy and running away from home. The bill also works to renew education, safety, and prevention standards for our young people. This bill is an important step towards ending the mass incarceration of our children. I am proud to be an original cosponsor and champion of this bill because I believe it simply makes no sense to hand out harsh sentences for small offenses instead of looking at the root causes of these behaviors.

Nationally, we are at a critical moment in history for criminal justice reform. At last, politicians on both sides of the aisle are showing a willingness to take on the fact that our criminal justice system has serious problems and a devastating impact on American society, particularly in communities of color. Last month, Hillary Clinton declared that it’s “time to end the era of mass incarceration.” Even Republicans who have pushed unfair “tough on crime” policies are taking notice that the system is bloated, expensive and disproportionately incarcerating people of color. In our state, voters passed Proposition 47 to resentence offenders and reduce the population of our overcrowded prisons.

As the eyes of California as well as the country and the world turn to this major issue in our community, we must make sure that the unique needs of women and girls are not kept out of the conversation. Women were the fastest growing population of prisoners between 1980 and 2010. While the rest of the prison population actually decreased in that time, the number of women in prison skyrocketed by over 600%. We must take the time to understand why more women than ever are being incarcerated and seek meaningful solutions to the problem.

Finally, lawmakers must do as I’ve tried to do: take time to listen to those most directly affected by the criminal justice system. We cannot effectively shape policy without hearing directly from formerly incarcerated people about their experiences. Only by listening can we learn the full extent of the injustice in our criminal justice system and the damage caused by locking up our mothers and daughters.