When I was in my second year, I spent many hours working on a campaign against the Juvenile (In)Justice Initiative, Proposition 21. The proposition made a lot of changes to the juvenile penal code, some minor and some major. Some of the main things in this 60+ page initiative did was lower the age a youth could be tried as an adult for violent crimes to 14, also required that some youths be imprisoned in state prisons, and redefined what was considered a violent crime. Everything from graffiti to murder was covered in this.

I was vehemently against Prop 21 especially when I learned that California had built about 20 prisons since 1971 (or was it 80?) and only 1 additional state university. I headed up the MEChA Campaign against it, mobilized fellow Mechistas and wrote an op-ed piece for the school paper.

Prop 21 passed, and I was heart broken because many more black and brown youth would be imprisoned rather than educated. In campaigning, I found some particularly poignant cartoons by Lalo Alcaraz, one of my favorite comic artists and satirists.

This was the first comic.

Yesterday, I saw a very disturbing image accompanying a story about the horrible state of the California Youth Authority. Can you believe that some wards (young inmates) are caged while they go to school? How dehumanizing can that be?

9 of the 10 wards in the CYA return to the CYA after they are released for other offenses. $80,000 a year is spent on each ward. In contrast, $6,000 a year is spent on students in California's K-12 public schools (California is 44th in spending in the nation).

Something is seriously wrong here.

Me siento: tired
Escuchando: "adore" by prince

M�s reciente:
Searches - 09.16.05
the big move - 07.29.05
mother and daughter: a comparative analysis - 07.28.05
jardineros y dom�sticas - 07.27.05
tough question - 07.25.05

antes // despu�s