Internet Musings: The thing that makes me the most sad about the young men (and it's overwhelmingly males and the majority are Black) I evaluate through the juvenile justice system is just how similar their stories are. My privilege is to "bring the story to life" in a way that helps the court see the kiddo and the context, not the blur of sameness. Not just a kid who's trying to "manipulate," "be in charge," "get his own way." That's often my role for the families I work with, too. But for them, I also get to work to help make the kiddo and his/her contexts fit each other just a little better.
One of the limitations of the justice system, though, is that it's set up on an all-or-nothing basis. Either you are 100% compliant with the judges rules, or you are in violation of the law. Anyone who has ever met a teenager knows that a context like that is just setting everyone up.
The all-or-nothing mentality doesn't really work for families, either.
As a sidebar, I don't know anyone of any age who doesn't try to "manipulate" or "get his own way," at least sometimes. It's usually a problem when their "own way" is in direct opposition of the "way" of someone else, who may or may not have legitamate power over them. These situations come up more for kids because they are ALWAYS in situations where someone else has power over them, an especially hard thing if you grow up in a world as unpredictably, unsafe, and unhappy as the boys I see in that jail.
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