Serial S03 - Ep. 8: A Madman’s Vacation
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I don't okay if you was my worst enemy, i'm not telling on you. I don't know what you do. We need people out there in the community that are concerned with black lives, with Brown lies, with White lies, with purpose, zed.

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From this american life and wb easy chicago is cereal one course told week by week and sarana.

When I began this project, I didn't plan on covering any juvenile cases. Juvenile records are public for one thing, and I figured that we are planning to look out right here in the adult system. But after, while juvenile cases to now crime became impossible to ignore, the newly elected county prosecutor seem to be talking about juvenile violence at every opportunity.

Young people, fourteen to twenty one, or crime drivers who was saying the data supported his alarm, more and more juvenile were being charged with the worst crimes, serious assaults, robberies, rapes, homicides, all rising for the past five years. Once these juvenile crimes made their way into the juvenile courts, though, and once the juvenile themselves made their way into juvenile prisons, they disappear from view. Juvenile court rooms are tightly controlled.

The names of juvenile defendants aren't publicise, for good reason. The crimes children commit should not forever mark them. But as a result, I didn't have a picture of what juvenile justice look like in cahoga county.

I'd hear murdering at the justice centre, though, mostly from defense attorneys growing to each other, mean, I gonna ve what just happened in my juvenile client. Or to me, you think this places bad, you should head over to juvenile. And I think, why? What are you talking about? But then I met Joshua.

He was looking at the time, so not a child. He'd tell you he was grown, but he was still in the juvenile system. You can stay there till you you're twenty one.

Keep in mind, the juvenile system, its mission is different from that of the adult system. The point isn't to punish. It's not about retribution. The point is to rehabilitate in the juvenile system.

That's where we're supposed to think, like parents, where the standard should be my child, is this what's best for my child with this? Help my child. So i'm going to tell you about Joshua.

Jojo sometimes starts off a story with, okay, so boom, boom is big in cleveland. The short hand for let me try to explain for real. All the tape I have with Joshua is from prison, so the sound is mostly a tiny threat of terrible.

I'm sorry about that. The prison system allow me to interview Joshua person, but I can tell you as as long time in a locater. I like IT when Joshua says boom, or Better yet, boom, boom means I might start to understand something such as how Joshua came to inhabit his current predicament.

One night in june of twenty fourteen, josh, a freshly sixteen, had gone to sleep after a night at a bar. Next thing you knew, FBI agents were pulling him from his bed. They took him to an interrogation room in clevi heights. They told him they had him for some robberies.

So IT was my bone. Oh, like you, we got video down this. And I first have just another thing again, like they show me the like this, like all these picture.

instagram, facebook, seems fifteen year old are rarely criminal masterminds. There was posing with all these other kids. The F.

B. Agents were saying, not only do we have video evidence of what you've done, but thank you, social media. We also know who you run with. The crime josh a was charged with were serious armed robberies for many months back.

Two of the Morgan stations in a friend held up two bps in one day, and the third robbery of a poppies, Joshua said he was converted into that one by an older ganging member. They barely got any money. He said they left with this pathetic little plastic bucket that had small bills in IT, according to a police report, run one hundred and fifty box, which he handed over to the boss.

But the restaurant had people in IT who'd had to lie down on the ground. It's a multiple kidnapping indepth right there. Joshua a had jumped over the counter and pointed a gun at someone.

And again, according to the police report, said, you have five seconds to open the safe or all shoot him. Joshua said his gun had no bullets in IT and that his code defendant gun was broken, the firing pen was busted. But the customers and workers at pop bed that wednesday morning didn't know that the FBI agents were telling Joshua, we've got you on video.

So let's run through our choices, shall we? We can hand you over to the adult court system that's called a band ver. In ohio, children as Young as fourteen can be bound over to adult court for certain crimes.

To josh, a adult court sounded serious. IT was in the adult system jojo would be facing between twenty and thirty years in prison or the officer said another option we can talk and if we talk, we can keep you in the juvenile system. We won't bind you over.

You'll get out when you're twenty one five years from now with no adult felon record. I want to talk. Joshua was Operating on a couple hours sleep. If he remembers right, he was handcuffed, said the officers weren't rude or abusive to him those goal, he said they left him alone for a while to think about the deal they were offering.

So did at any point did you say to them I want to talk to a lawyer or I need to speak to my mom? Or like, was there any a adult or any lawyer involved in any.

That they let me, anybody with me and I have nobody right? IT was the police that .

did you say, can have a lawyer or I? right. Okay.

say again, my.

When they said you might have an adult here with me, what did they say?

They respond to me, they I, I, me and .

how long did they .

keep you there um out therefore about like you 过来 过来 过来， 你 来说 大娃娃 with no adult .

knowing where you .

were no。 really. Oh my god.

doesn't this sound illegal? It's not. It's allowed. My children haven't robbed any gas station, so I feel the apples and oranges here.

But I have designed a permission slip for my teenager to go on. I could on, quote, field trip. That's a five block walk from her school.

I have to check the box to allow my son's photo from summer camp to be used for promotional purposes. But he was Joshua, sixteen, fog by exhaustion. In the prospect of everlasting incarceration, a no adults put a hand on his shoulder to crowd down in whispers in his ear.

But I believe most of us would have whippet if we've been in that room. Ask for a lawyer. Do IT now ask for a lawyer? If Joshua, I had the interview, would have, should have stabbed.

And maybe history would have, should have gone another way as IT was. Joshua a took the deal that fast. IT was june of twenty fourteen, two months earlier, his daughter had been born those two months with her, I told me, were the happiest of his life.

You couldn't handle the idea of being locked up until both he and SHE were decades older. And also Joshua relationship inside the gang he was in the hartless felons were complicated. I know it's hard to square, but Joshua says he was an armed robber who wasn't into violence.

He said the only benefit of joining the hartless baLance was the protection they offered from the heartless baLance from them. He said they extorted people into committing crimes, especially the Younger kids like him who wouldn't do serious time if they got caught. So yeah, he did stuff with them and for them, but he didn't feel anything for most of them.

The only one he have considered a bRandy, told me even that guy had pulled a gun on him once during an argument. So he took the deal, juvenile life with a catch, something called a serious, youthful offender. Dispositional sentence, usually people just call IT in su IT works like a suspended adult prison sentence.

You Young man are going to stay in the juvenile system. That's the carrot. But we're hang ging a ghostly adult sentence over your head.

That's the stick, which we can invoke if you can't keep IT together in juvenile person. So if you wanna stay in juvenile, you have to behave. Joshua believed he could behave.

He took the deal. That same day he got arrested, Joshua says he drove around with the cops, showed them places. He identified people in photographs, people associated with the heartless fellas.

In the coming months, he'd meet with investigators a couple more times. Jojo has terrific recall for all manner of information, and he give them dates, addresses, times. He told them details of crimes about which they already knew and about once they didn't as a source. He was a champion.

He really, josh a is extremely unusual.

This is lisa rankin. SHE was Joshua A. S. Public defender SHE was a scientist case only after Joshua had agreed to CoOperate. So when I called her to ask about Joshua, who'd been a client for only a couple months, three years earlier, SHE remembers him immediately. She's used declines, refusing to CoOperate with the police, refusing even to tell her information that might help their defense.

So for him to be so open and volunteering information, and I think that's how this whole thing started, is that when he had met with the officers before the arraying met um and before he was represented, he had volunteered information and he really helped them on a number of investigations because they didn't have starting points. Um this is when the hartless felons really started coming into play.

They were breaking a lot of have ago and I believed to they still are and so the police were very despite to get as much information as they can um and just a really connected a lot of dots and I think he explained IT in a way that really was almost like a tutorial and he could tell you everything um you know he could explain higher arche how things work. Um you know there's really no such thing as a game expert because there aren't people in these gangs you know studying these games. They kind of study on from a social logical standpoint.

And I felt like josh was probably one of the clearest historians that we've had in a long time. Ebi put himself out there. And because of josh, you know, other, other major crimes were solved. And, you know, the hope was that much more dangerous individuals were being taken off the streets because of judge.

This game is a fairly what the heartless feelings the game Operated in the gLinda nights, or hood, between syncs ir superior east one to five street area.

Seven months after Joshua a. Began CoOperating, a bunch of important people in clean would hold a press conference, the mayor, the clean police chief, people from A T F FBI canting share of office, canting prosecutor, they said, six months ago we began in investigation. They announced a thirteen person entitlement, all members of a hearts' felon's fillide group called the cut throats from Joshua's .

general neighbor od these game members, for crimes ranging from point assaults, agreed robberies, kidnappings, various weapons violations. They're also tied to at least one homicide that we know about right now.

There were drug charges, rio charges and charges more. Again, related arrests would follow the F. B. I didn't talk to me about josh w's case or his CoOperation, by the way, nor did the client police.

Almost everyone in the cut through independent pleaded guilty, but a couple of people went to trial. And again, Joshua kept up his under the deal. A year has gone by since his arrest.

He thought he was all done helping, but then off they took him to the justice center, where he got up in front of his dangerous erstwhile friends and ordered himself as an informant. He knew the'd hate him for IT. He knew he could get killed for IT if these guys got the chance.

But he also figured everyone on that cuttings, and all these cases, they were adults, theyd be going into adult prisons. He was staying in juvenile, he testified. The trial of one guy charged for a drive by shooting, that guy was acquitted.

And also in a murder trial for that one, Joshua was only job, was to identify the defendant, just to say, yeah, I know him. Joshua had no first hand information about the crime, but the state put him on the stand. Anyway, I asked the prosecutor, movida, why put Joshua up there?

Then you had other people, your guy, including an A, T, F, asia, including the defendants own mother, who said, a, yeah, that Young man sporting the distinctively energetic pony tail in the surveilLance tape. That's my son. So I put Joshua up there. You don't want to leave evidence not used. You have evidence.

We're going to use IT to ensure that you know something like this, a homicide where person's life is taken from for no reason and another person is a gravely injured that we don't leave at the chance you guys ever hesitate to use juvenile because you're just like, let's try to keep them out of this stuff sometimes again depends on the case. Um our problem is a lot of our shooters are, people are killing. People are are Young, and those are the people they hang out with.

The prosecutor from the other trial, the drive by shooting told me, of course, they d never want their witnesses to get hurt. He also said, quote, in terms of Joshua, after he was done testifying, I didn't really give any thought. Lisa rankin, the public offenders, happened to be in the courtroom when joshi was on the stand. He wasn't her client anymore, but SHE recognised them and he thought, wow, they are still using him.

This is still going on. Um you know I was very concerned for josh a safety because we know how these cases go um you know was a kid other defensive tourneys .

told me they do not advise their clients to Operate unless there's no other solution. Too often, the benefits aren't what their crack up to be while the risks crackle on. For years, I talked to another public defender in the juvenile division, Morgan.

Piers SHE told me he caught rarely, if ever, has a kid CoOperate with laender cement unless your kid can jump on a plane. He said, they're either gna go to juvenile prison in being danger, or they are going to go back to their neighbourhood in being danger. And I don't know very much, trust the system to follow through on what they say.

The prosecutors are not beholding him to anything. So the kids are used. They are naive. This a rank, remembered how much the police officers had seemed to like Joshua when they interviewed have they're encouraged them. There was talk of him getting out of prison, going to school.

There was a lot of talk that they would check in on him. And I guess, you know, ideally, you hope that that means somehow protecting him.

Juvenile prisons in ohio are run by the ohio department of use services O D Y S. And if a juvenile prison system could have a golden age, this would be at for ohio. S ten years ago, the system was forced to remake itself after lawsuits and a state investigation that a federal investigation and finally a consent decree.

Back in two thousand and seven, a court ordered investigation found what sounded like child abuse, essentially severely overcrowded housing units, untrained, confrontational, orly supervised, sometimes even vengeful staff using excessive force and, quote, reckless and malicious practices. Chocolat that created extreme risks of its fixie staff would use these tactics and strategic locations to avoid cameras. Kids were also being harmed by other kids, and they had no real avenue to complain or to get help.

Sometimes they threaten suicide just to get into isolation. Then came federally Mandated and fairly massive reforms that thought to do away with solitary confinement as a punishment, barge staff from using force, except in extreme circumstances, and added lots of educational and therapy ted programs. Most impressively, they really did redefine what juvenile prisons should be for, or rather whom they should before.

Unless your child is hurting other people, using a gun, committing grape, sending house fires, he is probably not going to an O D Y S. Closed facility. He's gonna to a smaller residential or non residential program in his own community.

And while some Young hot war sons, brey painters, still do end up in odio as prisons for the wrong reasons, the earth of alternatives in their own rural counties or around hit a judge. Generally speaking, ohio is not locking up kids like that anymore. In two thousand and four, there were two thousand kids in ohio OS juvenile prisons. Now they're about five hundred kids.

In twenty fifteen, the department .

of justice issued a report celebrating a turnaround that has, quote, resulted in what is, in many ways, a model system, what we are calling the ohio model. ExcEllent progress. Yes, the one downside is that the kids who do get sent to O D Y S to borrow of race from Donald room filled are the worst of the worst.

Or if donal rums felt had a compassionate social worker, awn SHE might say the kids arriving at od Y S. Now are more traumatized and higher needs. And instead of being divided among nine institutions, they're now corralled into three, a higher concentration of sometimes violent, always struggling children living together in a smaller space.

The facility where Joshua ended in september of twenty fourteen called indian river. It's not officially maximum security, but functionally IT Operates like juv max, one big building housing at that time, about one hundred and forty kids. They have their own school, which is across the yard.

I've been inside the main building. It's clean, brightly painted. Lifesize posters of basketball stars are decorating the hallway.

IT has eight units, roughly twenty kids to a unit, single rooms with doors that close. Each unit has a day room with A T, V. They can play video games.

They can play cards, though dice are contraband. The kids go to school in therapy. They might have jobs cleaning the cafeteria during maintenance, SE at first things. When OK for josh e in an river, no one knew he CoOperated with law enforcement. Joshua on family didn't know.

He saw that the heartless filings were in charge of some of the units controlling the video game remote, taxing kids for their food, forcing them to clean up or to make three way phone calls for them, all of which joshi had anticipated. The art les films were invented in clean's juvenile lockup s and Joshua d. Had been inside one of them before.

When is about thirteen? That was the first time he saw how tightly they Operated inside prison. Jojo had ready passed the various tests to get absorbed into the game. They call IT getting twisted .

if you don't want to be perpetual .

bullied and assaulted, if you want to be able to eat, that's a big thing. Other kids taking your food charge said, you try to join. And to join you have to get three bodies assault. Three people .

are other other juvenile or staff like .

we do now is that everybody had no, no proper.

A indian river, Joshua was an insider, well positioned. Nobody was asking him where he from, always the first loaded question. He was friends with the leader of the hartless baLance, the godfather, or G, F, who vouched for him.

So he was good for about year. Then he'd had to testify at the trial's downtown. And a sliver of rumours started back at a name river. The Joshua had .

told every couple month, like begin to two thousand, like cement thousand fifteen, one fifteen. And he died down from minute up.

up being in. And so wait, when you say it's popped up, like what are you talking about specifically happening?

Were going around IT or yelled like that how or tell fast like that?

Whenever I asked Joshua, a, what I was like to testify, how he felt about CoOperating with the police, his answers are a rushed in a little mechanical, as if the subject triggers a tiny getten window in his brain to zip closed, protecting the more fragile synapse ses from exposure. What he can account with practically digital accuracy, though, is when the trouble really, really started.

Joshua been in indian river for about two years, and then he transferred to a minimum security juvenile prison called ky. Hogan hills, summer twenty sixteen. That's when the bar bone's rumors about .

joya started to take on meat like like a little july, like all yeah, we know like this. And I like work has cell one so they had to stay, was like they did the streets in the street constitution, a little son and three way person work knows. And if me. And ky hook .

hills is in a suburb right outside cleveland. Lots of people from his neighbor od arrival, neigh's ods coming and going, family members visiting, calling, gossiping and someone from the drive by shooting case. The Joshua helped the police with not one of the defendants from that case, but the victim he'd been shot in the leg with an assault rifle.

That victim, he was also at ka hooker hills, josey said. The'd seen each other a year earlier at the justice center when Joshua d had to testify the trial. Now I I hook hills, that kid was telling people who Joshua was, what Joshua IT was open season .

everyday.

Cai uga hills, unlike any river, it's eight units with open dorms. There's one seclusion room per unit in case, but otherwise kids are mingling all the time, which if your target is handing out to a head cape, a quick look at the odi waas run down of incident involving ja, and you see the rush of assaults as soon as he gets to chook hills like a blood pressure Spike. July third, july seventh, july nineteen, july twenty second.

Joshua can fight. A few staff members told me he can really fight. He also mean his moves got the attention of one guard who is also a gym teacher.

Joshi said. The guy used to watch the surveilLance videos of his fights in admiration. Anyway, Joshua fought back, but he said more and more people were assaulting him first to be three people than four people than six people.

The worst assault in terms of the physical damaged under Joshua was in september of twenty sixteen. IT happened in the school house. He'd been staying clear of school because he knew he wasn't safe there, but he said they told me he would be allowed to take his G, E, D tests if he didn't have ninety percent attendance.

So you want then next thing you know, like I was walking to the school house, my papers, my hand going to 来说 了。 那。

Oh, my god, really, do you have no memory of like you are able .

to fight back? You know? Yeah, I, I, I got a thought that I hit my head on the door, in my mouth on the ground, my eye, my eye on the door up.

I, A way down, had a season. I was customer. I like this is also that that I was told I don't member, I don't know a lot of house to close for the blood. Like I don't remember.

How long were you in the hospital? I was this .

there for a couple hours, and I came an institution. They put me back in the same power institution with the higher, higher, high ranking and holy finance, that where, where don't like a great one.

Another attack, december thirty of twenty sixteen, joshi was jumped again. This time, he firmly believes a guard made that happen. He just been moved to a new unit, and he started arguing with the guard on duty, Joshua said.

He went and took the unit phone from the guards desk was employed to get some attention. He put IT in his footlocker by his bed. Wouldn't give IT back me while the guard had ordered pizza for some the kids on the unit, josher said.

When the guard came in with the pizza boxes, he told some kids, go get the phone back from Joshua and you can have your pizza knowing full well. Joshua says that that would likely lead to an assault. I did.

Three kids jumped. Joshua got out a hand, Joshua said. The guard then cut them, started to walk him out.

But then a bunch more kids. Joshua thinks that was about five of them. They joined in, got josh a on the ground.

So I always got about kids on him, all heartless felons while he's handcuff. Ed joshi said the guard didn't call a signal eight, eight task for help. That's for a serious fight or riot. Instead, a different guard called a signal five, which means other staff are more likely in a mozy over to help rather than run. But Joshua says war guards finally did come over, and one of them put his own body between Joshua and the kids who are staring him.

That would jumble how you try to cover up from but the heat in the pain kick in the here and get not out. I do the rest of the the the rest of came in um they just bring them and then I picking up, uh, the comic.

Three guards were also injured, Joshua says. After that, they took him to Operations when he SAT there for another hour, two handcuff. Then josh went in to exclusive self.

For a while.

I ran all of what Joshua told me by od, Y, S. But the department would not answer any questions about Joshua. They do not discuss juvenile in their custody, nor would they provide anyone for me to interview about their policies or procedures or philosophy generally, because they said they would be in service of a story about a particular youth.

They did send me a general statement, which i'll get too later, Joshua said all along, he'd been telling the administration at cayuga hills, I am not safe here. I heard similar complaints from other kids at od, Y, S. I told them, but they didn't really do anything.

You see IT in institutional reports in lawsuits over the years as well. Allegations that staff new kids were in danger from other kids and didn't do enough or anything to protect them, Joshua said. He practically begged the people in tragic COO hook hills. You gotto send me back to indian river.

When I first got to slow down there, I told him the same back, indian river is not going to stop. And then, and like they based just brush IT all I kept come back and back for, like, highlight two months. Like, I never stopped.

I like whole home. I never stopped to saying a symp and I kept them. And then they still do after I had to sit that set down with the the work intended and institution hill and he based, say, like, like you, my thought that I was going to sort IT like.

again, audio. I did not comment on Joshua's case, including whether .

he asked to be moved. He said, was that i'll bring in everything on me, how how like saying like that I taught the both people around, like the high right in and and and I was spent so he just told me, like you Better stop or told me or this was a kid.

haven't see you. He thinks your heart was filling still yeah.

yes, yeah. That is like, but like flicking and off in, or just like in like like bringing them back on me. Like you just keep your mouth clothes and only keep them to keep your mouth clothes.

After about six months at ky hook a hills, Joshua met with a couple of lawyers, a defensive torney, who said he'd figure out if he could get Joshua early release from od, Y, S. And a civil rights attorney, mister Parker stalls is a matter of fact that you might remember from arms this case. That's how I learned about Joshua from paul.

Both attorneys were shocked. They said that IT seemed like the heartless felons were colluding with staff. They considered asking the state attorney generals office to launch an investigation. In the meantime, paul had called the facility to say, i'm going to juvenile justice expert, but seems like he might want to move this kid in PS. We might be suing you more.

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I have to think back now to access a more innocent time around eighteen months ago, when I was still incredulous. Give me a second there. IT is, how could the government take a teenager and unrepresented teenager persuaded to do the thing? Almost nobody does the thing. Law enforcement has been desperate for someone to step up and due, CoOperate, get him to generously spin through his heartless phones, roll attack, then put him on the witness, and not once, but twice, then put him back in juvenile prisons, packed pretty tightly with heartlessness. Elon, after a parting handshake in a general note to behave himself, remember that S Y O hanging over your head.

And how could that same government then sit back and watch him get jumped again and again and again? How could they call an ambuLance to take him to the hospital? A months later, according to Joshua, arrange transportation to a couple of neurologist appointments to attend to the brain bleed.

He said he was diagnosed with, oh, and then that other trip for a cat scan. How could all that have happened and be happening? And yet I couldn't hear anyone, aside from Joshua, raising an alarm.

So I considered as anyone in my position wod. There is probably more to this story, but i'm not seeing. I set out to fact check Joshua.

I began with miss Turner sale. Turner SHE ran a literacy and social action program inside indian river and cahoga hills called freedom school. It's a curricle m designed by the children's defense fund. Joshua says freedom school was by far the best thing that happened to him inside odi wires. The change is hold a meaner, he said, from an enraged, suspicious skulls into a Young man who is beginning to recognize his feelings and manage them.

Every time I got mad, sad asked me why, he said, was the first time somebody actually ever SAT down and listen to me event and try to coach me and work with me. Joshua has stayed in the program for two years longer than anyone else. When the program lost funding this, Turner positioned herself as Joshua mentor and kept in touch.

I ask my Turner about Joshua version of the pizz incident because I figured he knows him well. SHE seen his worst in best behaviour. I figured, chief, know whether he was exaggerating. Would a guard really have handcuff Joshua and then more less allowed more kids to assault him? I'm hearing stuff like, no, the guard put and cubs on yes.

real yes that is absolutely real. And the way that I there by that is um when acting to be able to see the footage in their inability to do that. Only reason I knew any of information about IT is because they caught me to calm josh were down.

They called you yes. So the facility caught me with josh won a room because the enormous to to calm him down and that is the most anger i've ever heard him. I can hear him crying and I couldn't be managed that myself um so I told him that I needed to see him.

I need people to talk to him in person and we went to go see and that's when I saw the Bruce and the B D. And just was very strong. He is a fighter.

This is what got him to like. This is something very comfortable. And so to see him um that bad and be able to talk to him and find out what happened, IT was horrible and then the guard was fired afterwards. The guard won't been fired of the we've been in. I eventually .

got the personal records for this guard. He was fired though later through a settlement with the union, he was allowed to resign, along with a pledge to never again work in udi. As the guard wasn't sanctioned for Joshua getting jumped, though he was sanctioned because of the pizza, who admitted to taking twenty bucks from one of the kids and using IT to buy them pizza against the rules.

IT seems like every time he's telling me a story, i'm just like IT. IT feels like inside of their certainly a cohoes a hills, but also to a certain extent in indian river. That is just chaos for them.

Absolute chaos. IT is absolute OS. No, I think that something clearly IT is absolute K S.

and that the kids seem in charge or is that not true? Yes.

I would absolutely go with that. yes. And I want a reason program was so beneficial because the children were on side with the program. If we were to relied on just the step, I would not feel safe.

So the children, I wanted to speak to other kids who'd been at odi us to know whether Joshua situation was real and .

whether IT was common knowledge. I I, how he said the body, but he was IT was created. He was real bad point.

But this is malik e he's eighteen. He was a cayuga hills with Joshua. He's an adult prison. Now, mike said he saw Joshua get jumped multiple times.

I feel Better when we had a whole exclusion to get.

I gotten the league name from a former staff member who had suggested he might be a good person to talk to about what life was like. A khoo k hills SHE given me a couple of names of remarkably Frank former udi as kids. SHE didn't know Joshua.

A SHE definite didn't know that molik e is actually josh is cousin. If you over like cleveland noted by us, you see a logical incidences like this is a pretty small world. Mogue told me Joshua had IT worse than anyone he'd seen come through ky. Hook hills. He said he himself had been high up in the heart of space when all this was going on, but he loved his cousin, so he stuck .

up for him. I said, I could just keep to have the days. I have some key to happen.

So at one point, somebody there is been in this like this. Can you think you want like that? And I I worry about a couple.

He had words with a couple of the guys .

he said, asked them to cool IT, did you personally .

get any blow?

The heartless felons started to turn against mogue started to steal from him. He said. One night when he was sleeping, someone hit my league in the face with a combination lock right between the eyebrows.

He needed stitches. I talked to another guy named leo from toledo who'd been at cahoga hills at the same time as Joshua. He remembered the assault in the school, woke up in .

the ambuLance .

collapse.

means IT some. He passed and he went to sleep. But he had fed on the concrete war.

And then he was that part undergoing to the season. And this old face is slow IT with your crazy. And yeah, was at host for that.

Leo said IT was because word had gone around kyoto, a hills. The Joshua was a snatch that he was giving the prison staff information about the hearts le's baLance.

The family know a lot of stuff. The family he was a talking about a lot, he was on china get a Better sentence and or something given a lot of people, given a lot of people the lanes of okay.

when you heard like all the other other guys is nat, did you have any feeling about that personally? One where another we're like, don't care. We like, no, he does what he deserves. Like, what feeling about that?

And I was, I was heavily involved, the net and the end. So you were, I was, he was nothing on me. Not only use me this lie at the people.

Okay, so you did, you know this like this hit on them was going to happen or no?

yeah. Oh, you know. okay.

Can I ask if if you ordered IT? Am I talking to the man who ordered IT?

呃。 也。

At the time, leo said he was in charge of a section of the game called Y F. Young felons. So he called the hit on Joshua coincidence.

He'd later become the godfather. Joshua said he was in telling on the hartless philoSophia hill that they were conflation his past CoOperation with the present. Regardless, leo said he was mostly hearing about Joshua from the guards.

And I found, found out that he was on snicking wait.

what in staff for telling you about him?

He will try the right .

in cahoots. A hills, a kate, is how you get a message to the office.

Like all I need to talk administration, i'll need to talk to Operations. And or like super tended in this. Like that he watch your name of each and and you are such a first 一下 staff was .

informing on jahweh leo says to the most dangerous people in the prison， him, leo and his guys.

I spoke to a couple of other former and current od Y S. Youths from different facilities. I also spoke to current and former guards. Not disgruntled people who like their jobs, also occurred informer ody's social workers. Most of the adult spoke to me on background for a fear, retaliation, what they described, reminding me of a black market as if the juvenile prisons have their own subterranean economy, sucking in both youth and staff who trade in favors, power and also cash.

Of course, I know corruption exists, and I know juvenile prisons, in particular are prone to bleeding and to mod, but this was a system recently out from under concentric, many more fost, the ohio model, whose stated mission is not to punish, but to habituate youth and empower families and communities. Gaga hills has won a national award for how IT treats the children in its care twice. And yet, well, i'm just onna run through some of what I learned.

Take contraband. I interview a former guard, Edward canary. He's the only guard who agreed to go on the record, possibly because he's got nothing to lose.

He lost his job already after he was charged with domestic violence. When we talked, he was actually in prison as a prisoner. Before that, he worked the other side as a guard, a kyowa hills.

They call them Y, S, S and O, D, Y S. Youth specialists, Edward said, guards bringing in contraband. Yes.

black. In her instant, where people has been one that came with, came in with, he was bringing in we in for all year, and they had to know body. Everybody know body is the guy .

worked on one of the most unruly units ever, t said but when he was on duty, everyone was curiously chill, ever said that guard ended up getting fired advert said he himself didn't bring anything in like that but he said kids did ask him to will keep the unit under control if you bring in a cell phone or some weed.

have a lot of deal with on IT on situation.

That's malik e. Josh was cousin and quite the business man. He was bringing stuff into the north and's south buildings, he said, with the help of guards, two or three at any one time, he said they go pick up stuff from his people on the outside and bring you back in.

Some molecule could sell IT. And for the guards, this wasn't just about keeping the units calm, was about making money. But we could pay them.

And how much were they getting? How much do have to give them?

Maybe they haven't bring in. They bring sometimes I 培养 来 不上 这些 人， 来 不上 这人。 The things that what haven't bring.

oh my god, that's that's like .

grow money. Yeah too. wow.

Oh my god. How much just a cell phone go for that kind of your help?

Details of what kind of phone is IT angry, maybe like far and I phone out.

So there's that much money moving .

around in there that is creating on her .

the hartless baLance. There are also called the family, or the family, which has another meaning forever about money. Leo, the former gf, told me they take IT seriously. You gotta a move product. Muli estimated there was anywhere from seven to ten thousand dollars in cash circulating a cai hook hills at any one time.

Most kids send their money home, sometimes through visiting the time moike left, he said he had sent home about twenty five hundred dollars, and yet about nine hundred on hand. The commodity running alongside side and sometimes feeding into the contraband market is violence. Three guards, I talk to one current, two former, said the guards feel hamstring sometimes, because some of their best tools for controlling the kids were taken away by reforms, certain physical restraint, inclusion.

They could not even put kids to bed at seven P. M anymore, couldn't make them keep their hands behind their bags. The kids can be violent.

The guards are out numbered, and you can count on swift back up from Operations if there's a fight or so. Yeah, the guards will sometimes provoke kids, taught them or insult them so that the kid will respond in kind. And then the guard has an excuse to shut them in their rooms and not have to deal with them.

I got to a former social worker in casey hooky, who told me he saw that kind of thing a lot. Casey, he worked at the cahoot account detention center as a therapist until last summer. The detention center isn't technically O D Y S, but there's a lot of cross polo ation with O D Y S, especially with khao ga hills in terms of staff and kids and gang culture.

You know the door way, I will do something, do something and go, you know, you say that I do something when you come out like when they're their transition. So they lost up in the room. Oh, when you come out like, I want to see you, I want to see you do that. You know, if another site happens, you can lock down the whole unit, and then you just set in the day area of your first watch, T, V, and you would see something out. Yeah.

casey told me a story about two kids who'd fought. And then when the loser of the fight was being in pain in this one, guards asked, the guard asked the winner of the fight to go after the kid a second time.

Did he offered that use extra commissary to assault him again, sort of fight him again if that I get fired? No incidents .

like this. Staff orchestrating youth on youth attacks. Everyone I spoke to from adiva said, it's common, Edward, the former cahoot, a hills guards, said, yeah, guard of former relationship with the highest ranking gang member, or else the strongest youth on the unit, and use that kid to keep the rest of the kids in line.

Did you ever experience that were a guard said, you like, can you go take care of so and so all the head finance matters.

is. like.

Way, who was taking care of who? C, O.

the c, don't take care of whatever we need, what everyone.

And if you did what we be .

on every day and why were .

they wanted you to be on a certain I mean.

just right for given a hard shift, whatever.

And what would you get in return?

But whatever I want, IT money, whatever I wanted.

The final thing I mention sex, sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults, and also sex with leo. And millie said theyd had sex with multiple female guards who are in their twins and thirties at cocoa hills. Before Joshua was transferred to ky hooker hills back when he was doing OK at in hee river, he was swimming along in this cropped water too, taking advantage of IT he could get anything in there.

He said porn weed litters tecla. He said he never jumped anyone for money, but he did Operate as a middle guards would pay him maybe twenty dollars, maybe forty, to arrange hits on certain kids, Joshua said. Sometimes the hits were in retaliation for something violent a youth had done to a guard, maybe the kids through pee on them or attacked a female. The guards aren't supposed to strike back. So they use the kids as our proxies.

And then they know that that he may, will fight the year.

right? So they're using .

you guys to fight back, right? Never invest thing, they 喂。 How no brand, like many people .

I spoke to about odi s, they'd hit an explanatory wall like this. They say you just, you have to see that you have to. I can't, Joshua. Best effort, I thought, was when he explained IT as a kind .

of madman's vacation, the vacation.

a vacation for the youth. You mean our vacation for the guards?

Both stars, the people, fuck that.

Would there have been a way for you to come in and be like, i'm not going any of this. I'm going to be a totally greedy, clean, just do my time kid and not get pulled into anything? Is that possible to exist like that?

no. So people they take that for week is honor you model been another fine or something?

yeah.

Yes.

youth guards, social workers, they all told me for a kid to quote on, quote, succeed at od, Y, S, to get help, stay out of trouble and get back out. You'd need a rare, rare confluence of luck, great, and influence.

I spoke to four social workers, worked at different O D Y S facilities. Their experiences span twenty twelve to twenty eighteen. They all said there were plenty of people who wanted to help the kids to advocate for them, but there was no way.

One former indian river guard told me everything was hush, hush, hush. The social worker said they were discouraged from raising problems, are calling out cruelties, guardi added, kids is sex offender, say, or look the other way. When a child got jumped, the social worker said there was a strong, no snitching culture among the staff.

A couple of them told me I was made clear to them they might not be protected if they were to be assaulted on the units. One person told me the clinical note SHE was writing in her kids files for reports that had to go to the courts every six months. We're being edited by another staff member until her boss put a stop to IT and that when he went to look back at a note, SHE put in one kids file describing assaults on him that appeared to have been facilitated by staff.

Her documentation was missing entirely. Several social workers told me that they started to lose their own sense of what was Normal. IT was ethical.

They felt like the kids had no protection from abuse or from coercion. So rather than trying to stop IT, they'd help the kids navigate IT. One told me there was nothing I could do.

Another told me, I mean, I just had to be realistic about IT. To pretend like they were getting refitted was foolish. I tell the kids all the time, the system is not designed to help you.

SHE worked to kao ga hills national award winner IT was almost like the place had a mass gone, SHE said, every story I heard about od Y S, every allegation from musson staff, current informer, we ran IT by od Y S. Again, they didn't comment on anything specific, but they gave us this statement. Whenever there are allegations of misconduct, we swiftly investigate and take appropriate action, they wrote. D. Y, S has increased programing, security and supports to serve the most chAllenging youth in the state who have lengthy criminal histories and often have gang affiliations that they bring into the facilities.

January of twenty seventeen, Joshua went back to indian river. This time, they didn't keep among one of the heartless felling units, a alpha b. Bravo, in in november.

Instead, they put him on d delta. d. Delta was the closest thing in an river, had to protective custody. A mix of kids from column, santi, Youngster, a few clevelanders. When I first started talking to Joshua, that's where he was, the delta on unit restriction, meaning he couldn't go to the Normal .

places in the facility. Okay.

the teacher comes to you.

yeah, because I go to school, go to school.

and you can go to the school to the cafeteria.

Put outside your the world housing on us.

how long is happen going on that you're not live in the unit?

Mean, like like we IT was .

now mid may, five months of unit restriction for Joshua's own protection. He felt safe ish on his unit. He said he was cool with most everybody in delta.

His hopes were set on early release and then, who knows, may be a lawsuit, but early released was the main thing he wanted. I talked to Joshua every couple of days, sometimes every day. Early on, he started describing what sounded like an uptick in .

the usual chaos that's.

A couple like .

a whole unit, red and red. My unit like bigger, like big, he said .

about fifteen kids from a alpha. A heartless follows unit had yanked the door open and stormed the kids on the delta. Joshua said the hartless films were trying to conquer their unit basically because their unit wasn't joining H, F, wasn't submitting to H, F.

D. Delta was more. H, B headbutted arrival gang. d.

Delta had kids from columbus since ce sanai and kids from those places. If they're in again, they tend to be hb. That was most of the attention.

And then personal on jura was on d delta. The distress dispatches kept coming. His unit had been rushed on their way to school.

Dozens of kids swarming at them from across the yard. Staff hurried them back inside before anyone is hurt. But it's really scary.

They're been another riot, this time on a alpha. It's in staff attack, a youth in his room. There are so many people walking around here in my unit with black eyes and stuff.

He said. We just got two new books on our unit. Dude from toledo, they jumped him twice in one day, and I do from clean.

and they can tell him and be. And that was growing up in the whole week. They could kill him within one hit.

Sometimes in the calls, Joshua was sounding jangled. He said he couldn't take IT anymore. It's too much stress on me.

I know like I really just like I don't want to go to this over. I like brain, like I K 采购 我。

In early july, Joshua's unit was put on A O V protocol act of violence protocol, sort of like lockdown seven P M, bedtime, no extras. Meanwhile, he said the hartless felons were lacking around TV and video games all day getting to go outside, and their nike shoes, jogging pants, watches his unit all state issue stuff stuck inside watching hartless felons.

The aggression through the windows in indian river guard I spoke to confirmed, yes, they had been putting some units on L, V protocol lately. But b bravo, the unit where the heartless felling leaders are too dangerous. Yeah, this guard said they on't even try.

Joshua said his unit united, they discussed in, this isn't fair. We're not safe. The staff isn't protecting us. IT feels like the superintendent is citing with the hartless felons protecting them, and we are the ones being punished for fighting back. They all roll up grievances, which they sent to the audio is .

central office about fitting services in three letter. And then we did a new position. Safe, nobody without something.

What what whose idea was was .

to the more .

activism. Look at that respectful to whom IT may concern activism. A staff member at the indian river had helped Joshua with IT told them where he should send the packet if you go to columbine care of Julie wilbourn, e, assistant director of O T Y S. Joshua didn't know who Julie woodbourne was, but the judge is down in juvenile court, including ended, including Joshua judge Christian sweeney, who's also the administrative judge for the juvenile court. Here's how he described july wilburn to me.

a drenching spring rain after months of drought.

Julie wang bourne had come to work at O, D, Y S that April, a month before I started talking in a Joshua and he started describing the maham and indian river, Julie melbourne had come to a recent meeting of juvenile judges in kahau, ga. county. And he said, we know about the violence in the royal breaking. We're gona fix IT judge sweet thought. Finally.

i'm trying to think like how long has he been that I have felt like the institution is sort of not taking some of the the violence seriously? I would say probably at least four, five years.

at least four or five years. Module that's in the post concerto create post reform era of one of judge sweeny's colleagues, judge denise reni SHE was molie e judge gave me the back story of how the spring rain came to be. She's got a case back in december, a kid in indian river, a heartless felon. Inside his case file were pictures. Here's a dreamy.

and i'm looking at all photographs and the photographs of youth smoking marijuana. I have OK judge rainy keeps .

the case folder on her desk to remind her, SHE explained of how are fAiling these youths when we let heartless fells run the facilities instead of the adults, we look through the stack of photos together. So this is from inside .

they are. They're .

definitely smoking, definitely smoking, listening to maybe an ipod, something that ganging science, why? I don't know from gang science, but I assume that's what that is. So then money calling a water money.

Where was he posting from? Inside a really, the kid had a cell phone and an instagram account where he was posting these photos. So judge reni saw all these images in december of twenty sixteen, and SHE flipped her lid. The immunity, the message they're sending to other kids, go to O D Y A, smoke weed, make money, kick IT with your friends. Judge, I sits on a state judges committee for juvenile .

law and procedure, and I just sent them to all of the members. So they started calling O D Y S and saying this is unacceptable.

In january, officials from O D Y S came to a judges meeting.

and they were trying to explain why this was occurring. And I was visibly distraught, to say the least, where judge floyd d put her hand on my little arms that.

well, because what was the explanation? And like audio.

s IT was an isolated incident. And like, he is thirty seven pages. How isolated is this? We know i'm in the facility every day. You know this doesn't really happen. And like it's on instagram, what do you mean that doesn't happen? So they were basically just kind of like White washing in my biggest issue was you are not helping our community. You take these youth and you put him in here and they come out in their and and they know absolutely they have no trade, they have no vacation um and they have no ability to act appropriately. So what what are we doing besides housing them in a facility where we're not teaching them anything?

A few months after that meeting, the assistant director of ody's abruptly resigned, and Julie wilbourn took her place.

As soon as he came on board, SHE walked through that SHE. According to her, SHE walked through all the facilities. SHE met with all of the the heads of each facility and he said, we're going na take back the facilities ties and we are going to ensure that these youth, they are not only safe because there was a lot of fighting, but the ones that are the bad actors, are going to be removed.

Like two days ago, we had a million with sugar attended, all as in the burden.

In mid june, Joshua told me that the superintendent of anian river had gathered the s OS. The kids who had adult time attached to their senses. They could kick in if they didn't do well in juvenile, would do we? Us hadn't been invoking those adult sentences, but now the superintendent told them, new sheriff in town.

We now have a zero tolerance policy for eos. Any infraction doesn't even have to be violent. And we can seek a bind over.

You are now unnoticed. Behave yourselves. About a month after that, late july, another call, joshi told me he just found out he had a court .

date is tomorrow, tomorrow? yeah.

Why would you have any court date? why? Why would you have a courted .

coming out to see they? They can invoke my s oh, your kid. They try to say that right on to the fine, but those two can can approach to the side like that. OK, I told Joshua .

I couldn't imagine anything drastic was going to happen to him. How could IT the system knew his situation, but josh a wasn't.

Hearing that, oh, no, also worry why i'm to would do this. Look at eighteen years life for me.

If Joshua got bound over, that was the adult sentence he was looking at eighteen years, that was his soo Joshua wasn't going to the court date tomorrow, but I could go and watch the adults figure out where Joshua belongs. That's next time on our final episode this season, a cereal.

Series produced by Julie snider, a manual joe ben carhop on and me with additional reporting by iaea khosi editing on this episode from our glass and Nancy up deck. Witney danger field is our digital editor, researching fact checking by then fAiling sound design and mixed by stone Nelson music clearance by Anthony roman settlin is our director Operations. The zero staff includes Emily conn, july whittaker, ey hari, Frances Watson and matt.

Our music is by adam dorn and how wallner with additional music from map, maginness and nicoderm. Our theme song is also by nick thorn and remixed by adam dorn. Special thanks for the episode to alpha scores heartless in canberra, I jump sama mota had at the cahoga accounting public offender juvenile division abe hamdy, Gabriel s less law Austin and brook burns.

The animation and illustration on our website was done by the talented team and more studio, thanks to dave prosser, Daniel chester remarked at securities canada, luke oil, I for ashton and Hannah ia. You can check out their work at our website. Serial podcast that works, that serial podcast, that org.

We can also sign up for our email newsletter and be notified when new episodes are released. Serials are production of this american life in W B E Z. chicago.