Shannon Jones
Good morning. My name is Shannon Jones, I’m eighteen years old. I’m pleased to have the opportunity today to share my story with you. On January 7, 2007, my life changed for the better because that was the day that I was committed to the Community Intensive Supervision Program (CISP) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Although I will speak from my own experience, I am also here to represent the experiences of the other youth whose lives have been positively impacted through their participation in CISP.
I want to start by describing the program that has changed my life. CISP was started in 1990 and is run by the Juvenile Section of the Family Division of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. It serves as both an alternative to institutionalization and an aftercare program for those youth who have been subject to institutional placements. CISP offers programming, including drug screening, in five neighborhood centers during the afternoon and evening, seven days a week. CISP also electronically monitors the youth at night. CISP’s staff are traditional probation department personnel and paraprofessional “Community Monitors” who live in the same neighborhoods where we live.
The CISP Program is designed to reach male juvenile offenders (ages 10-18) from the targeted neighborhoods who are on probation, continue to recidivate and would be institutionalized but for the existence of this alternative. In other words, young men like me. Property offenders make up for the majority of youth placed into the CISP Program but other youth are also eligible. Since the CISP Program is neighborhood based, a youth must live in one of the designated neighborhoods to be placed in CISP. One of the most important parts of the CISP program is that we remain in our own communities, continue to attend our own schools, and are introduced to positive community resources. All the kids who participate in CISP are required to complete community service, which is important because it makes us feel like a positive part of the community.
Today I want to talk about how CISP changed my life. I was committed to CISP in January and I spent six months participating in the program. When I entered CISP, I had a D-average in school and I was at risk of ending up in a juvenile correctional facility. Although I thought about college, it didn’t always seem within reach. Being a part of CISP helped me to bring up my grades high enough that I graduated with honors and I plan to attend the community college of Allegheny county next spring. In the meantime, I’m working with children at a job I got through my volunteer work with CISP.
When I was in CISP, I continued to go to my school everyday. I had to submit regular progress reports from my teachers to CISP, and knowing that my counselors at CISP were going to see my grades pushed me to work harder and do better in class. I would be picked up right after school everyday and taken to a CISP site. There I had the opportunity to participate in a range of programs, like Maleness to Manhood, Victim Awareness, Thinking Errors, Self-Assessment, and the Drug and Alcohol program. One of the programs that had the most impact on me was the Drug and Alcohol program. I remember that they took us to meet with recovered addicts, and hearing their stories made me think about how my drug use affected not only me and my future but also the people around me. I’m clean now, I no longer use illegal substances, and I plan to stay that way because I’ve seen what can happen to addicts and I know that I’ve got a better future ahead of me.
On the last Thursday of every month, CISP also invited our family and friends in to meet with our counselors. This was important because CISP treated the people in our life like they were a part of our rehabilitation, and this means that I have support outside of the program as well as in the program.
CISP not only gave me the opportunity to improve myself, it also made me take a more active role in my community. We spent every weekend doing community service by cleaning up our neighborhoods and local churches. In the six months that I was a part of CISP, I contributed 100 hours of community service. Even today when I walk past the areas that I helped clean, I feel a responsibility to keep those areas clean. My neighborhood feels like a community now, not just the place where I live. I think that this was possible because CISP keeps young people in their neighborhoods instead of sending them somewhere else. Every time I leave my home, I can be reminded of the work I did to improve my community.
CISP also provides jobs for young people through the Workbridge program. Those youth who have restitution to pay can use the money that they earn from these jobs to pay that restitution. I started at the parental stress center as a volunteer, but this became a real job after I graduated from high school. Part of what I like about my job is that I am serving as a mentor to other young people. I like knowing that I’m helping young people just the way the CISP staff helped me.
One of the things that I am always going to remember about CISP is the constant support I got from the staff. Every time I came to the CISP center, I could count on the staff encouraging me to better myself. They didn’t put me down or make me feel bad about myself, instead they always pushed me to be a better person and I wanted to be a better person to make them proud. I knew that as long as I was trying to improve, they would support me.
I want to take this time today to encourage you to support other programs like CISP. I’m not the only young person CISP has helped, and I think that similar programs will help other youth as well. I’ve come a long way in six months and I have a bright future ahead of me. Maybe I would have gotten here without CISP, but I also know that being a part of CISP helped me become a positive force in my community. You have the ability to help other young people like me become more productive members of our communities, and I hope that you take this opportunity to help start and fund other programs like CISP.
I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to me today.
Shannon Jones
Wilbert Avila
Good Morning,
My name is Wilbert Avila. I am twenty years of age and working as an intern for the Campaign for Youth Justice. I am here to tell all of you my experiences being a juvenile at the age of sixteen in the DC Jail Department of Corrections Juvenile block, known as the “Quack”. They consider it the “Quack” because the DC Jail jumpsuit is orange like a duck and since you’re in a cell feeling dehumanized you start to Quack like a duck. My struggle was hard, my life scarred, and my mindset crippled.
Originally I thought I would only be in jail for a few weeks while I waited to go to court, but the weeks became months and I realized I was going no where because I was different from juveniles and adults. Since I was a juvenile charged as an adult I could not go to any group home for juveniles and because I was sixteen and I could not go to a house for adults. So, I was stuck in the DC Jail. I was viewed as a high danger to the community even though this was my first time in the criminal justice system.
When I went to my cell for the first time, the sound of a door made of bars opening was the first thing I heard. In my cell the toilet was dirty with fruit flies all over and red stains on the floor. I later found out that the red stains are from the juice that we are given during meals. I never had seen living standards like these before and now they were mine. “Was I made for this lifestyle,” was what I asked myself. That question was never answered. My friends my age, youth my age were sent to Oak Hill, a juvenile facility and I was mixed with adults because I was considered an adult. Do not show emotions like fear and power was what I thought when looking in the eyes of a 30 year old man, whose weight was about tripled my size. How am I going to defend myself? This man, like every man around me, could easily do damage to my small body. When all of us were being wrapped with chains from head to toe I could see and feel frustration and disappointment. Being surrounded with men triple my age I could only expect the worst. The stories about going to adult prison and facts about survival of the fittest was my reality now. I would be transformed into a rough creature. There was no where to run and no where to hide and deep down inside I knew I was walking into hell.
Days were long and boring; the adequate way to passing the day was to sleep, look at each other, or watch television. There was a small hallway with cells we sat on the cold floor to watch television. About seven months later we received a few chairs. Violence would be the only way to handle conflict between inmates. Fights occurred often inside the cell while the correctional officer was distracted. The fight would stop and no staff would know unless the person was badly beaten. If that was to happen, which did mostly every fight, by someone getting jumped or one on one fights they would be sent to the medical staff. You could not talk about the fights because you would be considered a snitch and was vulnerable to ending up in a bed in the infirmity. So we all kept our mouths closed. If you did not fight you would most likely be treated like a pet. You could beat and control but it would never defend itself.
The DC Jail virtually no programs to fill our time. I participated in the Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop. I found it beneficial, because it helped me express my reality of the inside and outside through words. We had a prep GED class. Why? Don’t ask me. We still are in the age to get a high school diploma. Also, why go if we can’t even take the GED at DC Jail? Were they thinking this youth group has nothing else to expect except a GED? Talk about low self esteem to be considered an ignorant person in society just because you are behind bars. Everyone was taught at the same level no matter their math or reading abilities, there was no challenge or stimulation. Like most kids on the block I stopped going even if it meant spending more time in my cell.
The mental health program was a time to go into a small overcrowded room and express our emotions. Useless was the definition I gave it. Our counselor would want us to talk about how we felt being in this predicament, in a state prison. It was hard for a young person, like me, to discuss emotions while being surround by other juveniles. He would lose any hope that someone would talk so he would just put a DVD in and called it counseling. If I was to request individual sessions it took about a month for someone to come but usually nobody came. Thus, all my anger and frustration would be kept inside, left to boil until I woke up on the wrong side of the bunk. That happened a lot because my mind was not growing but paused and for my fellow youth inmates their mind would be paused for years to come as they where being shipped out to the federal penitentiary with years on their shoulders. They would be sent far like Memphis, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin leaving behind family and friends. It would be them against the world because that’s the way I felt.
In outside recreation the equipment we had was old and used up. We would ask for new equipment but the better equipment would go to the adults. So what we would end up with was another void spot to walk around in DC Jail. The programs were supposed to pass time, but what they really did was make me lose hope.
Being in the juvenile wing at the jail didn’t really mean anything because we saw adult inmates all the time during the day. A typical day for us would include 3 hours outside the cell in the morning. However, I was working on the detail so I got a little extra time out. This meant I would be out to pass the food and clean. All the juveniles would be put in their cells and I would be the one to go up stairs get the food trays from adults, come back to our wing and pass it out. Then an adult prisoner would come to our wing to give me our juices. That process and interaction would take place at all meal times. Those 30 minutes to an hour I valued because it was less time I had to be in the cage. After the food was eaten I would collect the trays one by one and give the trays to an adult who would then take it back to the entrance of the block. Working detail I also helped with the cleaning. When I was cleaning, sometimes our cleaning supplies would run out so I would be sent to the adult wing to get supplies like the floor liquid, an extra mop, and etc. Adults on laundry detail would also come to our wing to collect our dirty clothes.
All of this, my experience, is why I think we need more programs for youth. Juveniles today feel isolated. No programs existed for me. I sat in a cell for about a year. The sad part is that most juveniles are sitting in jail awaiting court while they could still be going to school and doing something beneficial. Instead of learning how to survive in an adult prison, there could be other places a child could be. I ask you, is that what you want future adults to learn: How to survive in a jungle of violence?
Wilbert Avila
Christopher
Click below to download Christopher's testimony.
YouthTest_Christopher.pdf (380 KB)
Will Rivera
Click below to download Will's testimony.
YouthTest_WillRivera.pdf (204 KB)
