As we acknowledge the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King from the March on Washington, it is hard to resist the metaphorical use of water in reference to the administration of justice in our nation.

Where I am from, boys do not become men they become inmates, lifers whose development is stifled by institutionalization. Girls do not mature to womanhood, they become baby-mommas forced to hustle and prostitute their adult lives away, their growth strangled by the byproducts of institutionalization.

When first presented with the opportunity to tour the N.A. Chaderjian (Chad) and O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facilities in Stockton, California I had my reservations. I’d heard the reports about the terrible conditions at facilities as well as seen the headlines of suicides and dog attacks that had taken place there over the past several years. But it was these same reservations that motivated me to seize the opportunity and see firsthand what is really happening at these facilities.

Louisiana is notorious for housing some of the most brutal youth prisons in the country. In recent years, it’s made great strides toward reform, as leaders introduced more therapeutic, rehabilitative models.

When Tedi Snyder was 15-years-old, he was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with attempted murder in an incident where no one was killed. Now Tedi faces 80 years to life in prison. His first parole date would be at age 95.

Our society has been sold the idea that the "experience" of criminalization is a viable product. We do not examine what is actually happening to jailed youth, or the long-term result of detaining them for adolescent behavior. Rather, we react.

Of the thousands of teens in any town there are bound to be a few a violent ones that exploit large gatherings – but in Philadelphia, one judge has been using his power to punish adolescents far beyond the extent of their actions. In an exchange with one 15-year-old boy, Judge Kevin Dougherty reportedly threatened a year in the juvenile justice system for every “lie” – what he characterized explanations by youth who said they had gone downtown to go shopping or meet girlfriends.

Richmond City Council has postponed its vote on whether to impose a daytime curfew for minors, a proposal put forth by the Police Department. The curfew, which will be decided at a later date, would allow police officers to arrest school-aged minors who are not in school between the hours of 8 a.m. and 2:30 pm. The curfew only targets youth in the City of Richmond, where 80 percent of the population is people of color.

Two runaway teens from Rockville, Indiana were found safe on Tuesday, March 17 in Vigo County. The 15 and 16-year-old, who the reporter named but we will not here because of their ages, were last seen March 8. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to find the girls, police finally found them at a traffic stop on Highway 40, in a semi-trailer truck en route to Terre Haute.

I've seen family court judges talk to children or their parents like they are scum of the earth. I've seen defense lawyers who are representing children in the juvenile court argue for detention when everyone else in the courtroom is asking the judge to release them. I've seen prosecutors verbally attack children with no hint of forgiveness or compassion as they ask a judge to tear them from their family and lock them away.

Public education protests should send the message that students, parents, teachers and other education staff are fed up with tuition fee increases while services decrease. Instead, news coverage focused heavily on the havoc created by those who broke from the larger protests yesterday across California.

A recent incident in San Francisco demonstrates a serious lapse in our juvenile justice system and the way that officials within it overreact to youth misbehavior.

It is not often that we are heartened by the moves of our statewide justice system. But, last week the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) announced that a center for the developmentally disabled would be converted in 2011 to a moderate-security juvenile facility. It is the first time that the state of Louisiana is looking to design small therapeutic facilities that are home-like and lack razor wire and cells, a rarity in Missouri.

Last week, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report that revealed about 12 percent of youths nationwide held in state-run, privately run or local facilities reported some type of sexual victimization including forced sexual activity with other youth and staff. Staff sexual misconduct was higher in state-run facilities.

New York State spends $215,000 per year to expose each vulnerable child in its unsafe juvenile prisons to months spent far from home, with inadequate mental health care, and an increased likelihood of reoffending upon their release. The juvenile justice system neither rehabilitates youth nor keeps communities safe.

A recent incident in Omaha, Nebraska brings urgency to an issue soon to be debated in Congress regarding the handling of youth offenders by juvenile and criminal justice systems. In this case, police shot a 15-year-old boy in the chest following a traffic stop. Investigators said the boy shot at police first. The case has led one local senator to call for an overhaul of Nebraska's juvenile justice system that would identify "aggressive juvenile offenders."

I continue to be amazed at how many people continue to behave as though race and involvement with the criminal justice system are synonymous. Has it become an accepted fact of life in the United States that the machinery of justice applies almost solely to people of color? I shuddered to realize this once again recently while reading editorials about the Supreme Court’s deliberations regarding juveniles receiving life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in the U.S., the only country that engages in this barbaric practice.

I recently had the opportunity to tour two very different juvenile justice facilities with the Youth Law Center that personify ongoing divisions in the field about how we should deal with youth in trouble with the law.

I recently toured two youth correctional facilities of the California Division of Juvenile Justice in Stockton, and honestly, I don't know what adjective to use to describe my experience. Intense? Eye-opening? Every one I think of seems applicable for some portions, and wildly inaccurate for others.

The factors that influenced disproportionate minority confinement include the war on drugs, "broken windows" and "quality of life" policing, zero tolerance in school discipline, and the move away from the rehabilitative function of the juvenile justice system.

The Indian reservations of this country are studies in extremes; from perceived overconsumption from gaming to substandard housing, inferior educational and medical facilities, to inadequate justice systems.

It has been interesting and sad to see how the very fact that Lovelle was an ex-offender has led him to be deemed him a "devil" by the mainstream media and the general public and unworthy of an investigation into the factors that created a 26-year-old who apparently desperately did not want to return to the system that may have helped turn him into a “cop killer.”

"Thank goodness for 'The Wire.'" That's what a friend of mine once said at a conference on justice and law enforcement, in reference to the HBO series. The television program's central theme was there are no "good guys" or "bad guys" in the nation's "War on Drugs." And the victims are clearly the children.

Over the last two months, technology and a growing movement of concerned citizens have exposed shocking incidents that speak to why we work so hard to assure that detention be used as a last resort for youth.

In too many communities across this country, violence among black youth is viewed as almost inevitable...driven by intentional policies of neglect and abuse by the political and economic elites.

When I was a baby, my parents came into my room to find my older brother trying to smother me with a pillow. He was three years older than me and upset that my dad had rocked me to sleep after telling my brother that he was "too big" to be rocked like a baby. In his childlike mind, I was the reason why his daddy wouldn’t rock him. His action could have proved deadly, but could only be explained by the sentiment that he was only 4-years-old – and didn’t understand the consequences.

January has shaped up as a month in which the voices of Black men have grabbed headlines: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., new President Barack Obama and police shooting victim Oscar Grant.

January has shaped up as a month in which the voices of Black men have grabbed headlines across the country: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., new President Barack Obama and police shooting victim Oscar Grant.

Australia is reputed, along with New Zealand, to posses juvenile justice systems that truly believe the use of detention should be a last resort. Based on a week of personal observations and interviews, I believe that reputation is well deserved.

This has been a significant year for us. Today, we are celebrating five years of working to reduce disparities in the juvenile justice system with the release of our first publication and the launch of our redesigned website.