Juvies
Directed and Produced by Liz Garbus
Produced by Rory Kennedy & Jesse Moss
Premiered on A&E in March, 2000.
Juvies is an intimate and harrowing look at the turbulent journeys of three young men in and out of Baltimore's Juvenile Justice System. In an approach similar to The Farm, the filmmakers obtained unprecedented access to a world generally closed to the outside. With unique candor and raw emotional drama, the film draws the viewer inside the harsh and unforgiving world of juvenile detention centers and prisons.
Set primarily in Maryland's Cheltenham Youth Facility --originally known as The Center for Reformation for Colored Boys -- the film explores the events that propel these troubled young men into the system, their experiences through court, commitment, rehabilitation and release, and the challenges they face when they return to their communities. Three dramatic stories unfold during the course of the film: Shawn, 17, overcomes the odds and gets off the street, only to have the system throw one more roadblock in his path. Daniel, 14, who is mentally ill, finds himself criminalized and trapped in a system that is unable and unwilling to help him. And at 16, Anthony's troubles are rooted in the dissolution of his tight-knit family, but he finds redemption from a loving and devoted father.
Collectively the three young faces in the film represent an intimate portrait of America's troubled youth and reveal how we, as a society, and the juvenile justice system as a whole, are serving or, perhaps, failing them. Dispelling the common myth that youthful offenders are violent predators, the film presents a nuanced and complex picture of young people coming of age under the most difficult circumstances. And yet, despite the harsh lessons of these American streets, in each young man we also discover the incredible resilience of the human spirit, we see a ray of hope, however thin-a glimmer of a better life despite the bleak horizon.