No Matter How Loud I Shout

“Some of the intake officers have perfected a technique of quizzing newcomers that rarely, if ever, requires them to utter a complete sentence. They simply say, ‘Name? Date of birth? Address?’ all the way down the form in front of them, like reading a shopping list, a complete interview done and only a few dozen words uttered in the process. This peremptory method belies the immense power the Intake Officer wields as a kind of pretrial judge, jury, and jailer rolled into one.” 

Humes perfectly captures the inhumanity that newly-incarcerated juveniles are subjected to during the intake process. The guards have become so accustomed to this procedure that they no longer view the inmates as individuals, and even less as kids; rather, these children are limited to quantifiable variables, almost like data on a spreadsheet. Here, the audience gets an in-depth view into the lack of individuality these kids are subjected to as part of the juvenile-justice system. There is no mention of their background, no attempt on the officers’ parts to get to know them. This creates a sense of distance between the officers and the kids, as though the system itself requires the kids’ dehumanization in order to function. The intake process becomes a kind of assembly line, mechanized to the point where machines could do the work of the officers.

“It was ridiculous, he says, the system with its puny arsenal up against something far bigger and far deadlier. Elias’s best friend had died in his arms, shot in a drive-by. His uncles had all gone to prison. His beloved grandmother was murdered. It was natural for him, his birthright […] Nothing made Elias want to change—until, three days after his arrest as an accomplice to murder, he learned he was to be a father […] But by then it was too late.” 

Humes uses Elias’s personal account to demonstrate the futility of the juvenile-justice system. There are two aspects of this futility: the social and the economic. The social aspect seems to be, by and large, the most crippling problem associated with the system. As Elias explains, he lives in an environment alternately embroiled both within the criminal justice system and in street violence.