Today we begin a new series called Inside and Out, about young people and youth prisons in Illinois. Thousands of teenagers cycle in and out of this state's eight youth prisons every year-1,500 are locked up at any one time. We wanted to know: Who are they? What are their needs? How does their time inside help or hurt their chances of turning their lives around? The answers matter not only to the young people but to the families and communities they return to.
We start our series with Marcus, a 14-year-old boy who's struggling to graduate from grade school. Marcus is a pseudonym we're using to protect the young man's identity.
For Marcus, joining a gang was gradual, it just kind of happened.
It started with hearing the tales of school mates who stayed out all night and had adventures.
MARCUS: Man, woo woo, we did all this last night, man, we got chased by the police it was so fun, was so fun.
Marcus decided he wanted to stay out all night too.
MARCUS: Just to see what it was like. Just to do what they was doing. It sounded so good when we was in school but when I decided to get out there, wasn't nobody out there, I was out there by myself.
When Marcus stayed out all night he was obviously breaking curfew and not going home, essentially running away.
He stayed at his cousin's house and one night turned into two, turned into three and on and on.
By the end he says he stayed away from home for about a year and a half.
For part of the time he lived with his girlfriend and I remind you that all this started when he was just 12 years old.
Marcus liked to fight and that impressed some of the other young men in his cousin's neighborhood.
MARCUS: They seen me. They was like, 'Woo woo woo, what else you know how to do?' Shot a gun the first time, you know, then they, started hanging out with them, start fighting with them, then they asked me did I want to get down. Me being dumb I told them yeah, got down.
Eventually, needing money, Marcus broke into some houses.
He was caught and that's how he met probation officer Kisha Roberts.
Roberts spends usually one day a week in her Hyundai Sonata, singing along with gospel tunes, driving all over Chicago looking for kids.
Her gray sedan has a very lived-in feel.
One day in October she drives to Marcus's elementary to check up on him.
She speaks into the metal box at the school's front door.
ROBERTS: Miss Roberts.
She heads to the office halfway down the cavernous hall.
Hey. Hey Baby.
Roberts finds out that parents of another student accused Marcus of committing a robbery at their home.
Roberts says that other student then started a fight but Marcus was the one who got a suspension.
On her way out of the school, Roberts runs into Wendell Maclin, the dean of students.
He tells her that on top of the suspension, the school is trying to expel Marcus.
He says he's worried Marcus will end up, “on the slab.”
MACLIN: If he continues the way he's going at such an early age, he'll be just dead. It's just a matter, statistics will show you. It's sad.
Roberts heads out to the parking lot and gets into her home away from home.
ROBERTS: I don't agree with the expulsion process for something that happened outside of school but, you can't tell people how to run they school. The police has never said that these are his finger prints, that he is the one that went into their house but because he has such a reputation at the school that the accusation was enough for the principle to start the expulsion process.
MARCUS: I feel picked on.
After serving his suspension, Marcus is at school for only a few days before picking up another 10 day suspension.
And this is around Thanksgiving which adds a couple extra days of boredom.
He spends a lot of time playing with his nephew and he helps clean up… you've never met a kid who's so anxious to take out the trash.
The reason is that he's on electronic monitoring-a sort of house arrest-while he awaits a court date so he's not allowed to leave home except for a few approved things like going to school but even that outing has been taken away.
The apartment is tidy but he shares a bedroom with four other people including his older sister and her infant son so any fresh air, even to take out the garbage, it's a welcome distraction.
Marcus thinks the school has it in for him.
He's only 14 and already he feels like he can't escape his past.
MARCUS: Last year I hung out with the wrong people. Hung out with the wrong people. The wrong people like they got me in trouble.
But Marcus says he's left that life behind and he's so earnest and thoughtful and articulate, you can't help but think, yeah, he's going to be able to stay out of trouble.
MARCUS: It's only two things you gonna do being in a gang. Dead or in jail and it's true. I know. Got friends that's dead right now. This month alone, November, I had three friends killed this month.
He says his current suspension is bogus based on the fact that the teachers assume he's bad.
He pulls a folded and curled-up sheet of paper out of his pocket. It's a school form explaining the suspension he got the day before. He reads from a box in the upper left hand corner of the paper.
MARCUS: On here, they claim, they wrote, student had a small bag of look alike powder substance on his desk. Stated he was intending to put a hole in a bag and put it on a female student to start a fight. If I was intending to do that, I wouldn't never told on myself.
As he twists the paper around his finger, Marcus says his science teacher brought in the bag of baking soda so that he could do an extra credit science project but given his reputation, the confusion over the drug look alike got blown out of proportion and now he's cooped up at home.
MARCUS: You know this just crazy. I don't get it. I could of did 10 days in-school suspension. I like being in school. I like it. I like writing. I like learning stuff new. If you want me out of your school so bad why you just won't let me do what I got to do and get up out cha-all school the right way. I will walk across the stage. I will wave politely at cha all good-bye.
Marcus is also worried because the suspension won't look good when he goes before the judge in a couple weeks at the beginning of December.
But in the hearing, the school problems don't even come up.
Instead, it's all those trips to the trash, and hanging out on the back porch with friends.
They all registered as violations of his electronic monitoring.
Records show that most of the infractions were about 20 minutes long.
ROBERTS: Twenty minutes is a lot of time to do a lot of stuff. He had 27 violations in a matter of 30 days. That's probably historic, that's a lot!
Probation officer Kisha Roberts doesn't believe that all the violations were just taking out the trash or hanging out on the back porch because she says the electronic monitoring device has about a hundred foot range so she says Marcus must have gone at least that far away from home to trip the alarm.
The judge is stern.
He says he should send Marcus to the Department of Juvenile Justice, the system of prisons for kids in Illinois, but he's persuaded by Cook County Probation officers who want to put Marcus on something called intensive probation services, or IPS.
The judge agrees but tells Marcus that if he screws up IPS, he's going to prison and to underscore the message, the judge gives him 7 days in the juvenile jail attached to the courthouse.
That's where a new probation officer with the IPS unit first meets with Marcus.
When Randy Garcia gets into the visiting room at the jail, Marcus is already sitting in the corner at a round metal table with four metal stools attached to it.
GARCIA: I was going to go over the basics of the program with you...
Garcia explains that he and his partners will check up on Marcus 3 times a week to make sure he's at school or home or wherever he's supposed to be.
It's much more rigorous than regular probation where officers check on clients only once a month but Garcia explains that he's not trying to play "gotcha."
GARCIA: If you can attend school regularly, be in the home when we expect you to be there, make appointments here and there, you're going to be fine on this program. It's not our intention to send you DOCs, to file violations of probation...
MARCUS: I met two people upstairs that say it's kind, it's decent.
GARCIA: Okay, well then you heard right okay and it sounds like they have the right idea.
Garcia explains that Marcus will be on home confinement for the first while which means he won't be able to run around the neighborhood.
GARCIA: That also means that the neighborhood does not come to you. If you're mom doesn't want you having friends over, you're not allowed to have friends over, okay?
DEMETRECE: I pay the cost to be the boss, and that's the way it's got to be.
That's Marcus's mom.
A couple days after Marcus was released from jail he was hanging out on the back porch with some friends when his mom got home.
She scolded him but 20 minutes later he was on the back porch smoking a cigarette.
She says he has to learn that there are rules.
She worries that if he doesn't learn that lesson now he'll end up learning it the hard way and turn up dead.
So she kicked him out thinking that he'd return soon.
DEMETRECE: Normally his curfew is at 8:00. He probably be trying to come back in here before 10:00.
Demetrece is laying on the living couch relaxing under a blanket.
DEMETRECE: It's cold out. It ain't nowhere for you to sleep when it's cold like it is so I believe he gonna try to come back.
That was before Christmas and now-in January-he still hasn't been home.
Demetrece knows her son is still alive because she's heard from people who have seen him, including his grandmother on his father's side, but he hasn't called his mom directly.
Probation officer Garcia also knows that Marcus has taken off. He and his partners tried to visit about a half dozen times.
Garcia says a warrant has been issued for Marcus's arrest and I ask him how likely it is that Marcus will be picked up by police.
GARCIA: One hundred percent. Yeah. He's going to come through eventually. I mean the longest I've ever had a warrant active for a minor who remained in the city was 6 months maybe.
Garcia says Marcus could get caught committing a crime, or he could be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he could be with a friend who gets arrested and cops will run everyone's name and Marcus' warrant will pop up.
If that happens and the judge carries through on his threat, then Marcus is almost guaranteed a stint in prison.
