An officer got eliminated Medina, directed on certain nearby graffiti, and you may asked new highschool pupil if or not he previously sprinkle-decorated this new graffiti. Medina answered he wasnt in charge. He asserted that the fresh administrator following gestured to your a painting squirt is given up around the sidewalk control and you will advised Medina: “Why do not you pick you to definitely up personally.”
Medina refused and you will was presented with. More than a decade later, and from now on an adult, Medina reflects on that go out and sees certainly how situation could have with ease escalated and perhaps contributed to his arrest to have an offense he’d maybe not the amount of time.
“I have so annoyed, realizing that basically could have been naive at that time, to think about what would took place,” said Medina, 28.
On the day like most almost every other, Abraham Medina is walking household out-of university from inside the Backyard Grove whenever the guy encountered a decisive minute: You to wrong flow possess got your for the juvenile detention, although brief-thinking adolescent realized how to handle it
That sense was not an isolated you to definitely. Medina told fdating hledat you the guy with his family members was in fact usually dropped by police officers within the Backyard Grove, in which the guy grew up, plus in Santa Ana, in which the guy invested much of their sparetime. For the their Santiago High-school university, Medina told you police create remove youngsters away and you can ask them after and during food to choose when your college students had been during the gangs and to collect suggestions getting police data files.
Medina continued to examine at University away from California, Irvine, but he never ever forgot how the guy, their class mates, and you may society relatives have been treated within the hard-on-offense day and age you to definitely caught up generations of childhood with the condition teenager fairness program.
Medina knew this particular aggressive approach to the policing and you can prosecution off Latino young people merely locked this new thus-named troublemakers aside about pubs, but didnt get right to the cause of that which was operating young people to act out or to visit criminal activities.
Thus 5 years before, Medina first started doing work and you will reaching out for the latest citys teens as an element of Santa Ana People and you will Guys away from Color (BMOC), an organisation concerned about remaining youthfulness in school and you may out of the new juvenile justice system. If it try while making demonstrations up until the Santa Ana college or university board, working together that have Lime County probation officials to your choice so you can detention, or simply hooking up having teens and you can mothers from the forums, Medina made things obvious: detention and you will punitive actions weren’t providing Santa Anas teens.
Alternatively, Medina advocated to the adoption out of restorative fairness means, which eschew conventional different punishment eg juvenile hallway detention and you can college or university expulsion, in favor of techniques that allow youthfulness for taking responsibility to own the procedures, plus render intervention features to get at the root of the behavioral points.
However, the guy and his associates on BMOC, where until last year the guy served because the opportunity movie director, seen a common bond among the many younger people it supported
Of several had psychological state and you will behavioral factors combined with training disabilities, said Medina, who is getting their masters degree inside the court and you may forensic psychology.
“The apps are designed to become culturally told and you may injury advised, however, needless to say the audience is confronted by the youth who’ve dual diagnoses,” told you Medina. “That teens are the ones just who belong to the newest teenager justice program, together with juvenile justice system sometimes does not understand how to function on them.”
“This type of young people are those just who end up in the brand new juvenile fairness system, plus the juvenile justice program possibly doesnt can operate on them.”