The Children in Prison Project

Alternatives to detention for juveniles in Mexico

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[:en]Hundreds of Children Never Sent to Prison[:]

[:en]Hundreds of Children Never Sent to Prison[:]

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Interviewing a teen at the pretrial detention center in 2013.

This year we are starting a new project in Mexico City. We haven’t worked in the Mexico City juvenile detention centers for three years. Today was the first time that I have returned to the pretrial detention center in Mexico City. In 2013, on any given day there were 250 teens in the pretrial detention center, designed for 160.…

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[:en]"Know your rights" empowering juveniles and families...[:es]"Conoce tus Derechos" taller con adolescentes y familias...[:]

[:en]”Know your rights” empowering juveniles and families…[:es]”Conoce tus Derechos” taller con adolescentes y familias…[:]

[:en]Our first “Know Your Rights” workshop with juveniles and family members at the CERSAI juvenile detention center in Ciudad Juárez…

“Know Your Rights” workshop at juvenile detention center in Ciudad Juarez

Saturday, March 18th we were very excited to begin our “Know Your Rights” workshop, in collaboration with the State Human Rights Commission of Chihuahua and the Chihuahua Public Defender’s…

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[:en]Complicated Family Reunification[:es]Complicaciones en la Reunificación Familiar[:]

[:en]Complicated Family Reunification[:es]Complicaciones en la Reunificación Familiar[:]

[:en]This is the second time we have completed Family Reunification in Chihuahua. This time I coordinated it remotely from Mexico City, but I would still like to share some of the stories of families and the teenagers. This time there were four mothers that we helped by providing transportation so that they could go to visiting day at the CERSAI (Specialized Juvenile Center for Social…

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[:en]This weekend, a mother saw her son for the first time in three years[:]

[:en]This weekend, a mother saw her son for the first time in three years[:]

[:en]This past weekend, we started our monthly “Family Reunification” project for children in prison in Chihuahua state. Olivia Meneses, our project director, worked with the prison´s list of four teenagers who have not had visitors for months. They all live at least three hours outside the city and come from extreme poverty. We arranged bus tickets for them at the terminal and they were ready to…

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[:en]Delivering Care Packages in Ciudad Juarez[:es]Entrega de Kits de Enseres en Ciudad Juarez[:]

[:en]Delivering Care Packages in Ciudad Juarez[:es]Entrega de Kits de Enseres en Ciudad Juarez[:]

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Centro de Readaptación Social para Adolescentes Infractores (CERSAI) en Ciudad Juarez

El pasado sábado 14 de enero del año en curso, acudí al Centro Especializado de Reinserción Social para Adolescentes Infractores (CERSAI) # 3, ubicado en Cd. Juárez, para donar Kits con enseres básicos, esto como parte de las actividades del proyecto de Voluntariado que realizamos en Justicia Juvenil…

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[:en]2016 Annual Celebration - Image Gallery[:]

[:en]2016 Annual Celebration – Image Gallery[:]

[:en]Our 2016 Annual Celebration at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sharing our successes of the past year and plans for the future, supporters, friends and family gathered to ensure that our work can continue into the future. Thanks everyone who came!

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[:en]The Genesis of "Every Child Has a Story" Photography Documentary Part 4[:]

[:en]The Genesis of “Every Child Has a Story” Photography Documentary Part 4[:]

[:en] Part 4: Two boys, one seeing his mother for the first time in 11 months, one seeing his mother for the last time

Boy in detention’s artwork

Olivia and Amanda returned from Chihuahua state on Monday after three very busy days with our Family Reunification Project – helping families visit their children in prison.  Each one has a story. Olivia and Amanda were incredibly effected by their…

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[:en]The Genesis of “Every Child Has a Story” Photography Documentary Part 3[:]

[:en]The Genesis of “Every Child Has a Story” Photography Documentary Part 3[:]

[:en] Part 3: Normalizing the Trauma and Dehumanizing Kids

Our Family Reunification Project and the “Every Child Has a Story” documentary heads out this weekend to Chihuahua state. The goal is to help families who cannot afford to visit their children in prison get transportation to the facilities. We are documenting the stories and taking photographs of the whole project to unveil at our Annual…

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[:en]The Genesis of “Every Child Has a Story” Photography Documentary Part 2[:]

[:en]The Genesis of “Every Child Has a Story” Photography Documentary Part 2[:]

[:en] Part 2: Olivia calls the family

Olivia Meneses Project Coordinator

Last week, Olivia, our project coordinator, received the list of teenagers in the detention centers in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua who do not receive visitors because their families are too poor. Sixteen children’s names, some with home addresses, some with phone numbers for their parents, some with neither. Olivia started…

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[:en]The Genesis of “Every Child Has a Story” Photography Documentary Part 1[:]

[:en]The Genesis of “Every Child Has a Story” Photography Documentary Part 1[:]

[:en] Part 1: Leaps of Faith

2014 Dia de Visita Exhibit

Two years ago this month we completed our “Dia de Visita” photography documentary project. My wife Amanda took the photographs and I interviewed children and their families on visiting day at the detention center. It was quite a challenge to get permission and finally complete interviews with children and parents in the Mexico City juvenile…

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[:en]Russell Payne, summer intern, interviews teens in detention[:]

[:en]Russell Payne, summer intern, interviews teens in detention[:]

[:en]Our summer intern, Russell Payne, spent some time in June interviewing 25 juveniles in detention in Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. He shared some of his impressions with us.

Special thanks to the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association for funding Russell’s internship!

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[:en]Annie E. Casey Foundation Visits our Project in Chihuahua[:]

[:en]Annie E. Casey Foundation Visits our Project in Chihuahua[:]

[:en]The Annie. E Casey Foundation sent a team of U.S. juvenile justice experts, part of their “Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative”, to visit our project in Chihuahua, Mexico. Here are some image of our meetings with the local judges, prosecutors, public defenders, probation, and community-based organizations.

JDAI Presentation to Chihuahua government and local stakeholders

Doug presents…

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20 Hours

The teacher was preparing her lesson when we entered the empty classroom at 9:15 A.M. She had written a few math problems written on the chalkboard. We had brought a group of experts from the United States and we were on an official tour of the juvenile detention center in Chihuahua, Mexico. We started at the school building. One of the administrators explained that there are classes every…

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"Let me tell you about Gabiel"

”Let me tell you about Gabriel”

By Tamara Thompson

Let me tell you about Gabriel, a 16-year-old boy from Chihuahua City I met recently during a visit to the juvenile detention center there. The first thing I saw was the back of Gabriel’s head, because he and all of the other boys in the cell block were ordered to turn with their backs to us as we entered the cell block and could not turn around and face us until given…

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Our First Summer Intern

Our First Summer Intern

Juvenile Justice Advocates International’s first ever summer legal intern started this week! We aer welcoming Russel Payne to our team for the summer.

Russell is a second year law student at the University of Minnesota law school in Minneapolis. This summer he will be helping us conduct interviews with detained children to help us learn more about their situations so that we can develop more…

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[:en]Laundry Day is a little different this week[:]

[:en]Laundry Day is a little different this week[:]

[:en] Just finished washing, drying and folding 15 towels. Why?

New, fresh towels I just washed

Tomorrow we bring our second batch of Care Packages to the 15 girls at the Chihuahua juvenile prison. So today I am packing them all up, which includes washing all of the new towels that were donated.

Learn More and consider sponsoring a Care Package

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What I didn’t know about Chihuahua

Here are a few things I didn’t know about Chihuahua before we started our project. But we need to know:

Chihuahua is Huge!

Chihuahua state is the largest state in Mexico. It is about the size of Colorado. About a third of the state is desert, sharing a boarder with southern Arizona and southwest Texas. Mountains make up about a third of the state as well on the…

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