Greetings to our Beat Within readers and writers near and far. We’re grateful to have you with us, and we’re honored to be part of your journey. The writing we encounter on a daily basis at The Beat challenges us to think critically and dream big, and we celebrate your thoughts, experiences, and opinions in each and every magazine.
For this issue, we’re welcoming back Michael Kroll, AKA Einstein, to our editorial section. If you’ve been with us for a while, chances are you know Michael, as he’s been hosting workshops in juvenile detention facilities, community centers, and high schools throughout the Bay Area for the past twenty-plus years. He’s an invaluable member of our team, and we’re lucky to have him as part of our broader community as well. We urge our readers to listen in on what he has to say!
One of the advantages of age is that it gives you perspective on the changes that time inevitably brings. Sometimes those changes are for the better. But sometimes they are for the worse. These are some of the bad changes I have witnessed in my long life:
Middle-class Americans were once able to maintain a house and family on a single income. Now? Income inequality has grown every decade since 1980, creating the biggest wealth gap between those at the top and those at the bottom in our history.
From 1973 until just three years ago in 2022, women in America were in control of their own reproductive decisions. Now? Two years ago, the Supreme Court stripped away that right, letting every state to determine what it will and won’t allow women to do with their own bodies.
Until just four years ago, every presidential election in the history of the country ended in a peaceful transition from one president to the next, from one party to the next. Now? When President Biden was elected in 2020, a mob tried to prevent him from taking office in a violent invasion of the nation’s capitol. They assaulted many police officers, were tried and convicted of crimes — and all received presidential pardons or commutations from the man they were willing to break the law for to keep in power.
But fortunately, the other side of that coin is that some changes are for the better. One of those areas of improvement is (with some exceptions) juvenile justice, and particularly, juvenile halls.
All this came to mind when I recently saw the movie “The Nickel Boys” (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture). Although the movie is a fictional story, it is based on a real historical place, a Florida juvenile hall called Dozier School for Boys. I didn’t think the movie was very good (though it is based on a very good book by Colson Whitehead), but it tells a true story of horrors that the boys incarcerated there in the 1950’s and 1960’s were subjected to. These terrible abuses occurred well within my lifetime. The horrors began to be publicly exposed in 1967 when I was twenty-four years old.
The state of Florida closed down the school when the “treatment” of its residence finally came to light. That “treatment” included brutal beatings by staff, vicious dogs to keep control, and murder.
More than eighty boys are known to have died there, and many graves have been discovered on the fourteen-hundred-acre juvenile prison. But many more unmarked graves have been located on the grounds, and nobody can be sure how many boys are buried there. Records were not kept.
Not all the boys were there for committing crimes. Many were there for smoking cigarettes, fighting, or because they were orphans. Survivors of the torture, mostly in their sixties now, have come forward to describe what they had to endure.
One man, who was sixteen at the time he was picked up for running away from home, described being tied to a bed where he was repeatedly beaten with a leather strap before he passed out. Another describes seeing a fellow resident confined to a bathtub where he was beaten “half to death” for trying to run away. He was covered in bloody bite marks from the dogs.
This is where change for the better has come. Largely because of what was found at the Dozier school for boys, and revelations of similar horrors in other state institutions for incarcerated juveniles, governments at both the state and national levels have brought about reforms.
Over the past few months, topics in The Beat Within have included a number of rights now guaranteed to you by state law. The California Youth Bill of Rights ensures that incarcerated juveniles are guaranteed a safe living environment, adequate healthy meals and snacks, protection from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or corporal punishment, and access to healthcare. A recent update of the law adds further protections: the right to receive behavioral health services, access to therapists, mentors, and counselors.
Even better, the progress in rights for residents of juvenile halls is not confined to California. Even Florida is bound by laws passed by Congress that apply to all the states. Under federal law, the United States Justice Department can now investigate any violations of juvenile rights at every stage of the juvenile justice system, from arrest, to incarceration, to probation. These reforms are designed to protect incarcerated juveniles from physical and sexual abuse, and to provide adequate medical and mental health.
The point of all this, dear Beat writers and readers, is that as bad as you see your situation today, it could be (and was) much worse. More important, it could be (and will be) much better.
Change is the one certainty in life, and it moves both forward and back. In the field of juvenile justice, those changes represent real progress, and should be celebrated. Does this mean that everything is fine in the system? Of course not. There’s more to do. So now it’s up to us, both those on the inside and those on the outside, to make sure we keep moving forward.
You are the true experts on juvenile justice, so it is up to you to educate the majority of your fellow citizens who either don’t know or don’t care to know what living behind locked doors is like for a young person growing up. In all my eighty-one years, I have not had that experience.
So, I rely on you to educate me about your life inside these walls as well your lives outside these walls. It is through that education that change happens, both to institutions like juvenile hall, itself, and to individuals like you who are its temporary residents.
And that’s the end of this old man’s lecture. Now, it’s your turn to pick up the baton.
-Michael “Einstein” Kroll
Thank you, Michael, for the profound perspective you offer on the trajectory of our country’s reform. You’ve seen so much in the long life you’ve lived, and we appreciate the observations, lessons, and wisdom you share with us. May we all recognize how far each of has come and the unique aspects we bring to the table, and may we leverage our pasts to build the future we want to live in together, starting with today.
We’re proud to present our latest issue 30.05/06 to you — we hope you enjoy! And please reach out anytime to get in touch; we’d love to hear from you. The Beat goes on!