created is better than I could have ever
envisioned or hoped to achieve.
I have earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree
in education and have been teaching for close to
a decade at this point. I have purposely sought
15
out the most difficult and hard to reach children
to work with, and I have been extremely
successful and satisfied in my work. Working with
my kids keeps me grounded and allows me to use
the experiences of my life to help children who
live in a similar world. My experiences, positive
and negative, give me a perspective most people
do not have and knowledge that cannot be
obtained from a textbook or in a classroom.
What follows is an abbreviated account of my
formative years with alternating chapters
describing my professional life and the use of my
childhood traumas to change the lives of the
youth of today. It is raw and mean and not easy
to read, or write. But I must do it without
sympathy or sorrow. This is all true, and I know,
right now, similar experiences are happening to
some child somewhere. It is up to us to first
believe that this is true in our society and next to
take action.
16
I stepped onto the block without saying a word. It
was my first night in Juvenile Detention. It’d been
a long time since I’d been in a detention facility,
but this time I was working. I followed my
Corporal as he took me on a tour of the facility.
We stopped in front of the first cell, and a few
kids yelled out greetings and requests to the
Corporal. The stocky teenager in the first cell
spoke nervously.
“Yo, Tre man, what’d I do?”
“Hey man, no one said you did anything”
“Then why’s he here?” the young man asked,
pointing at me while backing away from the bars.
“He’s with me,” was the Corporal’s only reply.
“He new?”
“I told you, he’s with me.”
Then another child’s voice called, “Oh shit, that
looks like Mr. Love. Hey 15, don’t that look like
Mr. Love?” There was a face pressed against the
17
bars in the next cell with the number 14 painted
above it. I stood looking into the cell in front of
me, cell 13, while the Corporal spoke with the
kids. Everyone wanted to know who I was, but
the Corporal wasn’t saying a word about me. I
was there to shadow. I had to complete 40 hours
of training before interacting with any detainees.
By the end of the short six-cell hallway the shouts
and warnings from the kids to each other got
louder and more ominous. We turned and made
our way back to where we had started. I marched
confidently behind the Corporal.
As we emerged from the top of the hall, known as
a block, the Corporal turned and smiled at me.
“These kids seem to know you already. That’s
good. Let’s get to the next block.”
“You let the kids call you by your first name?” I
asked quickly.
“You’ll see a lot of these kids again and again,
you’ll get to know them and they’ll get to know
you. The ones that know me call me Tre. It’s a
18
comfort thing. You can have them call you
whatever you want. Whenever you feel like
talking.” He was a young man, obviously well
liked and respected by the kids. He smiled and
walked on, continuing the tour.
We turned a corner and then another, passed the
showers and onto the second six-cell block.
With ear piercing volume we were greeted with,
“Yo, 24, it IS Mr. Love, ya’ll better watch out,
he’s a mean mother-,” the Corporal gave the
child a look mid-sentence and the boy stopped,
back-peddled and started again, “yo, he’s a
badass. What’s up Mr. Love? You remember me
from school?” asked the tall skinny boy in the
dark cell. I looked at him sternly, nodded slightly,
and moved down the block, shadowing the
Corporal.
“Don’t fuck with Mr. Love, he’ll make you do
push-ups and shit. Man, I had him in class, he
was mean as hell.”
“Mr. Love cool though, he keep it real.”
19
“Yo, why you aint talkin’?”
“Man, dude look crazy. He aint sayin shit and he
just be starin’. Yo man, dude IS crazy.”
All the way down the block the kids shouted to
each other and to the Corporal. I kept a stone
face and remained silent. I had been in the
building for less than an hour, and I didn’t know
the rules any better than a fish (inmate slang for a
new detainee) so I kept my mouth shut. No one
told me I couldn’t talk, but no one had told me
what I could say either. Playing it close to the
vest, I thought it best to keep my mouth closed
until I could make an assessment of the situation,
which would take some time. I knew I had five
eight-hour shifts before I had to do any real work.
I could take my time and let the kids talk about
who and what they thought I was.
We descended the stairs into the office area
below. Officers had brought in several more kids,
and as I scanned the scene I recognized one of
the juveniles. He looked at me with
20
embarrassment in his eyes and quickly looked at
the floor.
“Yo, Love, this how you do a search.” The
Corporal was addressing me, and I took my eyes
from my former student.
“Go ahead take off your belt and put it on this
desk, man,” the Corporal commanded the new
detainee as he made a half turn to point out
where he wanted the belt placed. When the belt
was on the desk, he motioned to the young man.
“Turn around, put your hands on the door, then
take a step back.” The young man did as he was
told, his eyes trained on the ground.
Turning to me as he put on rubber gloves, the
Corporal began his instructions: “Start with the
hair, run your fingers through, feel around for
any bobby pins, rubber bands, or whatever might
be in the hair. If they got braids they gotta pull
‘em out if they’re gonna stay. Go around down to
the ears, make sure they’re not wearing any
earrings. Move down to the collar of the shirt,
21
check the neck for any jewelry. If they’re wearing
more than one shirt, make ‘em strip down to the
last one and hang the rest up here.” He pointed
to the corner of an open door.
“Search the sleeves all the way around, get as
high up as you can. You wanna make sure they
aint got nothing under their shirt. Feel down the
back, down the front. Get to the waist, run your
hand around the inside of the waistband of the
pants. Check for anything that doesn’t belong
there. Most o’ the time the pants are gonna be
sagging so you’ll find your own way to do it, but
you gotta keep their pants up while you search all
of the pockets. Make sure you check on the inside
of the waistband cuz a lot of these new pants have
pockets on the inside. Feel the crotch area, some
people have a problem with this part but you
gotta get over that cuz you gotta do it. This is
where they wanna hide most of their shit. Get
right up on it, don’t worry about makin them
uncomfortable, most of these dudes they been
22
here before, they know what’s up.” The Corporal
quit talking and patted the kid down quickly. He
demonstrated the rest of the search process and
together we cleared the room, escorting the kids
to a secure holding area.
“So, Mr. Love,” the Corporal said with a smirk,
“you’re a teacher, huh?” he asked.
“Yes Sir.” I replied.
“Yo, chill on that. You aint gotta call me ‘Sir’.
Tre, just Tre. You’re like, ten years older than me
anyway.” His smile and tone were genuine.
“Cool, I was just showing respect. Ya know? You
out-rank me, we just met, I didn’t wanna
disrespect you, man,” I threw up my arms, “you
know how it goes being the new guy. I’m just
easin’ into it.”
“It’s cool,” he assured me before turning to the
Sergeant. His smile got bigger when he declared,
“We needed this guy months ago.” He threw his
arm back and pointed at me. “We were upstairs
and every kid knows him and they’re all afraid of
23
him. He never said a word. It was great.” The
Sergeant looked up at me from the desk.
“Why do all of the kids know you?” she asked
smugly.
“I’m a teacher. I teach in an alternative school
outside of Nashville, and before that I taught in
the alternative school here. I’ve taught most of
those kids up there and, the ones I haven’t taught
know who I am from the kids I have taught.”
“What are you doing here if you’re a teacher?”
“Student loans are killing me.”
“Yeah, but what are you doing HERE if you
teach all day? Why get a job at juvenile
detention? Why not get a job doing something
other than dealing with these fucked up kids
when you deal with fucked up kids all day?” her
tone was earnest, yet probing. The small office
area was filling up with other detention officers,
too many people I didn’t know. I considered the
question and the inquisitor. I let the question
hang and I stood up to introduce myself to the
24
people in the room. Before there were any more
questions, or even time to answer the one waiting
for an answer, the door buzzer sounded, and
deputies could be seen waiting outside with more
kids.
Everyone in the office jumped into action. The
police were buzzed in, and the kids lined up.
Everyone was suddenly busy with machine-like
precision, asking questions of the police officers
and the kids, searching and prepping the kids for
booking. I was impressed with the speed and
orderliness of the operation. Everyone knew their
job and jumped to it. I stood in the corner of the
office observing the routine. The police left, and
the kids were hustled along. The rattle of the leg
shackles, the constant buzz from the camera
monitors, the natter of the kids, known as
detainees; in just a few hours all of these new
sounds quickly blended into the white noise of the
building. I kept myself to myself as I always tell
my students to do. I did as I was told and
25
answered any questions the staff asked as
cryptically as possible. The night moved along
quickly as I tried to absorb the routine of my new
duties, the whole time shadowing Corporal Tre
Rubin. At midnight my shift was over, and I
stepped out the back door of the detention center
into the cool night air. An overwhelming sense of
anxiety slammed down on me, and it occurred to
me for the first time in a long time how good it
felt to be free.
I drove home with the radio off, enjoying the
silence. The ride home was short, but the entire
evening’s events played over in my mind. The
faces of the children pained my heart and
brought my own childhood horrors rushing
forward. I pulled into the garage and sat silently
in my Jeep, collecting my thoughts before going
inside. When I opened the door to the house, my
dog was wagging her tailless rear end in
excitement. I stooped down and pressed my face
into her and assured myself that I was really free.
26
I worked Friday and Saturday night and Sunday
morning. The weekend passed quickly. I
watched, listened, and learned. Kids tried to
speak with me, but I stared through them in
silence. Instead I chose to carefully observe the
rapport the other staff had with the detainees,
assessing the attitudes of both. For two nights I
shadowed Corporal Rubin closely. He didn’t
work Sundays so the Sergeant on duty trained
me. She was as curt as the other Sergeant had
been, but she knew her stuff, and she got the job
done. At four o’clock I was glad to walk out the
back door and breathe my freedom in deeply.
Working two jobs made the weekdays fly by.
School seemed like a blur the first week. When
Friday rolled around again, I pulled off my
sweater at the end of the school day and absent-
mindedly revealed my JDC uniform shirt. One of
my students noticed it immediately.
“Mr. Love, Sir, do you work at the Juvenile
Detention Center too?”
27
“Yes Sir I do. I just started last weekend. I work
Friday and Saturday from four until midnight
and Sunday from 8 until 4 in the afternoon.”
The boy who had spoken looked around at the
other boys and they all broke out in uneasy
laughter. All of my students had been arrested at
one time or another, and most of them had spent
time locked up in the same detention center I was
heading to when the bell rang for dismissal. One
student spoke out, “Man, I aint ever getting
arrested again. I aint spending my weekends with
you too.”
“For real,” came the chorus from the rest of the