Young Kids, Hard Time
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Young Kids, Hard Time

2011, Crime  -   181 Comments
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Ratings: 7.58/10 from 106 users.

Behind every crime headline there is mountain of tragedy for everyone involved. Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Southwestern Indiana is a vault for these headlines. Twenty one hundred prisoners locked up for everything from rape to murder.

Wabash is also unlike any other adult prison in the state of Indiana. It is home to a cell-block of 53 kids sentenced as adults, who aren't even close to being ready for what lies behind the bars.

Fifteen year old Colt Lundy is at the start of thirty year prison sentence for conspiracy to commit murder and a shooting death of his stepfather. He and a twelve year old accomplice were caught in Illinois after the boys fled in the victim's car. What would drive two kids, neither of whom ever had a brush with the law, to commit such an unthinkable act?

Report show no real explanation and neither boy chose to talk about the specifics of the crime. Teenagers like Colt Lundy and his roommate are not alone. Across the United States nearly ten thousand kids under the age of eighteen are serving time in adult prisons and jails.

In Indiana all kids sentenced as adults are incarcerated in the youth unit inside the massive Wabash compound, without all prisoners kept separate in neighboring cell-blocks. The young offenders are isolated from their adult counterparts. Kids eat there, recreate there, and go to school there. For most kids time literally seems to stand still. But once a youth offender turns eighteen they're transitioned out of the youth unit and into the adult population, either in Wabash or at one of Indian's twenty one other adult facilities.

At sixteen, Miles Folsom was sentenced for felony robbery and criminal confinement charges. He still keeps a local newspaper headline from what he calls "the worst day of his life." Some might find it hard to reconcile the Miles in the newspaper story with the Miles inside Wabash, because Folsom is one of the highest performing students in the youth unit and serves as an educational tutor for new kids. Soon to be eighteen he has earned his GED in prison and also has a job in the kitchen with the clean-up crew.

It's hard to wrap your head around the different types of kids at Wabash. From Colt Lundy, a fifteen year old with no history in the system doing thirty years for conspiracy to commit murder, to eighteen year old Robert serving a two year sentence for battery and threatening to kill a police officer.

When it comes to kids and punishment, the question needs to be answered: Do kids, no matter what the crime, belong in the adult prison?

Directed by: Karen Grau

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sd
sd
8 years ago

I'm sorry but no kid of 16 should be sentenced to 36 yrs when he has not killed or attempted to kill anyone! We have adults, grown men who have killed people and have committed serious, heinous crimes and rarely get a 36 yr sentence! That boy may deserve to do some juvenile time in a juvenile facility because he is a juvenile who has not killed or attempted to kill, therefore the court had no business trying this boy as an adult to begin with. Just because a kid may have a long criminal history, is not justification for ending his life - and putting a 16 yr old away in a prison, with adults, for 36 yrs is ending the life he had a right to live - I retired at the age of 52. This boy will just be leaving prison at 52, never having held a job, gone to college, gotten married, had children, had a home, driven and owned a car, voted, or been able to enlist in the service. Nothing short of slaughtering several people justifies robbing this boy of his entire life.
What kind of a country have we become? Only one country in the entire world actually takes children and sentences them to life in prison without the possibility of parole - one country in the world - OURS! Well isn't that something to be proud of? The most technologically advanced country, we brag about being democratic, nonviolent, concerned about the damn environment, so humane and forward-thinking, a God-loving and peace-emulating, educated people - but we take our problem-children, our difficult children, and 99% of the time they are also the children from the worst of family situations, from poverty, neglect, and abuse, from living situations most grown men and women would not be able to handle - and we throw them away. We lock them into prisons as children and tell them they will never come out until they are dead. Better if we put a gun to the back of their heads and pull the trigger. We had better wake up. No God I was ever taught about or studied in the Bible ever advocated doing such things to children. And self-righteous adults who puff up their chests and claim that they never broke any laws and any child who does so should be put into prison and sentenced as adults is guilty of something so much worse to my mind - they are guilty of being merciless, unforgiving, and Godless people. In America man's inhumanity to man reaches a new low - it has become the example to the entire world of man's inhumanity to its own children!

Jen
Jen
8 years ago

Should we all take a minute to question why a young child would plan to actually kill a parent? I'm getting a hint of major physical or sexual abuse... anyone else think something pretty bad was going on in that household for a child to commit a crime like this? If not then these children had mental health flags that no one caught on to.

BKE
BKE
8 years ago

There is a solution to this madness that may never come in our lifetime. Prison is a private business and operates now on solely on the premise of profit margins. This is the first problem. The second stated repeatedly by the documentary and others posting their thoughts and that is, it is a "learned behavior".

As long as crime and learned behavior are treated on a scale of profit gains and losses, you will never reach the true nature of crime as it stems from the core of the man himself. He does what he learns and the environment in which he is exposed. I put the purposeful media behind most of the problem.

I love that "top documentary films" is out here to put thoughtful and provoking ideas to make the individual think about matters that affect himself and society. The media continually blasts thoughts of violence, fear mongering, division and outright lies mixed with a grain of truth. Through music and television programming the American Society has been transformed into what it is today. Through gradualism we have been converted to what was once morally good to accepting what is white is black and black white. Good is evil and evil good.

The prison system is well oiled profit system for the courts, police force, and the prison system itself. Program the inmate at a young age, drain that individual and the tax payer resources to incarcerate him and spend continual local and broad resources to keep him incarcerated. It's the Hegelian Dialectic working in full circle. Create the problem, come in with a solution.

We must change what goes into our minds and we must give freedom back to the minds to have freedom of thought. Those who wish to turn their minds over to others to perform the thinking for them will receive exactly what the others will dish to them. We must disconnect from the mainstream media in order to reclaim our own thoughts. We are commodities in a market system that has value placed on us equivalent to any other commodity on the market. The Men in the prison system are just worth less equivalent sacks of grain than those outside of the prison system. In the eyes of the system and your contribution to society, you are worth but an equivalent of so many sacks of grain or pounds of pork, meat etc. You are no different than a stock being exchanged on the New York stock exchange. You are "stock". We must disconnect and no longer be commodities of their perverted system.

Thanks for listening

denmark4life
denmark4life
9 years ago

WTF so sad watched this american vagabond docu :D 2day. sexoffender its crazy 18-16yrs match together infact in denmark u can have sex as 15 year old with a 50 yrs old if u wanted to ,, ur life ur own choice
also watched young kids - hard time. where 12 year old sentenced to 25 years as adults ? something isent right- if u can be an adult as 12 but at minor as 16 thats just wack 4 real , but im danish heres everything free, free money each month if u dont have job , free hospitals , but we have very high taxes. minimum of 65 % at least 40 from your earnings and anohter 25 % on everything u buy in denmark,, 180% extra taxes on cars so a car u would pay 20k for we'll pay 60k ;D and if u think american prisons is good u wrong,, grown ppls dont even have it like the kids in prison in denmark spend 13 months myself.. u cant be charged with any crimes b4 ur 15 years old even if u kill under 15 years u will spend 2-4 years in psykotic hospital and get out when ur better ,, we rehabilitate ppls no just cage the problem 4 life,, if u look at the big picture americas prisons will always only grown ,, cuz u life so many pplz and dont give them a secound chance ,, thats f--kd cuz u belive in god 100xtimes then we do in denmark so we u dont give ppls a secound chance in life so they can make money for ur society thats why u'll go broke americans i know its a little bit en south a little bit north then west but ,, theese things in ur country is just crazy to and european guy from denmark,, hope ur country'll move forward for the better,,

Lunalicrichard
Lunalicrichard
9 years ago

It is one of the most shameful things of American society .
"One can judge a society on how they threat their worst " a wise man once said , and i agree .

morrisseyowesmemoney .
morrisseyowesmemoney .
9 years ago

Don't pity these little brats. They committed serious crimes and their punishments reflect that. One little bastard even said he likes it.

Jenna
Jenna
9 years ago

If these kids aren't even getting therapy, how are they ever going to be actual members of society when they get released? They may be 45 but they still need jobs and such so they can right what they have done wrong and repay their debt to society, otherwise they'll just end up in prison again. That is why I have a problem with the term "correctional". These prisons aren't correcting. They throw them back out and these people can never get jobs because they've been convicted for so long. I am paying taxes to feed, clothe, and wash these people just so they can be thrown back out and be forced to commit more crimes because they are STILL emotionally unstable and unable to support themselves EVEN IF THEY TRY THEIR ABSOLUTE HARDEST. Sounds like a waste of money to me. They at least deserve counseling, especially if they are going to be back in the general population after 30 years incarcerated. No one is there to even teach these kids how to live when they get out. It is a waste of my tax money, and it is a waste of what could have been a valuable life if the jails did their job and corrected them.

Guest
Guest
9 years ago

The point of this movie is that kids should not be locked up with adults no matter what. If they do a heinous enough crime, yes go ahead and sentence them to 30 years. They should serve time in juvie up until the day they turn 18, then be transferred to an adult facility. A child who commits a crime does know that it's wrong, but their minds are not yet developed enough to comprehend just how wrong it is. That is why children are meant to live at home with parental supervision until they turn 18. An adult does have the ability to comprehend such things. Also when a child commits a crime and they have been living in their parent's house, I think you really need to take a look at whatever their parent has been teaching them and how they have been treated. I promise you that no child who commits a murder has a happy home life. Most kids who have unfortunate home lives take it out on themselves through suicide or eating disorders etc. Some take it out on other people. I am not justifying their crimes, but no child deserves to be locked up with adults. Not a single one. By locking them up with adults, you are saying that kid is just as mature and smart as an adult but I can almost promise you that most crimes a child commits is not one they would commit as an adult. Unless, of course, they spent several years of their childhood with criminal adults.

Soph
Soph
9 years ago

Another one of these should be made, so we can know how the boys are getting on.

JFP
JFP
10 years ago

How about a second hour of this program interviewing the victims who lost loved ones to these murderers? They will live with their pain and loss for the rest of their lives. Oh, and kids, prison in the US is way better than prison in any other country in the world that I am aware of.

Adeski
Adeski
10 years ago

do an adult crime, do your adult time.

girl234
girl234
10 years ago

america is creating criminals by locking children up.

wet dog
wet dog
10 years ago

Insane how the white guy that's been in 18 years for killing his parents just states, when retelling how he admitting to being 15 when he went in, kinda self-righteously: "I'm not a liar". No.... you're a murderer.

the grgn
the grgn
10 years ago

Im not going to write paragraphs for a comment, Just one word sums this up and that word is sad.

bumpercrop
bumpercrop
10 years ago

Contraception should be free and freely available for all human beings.
This would help provide more freedom in our culture for choosing to reproduce or not. Our culture does not love children.

Sieben Stern
Sieben Stern
10 years ago

18 minutes in and I have two thoughts -

There are two black guys in for robbery, this is because of poverty and lack of education and economic opportunities, which is certainly fixable and preventable.

While in contrast, the two baby faced, well spoken white boys that killed their parents and show no remorse yet don't give a reason (such as abuse, self protection) - terrifying. Cold, personal crimes at such a young age...

There needs to be rehabilitation and correction, but you have to be careful with who you let back out :/

Edit: final thoughts - this docu is incredibly manipulative.

Wayne Siemund
Wayne Siemund
10 years ago

It has been shown that it is possible to breed animals to produce a certain behavioral traits. It is also possible that this same result is possible without realizing it when animals breed without intention.
Some traits are never realized while some are triggered by experience. So, by action or neglect, it is possible parents can raise a criminal.
Once triggered, behavior becomes more difficult to redirect the older the animal gets.
So the criminal confinement industry profits from the ignorance of parents and the tendencies of their children.
All those factors seem to be driving society in that direction. Good luck fighting such an engrained system.

Osker Valentino
Osker Valentino
10 years ago

Many comments are saying if you comment crimes you should be punished. I think that is the root of the problem. These places are called correctional facilities, yet rarely focus on correcting actions, just punishment. Wouldn't you rather see someone be corrected than punished...

Psych3d
Psych3d
10 years ago

Welcome to the world...

Epicurus
Epicurus
10 years ago

people have no problem trying these kids as adults, but we dont let them out past curfew we dont let them vote we dont let them drink we dont let them smoke we dont let them drive we dont let them do MANY MANY things because we KNOW that they are not old enough and responsible enough to make proper life long decisions.

but no. they upset our feeling of a safe society and we lock them up and throw away the key....because it has worked so well on our adult prisoners.....

fu*king pathetic. people with no education in criminology or sociology should keep their mouths shut about this stuff because they come off insanely ignorant.

Whitney
Whitney
10 years ago

A 36 year sentence for robbery and criminal confinement? Atrocities against humanity.

Whitney
Whitney
10 years ago

Children in the United States are tortured to death by their parents, every week. The parents who were murdered deserved it, I have no doubt. These kids have had such a hard life, and now they are in jail for the rest of their lives. But guess what happens to parents who torture children to death? Practically nothing.

branrx
branrx
10 years ago

I often feel the stone casters would make the same bad decisions in the same situations, ironic.

Carl Hendershot
Carl Hendershot
10 years ago

You know what you are doing at that age..... No pity... If medications are involved then that might be another story... Tap water comes to mind if it has a high amount of fluoride and was ingested for sometime. It can do funny things to the mind of a young person... Just do not be fooled by those with no intentions of feeling sympathy for anyone but them selfish selves.

oQ
oQ
10 years ago

How can a 12yrs old imagine what it will be like to be in jail for 25 yrs?
How many of you out there can say that they have had an experience in their youth which could have landed them in jail....but didn't?
1i

oQ
oQ
10 years ago

Amazing documentary!
Imagine if a music or art program was started in such institutions!
1i

Sable Knight
Sable Knight
10 years ago

As someone who has been behind bars as a youth. There is no rehabilitation that happens. It only teaches you to be a smarter criminal. Nothing about our system works when it comes to incarceration. No justice. No Peace. For all you people out there who think locking up kids is the thing to do. You can f*%k Right OFF! You don't have the slightest idea what it means to be rehabilitated. Your sick in the head and should be sent to jail or prison to know what it is like.

Bogdan Gherghel
Bogdan Gherghel
10 years ago

the only purpose of punishment should be rehabilitation. the current prison system does nothing else but turning felons into criminals, so imagine what it does to kids.

Jane Doe
Jane Doe
10 years ago

That is a question without a clear 'yes' and 'no' answer. How old is the kid? What did he do? How did he do it? Why did he do it?

The one who killed his stepdad was running away to hide from the law - the consequences. Why? Because he's not stupid and knows what he did is horrific and deserves punishment.

But imho, there should never be adults and kids (16ish and younger) in the same facility -the exceptions being extreme cases. You gotta keep 'em separated. I imagine it is exponentially harder to try and rehabilitate those kids who are in adult prison.

Whitney
Whitney
10 years ago

Atrocities against humanity committed by the United States.

John Krisfalusci
John Krisfalusci
10 years ago

Yes they ALL belong in jail because criminals are criminals and once you break the Law, you must pay the price. And when they grow up they will probably most likely end up as a life of crime.

I'm sorry but these kids deserve NO remorse. I remember when I was a kid, I always listened and never broke the Law. Sorry, but rules are rules.