Welcome back, readers and writers across the nation, incarcerated and free, to another stellar issue of The Beat Within! This publication is chock full of powerful reflections on 2023, and our hopes, dreams, and goals for 2024. We’re also incredibly grateful for the raw and vulnerable writing we received about the status of your mental health, feeling misunderstood, and the growing pains we all experience as a necessary step in becoming better versions of ourselves. Your words, stories, and testimonies are taken to heart, and we send our love to each and every one of our writers who is currently struggling.
For this issue’s editorial note, we’re introducing you to our colleague and former Beat writer, Mervyn Wool! Merv began volunteering with us this past October in the Youth Guidance Center in San Francisco, CA, and reflects on the similarities and differences of this juvenile hall now compared to when he was incarcerated there many years ago. We’re proud to publish this illuminating and engaging piece!
Return to the Halls of YGC Experience
If Dave was still with us (RIP), I know he would ask me to write about this, so here I am, attempting to write about my return to the halls of YGC where I once spent two years of my teenage life.
Two weeks ago, after what seems to be like a lifetime, I returned to the halls of YGC with The Beat as a workshop volunteer. I cannot recall the last time I stepped foot in there, but it was well over a decade ago. Now, just some clarity, the juvie now is not the juvie I once knew. This is a new building, new design and entirely different from the one I was in but nevertheless, juvie is juvie. It felt weird being back but yet, I was also excited. I wanted to see the new set up, the new structure and how different it was.
The new building sits towards the back, a little further down from the probation building. It has a modern look with a front full glass view of the inside. Outside the double glass door are a couple of concrete slabs that serve as a sitting spot. I met up with my fellow volunteers outside and I spent about five minutes looking around my surroundings.
I can see the new building is connected to the old building that hosts all the previous units, B1 to B5, amongst a few more that I can no longer remember. Once inside, to my right is what I would call the reception area, separated by a gate. To my left are smaller lockers which I came to find out was for visitors to place their belongings in before entering the reception area that leads up to the units. We didn’t have to wait long until the gate rolled up and we were greeted by one of the staff. I walked into the reception area, signed in and waited for the units to give us the okay to proceed.
When we were given the green light, we walked up two to three flights of stairs to be greeted by a heavy, thick metal door (can’t expect anything else, right?), then through another door until we arrived at the hallway of the units. I can see straight down the hallway and see that each unit is right across from each other, whereas in the old building, it was all on the right side, with B5 towards the end around a corner. The doors to the unit were double doors, thicker and heavier than the ones I remember. We proceed to our first unit.
Immediately inside the unit, I can see all the cells facing me…like a half circle, ten cells on upper level and ten cells on the lower level. To my left is a classroom where I immediately noticed a young man with headphones on a laptop, which I later came to find out he was on a video call. Video call! How things have changed! I was lucky to have more than five minutes on the phone during my time, and I usually did get more than five minutes because I was there for so long, the staff took care of me pretty well. But video call! Man, I would have loved that, haha.
The next thing that caught my attention is the big screen TV right smack in the middle of the room. The game was on, don’t recall which one. Right below the TV on the next shelf down is a Play Station and an Xbox . Rather than the wooden bench I was used to, there is a sofa/couch in front of the entertainment station (let’s call it that to make it simple).
Wow, what a complete change! I looked around and my eyes rested upon a door that said “shower” — the shower actually has a door! Hahaha. The shower room I was used to, both in YGC and then later in CYA, was an open area: no door, no curtains, entirely open to all to see, ten shower heads and we showered in groups. I am not sure if that is the same set up now but just seeing the shower door…I was amazed.
This entire place was so foreign to me, I felt like I was in another world, and if the cells were not there right in front of me, I would think I stepped into a recreational area, like one of those clubrooms you would find in some park. Everything was entirely different, nothing was the same except — and this is funny but surprising — the tables with the chess/checkerboard design on top and the four seats around it were the same exact tables I spent many meals, visits, chess games, checker games, and writing on. I wondered to myself if those tables were older than me…I mean, it’s only been sixteen years since I was in juvie.
After talking to one of the staff members — who remembered me once I told him my last name — I asked if I could see one of the cells. Not sure what I expected… but to my not-surprise, the cells were the same: the metal bed frame with the thin mattress and the toilet next to it. The only slight difference is that I had a window in my cell, but that window only looked out to the back area of other buildings/units. It was a window with front and back plexiglass, with two cement pillars (if you can imagine that) between the two glasses. I still remember making a spider (I have no idea how it got in there) a pet, watching as it moved around inside sometimes.
Enough of my sight-seeing. I proceed to join my teammates in starting the writing workshop, which again, is entirely what I was used to but I’ll leave that for next time.
To summarize my experience and share my opinion, I personally like the new structure/model of the units. While it is still a unit with a cell, while it is still a juvie and each kid at the end of the night is locked before closed doors, I believe the new change makes it more humane. The set-up, as I mentioned earlier, feels more like a recreation center than a jail. I feel as though the juvenile justice system is really trying to rehabilitate the young men and women with classroom set up, access to laptops, and more loose supervision — which in my opinion is a good thing — but yes, at the end of the day, it is still juvie and the young men and women still lost their freedom and are separated from their families.
This piece is not intended to promote or compare the environment of when I was incarcerated to the environment of youth now. I simply wanted to write about my personal experience and share the different things I noticed.
Thank you Merv, for sharing this experience with us! Former Beat writers bring unparalleled perspective and insight to our program, and we are thrilled to have you as a workshop facilitator in YGC. Your time, commitment, and reciprocity are deeply appreciated.
We love to hear from past Beat writers — if you’re reading this and you’d like to contribute, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! Send us an email, a letter, or reach out to us through our Facebook and Instagram. Where are you now? How has The Beat impacted your life? We’re here with open arms.
Thank you again to our wonderful community for making The Beat possible day in, and day out. We celebrate you, and the amazing writing and artwork in each publication. We hope you enjoy this latest issue!