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Channel: The Beat Within – Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
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My Brother’s Killing Messed Me Up

March 7, 2012 my oldest brother was killed. He was killed by the NOPD (New Orleans Police Department). Coming home from school March 7, 2012, my oldest brother and his friend was sitting outside. They...

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When Should You Stop Chasing Forgiveness — and Parole?

As I sat on my bunk — trying to understand why I was denied parole yet again — something in my mind was telling me that the parole board was never going to grant me parole and give me another chance....

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My Story, My Transformation As a Proud Trans Man

Stas Vulkanov/Shutterstock. My name is J for all of you who don’t know me. I’m a transgender male, which means I was born as a female with the female anatomy, but transitioning into a male. Some of you...

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Helping Others Heal Is More Powerful Than a Bullet

The losses of life, the endless pain and suffering, the thousands of lives sent to prison, fatherless and motherless children and worst of all a parent having to bury their child. Going back into my...

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My Brother’s Use of Gun Created Lasting Childhood Wounds

I have zero experience with guns. Other than using a water gun at the local fair to win a prize, I never held a gun, shot a gun or even seen a real gun in person.  In my world, guns exist in movies and...

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After Surviving Tough Border Crossing, I Want to Help Others

I was 5 years old in 2007, when my mother left Mazatenango, our small village in southern Guatemala.  Gangs run that town and evil runs everywhere. I lived with my mom and dad and older brother until...

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‘They Put Us on a One-Way Street and Expect Us to Go the Other Way’

Dear Momma, I’ve been taking all my pain out on this paper I’m sorry I’m still stuck up in this cell a year later They are tryin’ to send me to prison like they doin’ me a favor Used to mix all my...

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My Brother’s Love Made Me Feel Blessed, No Matter What

It was an early morning, uncommonly quiet, and with no movement because of a fog alert, yet people were going to different places, to work, to the yard or day room to play cards and chess. My cellie...

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After Abusive, Neglected Childhood, He Struggled to Get Off Drugs In Prison

Looking back at my youth and trying to pinpoint where did I go wrong and how did I go wrong, I realized that the whole time I was trying to get my basic needs met. Needs such as love and a sense of...

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‘For Many Years I Didn’t Believe I Was Human’

In 2000, I was 14 years old, in Los Angeles’ Skid Row. You wouldn’t believe such a Third World slum existed within history’s richest country; oh, but it did. It does. A section of one of the world’s...

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