A change of gravity

If the person talking to them was a probation officer they evaded answering because they believed their only hope of deliverance from jail lay in preservation of the officer's considerable ignorance of what they had been up to. The hazard for those under questioning by DYS caseworkers was similar: removal from the street and commitment to DYS custody. So they too were uncommunicative. The probation and DYS officers knew this and it frustrated them. When the recalcitrance of their clients prevented them from deciding with assurance whether the young person could be safely left at liberty or should be locked up usually, again their annoyance at being thwarted and the same perception of risk that made judges uneasy about letting batterers go free prejudiced the officers in favor of commitment.

Young offenders conferring with counsel appointed to defend them, mistrusting their free lawyers' willingness, ability and intention to do a good job for them, accordingly felt entirely free to mislead them or lie to them, as suited their moods. Knowing this, and having a great many cases, the Mass. Defenders therefore tried to ascertain as efficiently as possible whether this client like virtually all their others was unable or refusing to assist in his own defense, and therefore must be pleaded-out to the best deal the defender could get.

The defenders customarily did not ask their clients to say whether they were innocent; attorneys and clients alike proceeded on the tacit understanding that the defendant in question, no matter how many times he might ritually, vehemently deny it, had in fact committed the offense alleged against him.

Most of the clients were black or Hispanic, either undersized, short and gaunt, or broad and grossly overweight, but of average height. The frowning or tearful brusied young mothers with pacifier-sucking infants in their arms or small children riding on their vast hips seldom seemed to be comforted by what went on in the courthouse, but the young males in unguarded moments often appeared at least cheerful, if not actually happy, at ease, hanging out among friends in familiar, shabby surroundings.

From time to time this insouciance bothered the judge. "It's almost as though this's their real goddamn home," Judge Leonard Cavanaugh mused one day to Merrion at the bench, having gavel led the courtroom quiet for the fourth time that morning. He was almost keening, cupping his left hand over the microphone that rose up on the flexible gooseneck to capture what he said for the recorder that preserved everything it was allowed to hear in the courtroom.

Later in the judge's chambers, Merrion demurred. "More like their real school," he said, 'not so much their real home. When we were about the same age as these little maggots are now, we weren't doing drugs and ambushing other kids we didn't like. We were driving teachers nuts; we were driving our parents nuts. The principals of our schools called us "You-again." But we were not bugging the cops all the time, and the people who worked in the courthouses then never laid their eyes on us.

Most of us didn't know where it was."

"Yeah, well, it's not that way any more," Cavanaugh said. "It's not as though it's someplace they should never have to come; their parents're gonna kill 'em when they get home. They're not afraid or embarrassed. This's normal for them, just an ordinary thing; that's what's so frightening. Get collared selling drugs or breaking in or stealing cars; get yourself arrested; this's where you come. Routine.

Just another stop on their regular routes, another place where they go.

They actually live part of their lives here. Where they validate them, really authenticate their existences. It's really frightening."