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Busted
"I can’t wait to be home for good now that I know what juvenile detention
is like."
Listen
to this Commentary!
By Luis M.
I was 16 when a friend offered me some crystal meth. I didn’t want to feel left out, so I tried it. I didn’t realize I’d gotten so addicted. I didn’t even notice that I was losing weight like crazy.
One day when I was biking down the street the ‘crash’ gang unit of the LAPD pulled me over. All three of them searched me. I felt mad… at myself.
The next morning I woke up at Los Padrinos Juvenile Detention Center. After a month, I got out and went to the Trinity Whitewater Placement Facility. It’s like a big probation hotel for criminals where everyone is under 18.
As soon as you get there, the other boys test you, to see if you’ll fight. I got tested, and I got out fine. Two nights before I was going to go home, a new boy came to the room I shared with my friend. He was a little bigger than me, and he didn’t really talk.
My friend told the new boy that he was going to get some D.P., that’s D.P. for ‘discipline.’ And he gave it to him. So did I. We both beat the new boy, but my friend went too far. I don’t think you want to know exactly what happened, but it was not good. He ended up in the hospital.
The next day while I was in school at the placement facility, they called me to the office and told me I was going back to juvenile hall. It was my birthday, May 21st.
Back at the hall, they put me in a holding tank- a little room about 8 by 8 feet. I was there for two weeks, alone. I’d sit there and think about what I’d done until I fell asleep. But sometimes I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about the guy we beat up, and how I would feel if I were him.
Now I live in a group home. I go home only on the weekends, unless I get written-up, then I don’t go home at all. Whenever I get to see my family, my grandma says "Es milagro de Dios," it’s a miracle from God that I’ve been rehabilitated from drugs. She cries when she sees me because I’m better.
Before, I would come home with my nails and my clothes all dirty. I was really skinny. Today I’m 160 lbs, and my nails have never been this clean before.
I can’t wait to be home for good now that I know what juvenile detention is like. I hate having people tell me where to sleep, when to eat, when to shower, and when to use the bathroom. I hate being in a little room all day and not being allowed to come out. I realize that nothing’s worth more than your freedom, not even drugs.
I realize now that people are only your friends when you have something. When you don’t have anything, they’re not around. Like my roommate at Los Padrinos, he wanted me to fight, and if I didn’t fight, I know he wouldn’t have considered me a friend. He’s just like all the friends I did drugs with, the ones I don’t hang out with anymore.
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