Mr. Poggi Interview and the Juvenile Prison System

One day last summer, I was on my way to an amusement park, and I was excited to spend my day with my friends and cousins when I noticed a desolate building. It was labeled ‘Juvenile Detention Center’, and it kind of made me feel guilty for my happiness. It took me on a spiral of thoughts, which made me realize that teens and children there would never be able to experience the thrill of going to an amusement park. In fact, they are stripped of foundational childhood experiences, which any normal child needs in order to transition into healthy adult life. However, looking at the old, desolate, and crippled building, I began to doubt whether or not this center provided for a proper upbringing. Luckily, I had a resource right here at BASIS: Mr. Poggi. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Poggi used to work as an officer at the Maricopa County correctional center, and this article compiles an interview from him, as well as other resources, including interviews conducted with juveniles in correctional centers, to examine the kind of education and upbringing juvenile centers offer, its flaws and how we can improve it.

Some responses have been edited for clarity.

Mounika: Was working here [at the juvenile corrections center] your first job?

Poggi: No.

M: Where did you, if you don’t mind me asking[…]—

P: My very first job ever? It was actually McDonald’s.

M: Oh, that’s amazing.

P: Yeah, that was my very first job ever.

M: What made you interested in this system [the juvenile system]?

P: At McDonald’s?

M: No, not at McDonalds!

P: Ha. I like the food

M: Really?

P: No not really, it’s not that good.

I think for me, when I worked for the department of juvenile corrections, it was really about a desire to help young people. […] I wanted to help teenagers that were wrestling with making poor choices, to help show them they can make better choices with their lives. At the time it was more about like, I didn’t really think of the impact of school, I just wanted them to make better choices, don’t break laws, don’t hurt other people and stuff like that. It was more kind of character-based stuff. That was what initially drew me to them. I wanted to be like a youth counselor at that time.

M: So I noticed in my research, there is a difference between correctional and detention [units], would you mind explaining that a little more? Because I feel like they are two different-

P: Yeah, they are. So, what ends up happening is that when a young person gets arrested, they first go to detention, which is often downtown. I think it’s on van Buren street- I can’t remember- it’s called Derango, at least that’s what it was called when I was there. And that’s where if you initially get arrested, you have to be processed before you go see the judge. So that’s detention. When you get into corrections, that’s after that juvenile has already seen a judge, and has been sentenced. So like they stole a car and they went on a joyride, and the cops were chasing them, and the judge says that you get 18 months in prison then, that’s what the corrections part is. More often than not, kids won’t stay more than a few months in detention, but it could be longer if their court case is delayed or something like that. Does that make sense between the two of them?

M: Yeah.[…] what was your specific job there?

P: So when I started there, it was called ‘youth corrections’, officer 1. It’s almost like a boarding school. They technically call it a school. They called it Adobe Mountain School. And so you’re in charge of transporting- there’s usually about 40 boys that are in a housing unit. You’re responsible for escorting them into school, lunch to church, and to their counseling sessions. And you’re responsible for providing some of those counseling sessions. Like helping them identify thinking errors, things that are in their past that could potentially have them come back. They call that […] a recidivism rate, where, even though a boy gets released, he still makes mistakes, […] and gets sent back. We are trying to reduce that, so that way you make a mistake one time, you don’t make it again.

M: The type of education here is not the same as what they would receive in a community school, but do they get to continue that [some type of] education?

P: So they can still get high school credits, even out there. But, their teaching is not- at the time it was not as strong. A lot of it is because the boys are in so many different academic levels, it was challenging because even in classrooms that had 20 different boys in it, they were in twenty different levels. Some of the boys were really strong academically, and others struggled. So the teachers are tasked with having to try to meet the boys where they are at. Sometimes it meant that a lot of boys just had packets. This is a packet for student A […], this is another packet for student B. They had 20 different packets sometimes, and the teacher would try to spend as much time with an individual student as they could but, it was certainly challenging.

M: Was there a very large number of people here at this correctional center?

P: Yeah I think, that’s a really good question, I think we were somewhere around 700 something […].

M: And then they split those [into smaller groups]?

P: Into specific housing units. I worked in like housing unit ‘Phoenix’, it was called at the time. […] So we have 40 boys at our housing unit, and then each housing unit, there were several across [the site]- I feel like 700 is too many, because we didn’t have that many housing units. I have to look and see[…], but I think 700 is too many, it’s probably half that.

M: Did you have to go through training to do this?

P: Yeah, I think it’s an 8-week academy. It could have been 6. It was on-site, sometimes I went through it twice, one was directly an on-site facility, and then another one was downtown. So they talk about different policies, procedures […], talk about counseling techniques, dealing with trauma. They talk about self threats, the ability to protect yourself against aggressive youth, at that time. They talk a lot about how to help treat drug addiction, and that was a really big thing when I worked there. I went in just trying to help boys, in particular, make better choices in terms of character, but then I started to see that there was a heavy- *pause*- I underestimated the amount of influence drugs have on them, the hold they have on them, and the lack of influence of education. A lot of the boys, 95% of them probably, drop out of school somewhere around 6th or 7th grade. Very few of them have ever experienced success in a classroom setting, which eventually led me to leave there to work at a school to help hopefully more youth see they can be successful at school.

M: How do you think that the juvenile system is different from the adult [prison] systems?

P: I think there is a belief that with the juvenile system there is still more hope, that there’s still more of an opportunity to make change. I think when you get into the adult system, the philosophy becomes more restitution. Where it’s like you did this, the consequence is this. You have to serve your time. Versus, I think in the juvenile system there is a belief that, you can still help the juveniles that are in that system, there’s still hope that they will see another pathway for them to be successful. They could hopefully go to a different environment when they get released, or make a choice to focus on their studies or things in that nature. You still believe in them because they are young. [… Sometimes] they get arrested so many times due to drugs, due to crime, due to the environment they grow up in, that they don’t feel there’s a chance. Some of them were so scared to get released from the school, because they didn’t want to go back to potentially get arrested again. Some of them would actually sabotage themselves, and break rules at school, so they wouldn’t go home. They knew if they went home they’d get arrested again.

M: Do you remember the people that you worked with, you obviously get attached to some of them, do you still contact them?

P: I haven’t talked to some of them in many years, but at the time you had to be really close to your teammates that are in there. So for me I started at the bottom position, but eventually got promoted to the supervisor of a shift. So there’s 3 different shifts you could work, 6am to 2pm, 2pm to 10pm, and then from 10pm to 6am in the morning. So I was able to become a supervisor of the 6 to 2 shift, and then at another point where it was the 2 to 10 shift. Throughout that whole journey of getting promoted, it was about making connections with your teammates because sometimes you’re outnumbered. There’s two of you, and there’s 40 boys that are convicted felons. If they wanna hurt you, they’re gonna hurt you. So you have to be making sure that whoever you’re working with has got your back, and you have theirs. And that you gotta use your words, and influence in a matter that’s positive, that way you connect with the boys you’re helping. But it was really fun, and we would hang out. All of our teammates would hang out outside of work, and we would spend time together continuously. I think that’s something that’s kind of missing when it comes to education. Like in a school setting. Sometimes you have teachers that really like each other, and feel connected, and there’s probably small pockets of teachers that are friends outside of work. But, it’s not a collective comradery at the prison, where everybody was caring about each other versus at a school you have different fractured groups that like each other and potentially don’t like each other too. Kinda sad that way.

M: Have you ever felt like there’s no hope of improving someone?

P: Yeah, and some of it is, you continue to try, but your hope gets to the point where it’s just, that person isn’t willing to make change. And you can tell, like, and sometimes the boys will even have told us, “I’m just waiting to get” what they call “promoted” to the adult prison.

M: Wow.

P: Yeah, and if that’s their goal, to just like get promoted to the adult prison, then there is no hope there. And you try to help show them a different way, and you have flashes where they break down, get emotional and cry, and they have these breakthroughs where you’re bonding with them, but then as soon as they get released, they’re going back to whatever temptations are out there. Sometimes it’s peer pressure, gang involvement, sometimes it’s substance abuse with drugs, and alcohol. Sometimes it’s just they wanna steal and rob, because they want certain things, and don’t want to put forth real value education and work for it.

M: Do you think that maybe they just think that the prison is honestly safer than the outside world?

P: Yeah, that’s really good point, because at prison, you know you’re going to get three meals a day, you know that you’re going to have shelter, you’re going to have a place that you’re never going to have to worry about lack of AC or cold during the winter, you’re going to be able to take a shower every single day, you’re going to have your hygiene taken care of, you can technically earn money by being in there and working, even though you don’t get paid a lot.

M: So what would you buy with that money?

P: Well, they have a canteen there, like, almost like a commissary where you can still buy similar stuff that we sell at the school, chips and candy and stuff like that.

They also know the staff members there that can still watch out for them and protect them as soon as they go out on the streets. Some of them, they’re homeless or they come from such a broken home- they technically have an address, but that home is so messed up, that there is either a parent that’s on drugs themselves or isn’t involved. There’s really sideways situations where, boys, their moms were prostitutes, their dads are dead or left them, they would say that the better environment was just to stay here, in the prison, because if I go home, I got nothing.

M: Wouldn’t you be obligated to send them to a foster system in that case?

P: Yeah, sometimes they go to group homes, which is a temporary thing, but more often than not, the group homes don’t have the structure that the prison has, so they’ll run away from the group home. There’s no barbed wire fence, there’s no high level of accountability, so they run away, and then they get rearrested and set back. If there’s a situation where they don’t have anywhere to go, they sometimes will go to a different family member. A grandparent, an aunt.

[Some of the abusive family members] might lie [if they are negligent], they’re not going to come out and say ‘hey I’m doing all these bad things’, they’ll try to hide it. And the boys will tell us and we’ll contact the department of child services. They go out and do an investigation to see if the home environment- cause the boys will have case managers- safe. They can put up a false front but it’s really sad.

M: Have you ever felt like some of the boys were your friends [or had a friendly relationship with them?]

P: No. You have to make sure you still maintain a good boundary with them. You could get really close to some of them, you could argue that they were your favorites or you enjoy spending time with them the most. But you never became friends with them.

M: And have they ever felt the same way about you?

P: They may have, but you try to make it clear, like professional boundaries. I’m a role model to you, I’m a mentor to you, but I’m not your friend. And that was sometimes the hardest part for some staff members. Whereas they wanted to blur the line, between ‘hey we are all friends’ and that was a struggle. That was a temptation for staff members because sometimes when a new teacher starts education, they want their class to like them, and be considered cool. But then students don’t learn as much. But then the other end is you don’t always have to be a hard teacher, where students are scared. So, you want to be somewhere in the middle. It’s the same thing out there, you don’t want to be so kind that you’ve blurred the line where the boys think of you as your friends, and they would potentially ask you to do things for them that are not appropriate. It could get you in trouble as a staff member. But, you don’t want to be that staff member that is so strict that the boys won’t open up to you. The staff member that is so strict acts more like an adult corrections officer, and that’s not going to make any change.

M: Have you ever encountered instances where a staff member has broken rules?

P: Broken rules? Yeah. I’ve worked with staff members that have done inappropriate things with the boys and brought in contraband, brought in drugs, or cigarettes and stuff like that.

M: Stuff that happens in adult prisons.

P: Mhmm. They get fired and arrested. There’s an investigation. There are cameras, like we have in here (Basis). There’s cameras in the units too, housing units. It’s really sad.

M: Do they get along well or do they also fight against themselves (like adult prisoners)? Are there groups, etc?

P: Sadly, they’re very segregated, it’s very much broken up by race, inside there. Fights could happen, it’s very much affiliated with gang involvement. Gangs will fight each other there too, sometimes it’s one on one, sometimes it’s two on one. But there are times when the boys will get along. I think it depends on the staff member if they are trying to unify them towards a common goal. But there are definitely times that they fight each other, and they get extra charges for assault.

M: What is the age gap?

P: The youngest boy I’ve ever worked with was 10 about to turn 11, and the oldest is 18. It’s pretty close, about 7-8 years.

M: Have you ever seen the same person, come back around 5 times or so?

P: Yeah, sometimes what they would do is send that person back to the same housing unit because at least they know they have a relationship with the people that work there. But after a while, the juvenile keeps getting arrested, they’ll send him to different units. Maybe someone else’s voice will stir something in them and they will change. But yeah, the most we’ve seen a boy come back is somewhere in the 20s. Like 22, 23 times. The longest sentence that I’m aware of is a boy, around 13 years old. He stole a car and caused so much damage and injury to the people- the first responders- and he was in jail until he turned 18.

M: What is the biggest thing that you would like to see change in, in how these centers work?

P: After I left, I read that they were trying to make changes where they were trying to have more community involvement with the boys. So instead of them having to stay in the prison the whole time, there was a level system, that the boys could work to attain, almost like everybody starts out as a freshman, and then as they work through the program, when they get to the level of like junior and senior, they can actually leave the facility to go get a job, go do community service. Then they could potentially go get extra food, eat out, stuff like that. So that seemed like it was a good thing. At least there was hope for the boys- ‘I’m gonna get out there and I’m gonna go into the community a little bit. Kinda dip my toe into the waters to see how I can respond to that’. So it wasn’t as much of a shock to them going from complete structure back to ‘you’re all on your own’, making your own choices again. So I think that’s a good thing.

I think it’s really difficult for a facility like that to get teachers, to help motivate the boys to see success when it comes to education. They don’t typically wanna work there. It is like all the worst kids in a class put together, that have broken laws. From the teacher’s perspective, they would be like “why would I want to do that?”. The teachers that do work out there are pretty special.

M: Have you ever felt like a delinquent didn’t deserve to be there, like they didn’t do anything wrong but it was society’s fault?

P: It was more like- because in my mind, they were found guilty, and they were tried and all that stuff, and a judge you know sent them to us. And I believe in that, because it took evidence to convict them. But there were many times where I was like ‘how is this guy capable of what he did’? From the youngest boy, 10 years old, where he burned down his grandma’s house as he played with fire. How is that even capable of a 10 year old, a 5th grader? Versus another boy, who’s like 14 years old and got charged for stealing a car and driving around with a gun and shooting the gun out the window.

M: Adding on to that, were you ever doubtful that someone might have been convicted due to racism, police brutality or something like that?

P: Oh, as if they were victims of a social injustice kind of thing? I’ll be honest, no. […] The boys were blaming law enforcement or their attorneys or judges. They are more conscious of the environment they were stuck in. They don’t have an education, they don’t see hope in their future. They want to get a job, but then they don’t. They can earn more money selling drugs and hurting people, which is really sad to say. And oftentimes their behavior was modeled by people in their own family sometimes. So they very rarely saw, ‘I’m guilty of any sort of social injustice or police brutality or anything like that’. I think once they were in there, they kind of knew. Like I, I messed up. But I may have changed ’cause I haven’t been in there for 20 years, so that mentality has probably changed.

M: To end on a high note, kind of, have you ever felt like [a juvenile] really did make a change?

P: It’s good and bad. It’s kind of sad in a way where if you never saw the boy again, in your mind you’re like, ‘hopefully he went out and made better choices and he never came back’. And so you had to intentionally seek out that positivity by thinking like, OK. He hasn’t come back, and that’s a good thing. There were times when you would hear stories about how one of the boys died. And so that was really sad. But more often than not, if we didn’t see them, we were able to celebrate a little bit. Like, OK, they’re making better choices or not back in here, because if they were making poor choices, they would be back.