female juvenile delinquents

"In 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a black teenaged girl kills an elderly white woman in a robbery gone wrong. The shock and awe of the case captivates the state, whose citizens cry out for vengeance. Soon after, Paula Cooper, the fifteen-year-old killer, is sentenced to death. Indiana's minimum age for the death penalty is, at that time, ten years old. [The author] tells the unforgettable story of this single act of violence and its stunning aftermath. The image of a teenaged girl on death row will reverberate miles from Gary and link a varied cast of characters: a female public defender from the northeast, two enterprising Italian journalists, a Franciscan friar with the ear of the Pope, and, in an unlikely twist, the grandson of the victim, who dedicates himself to saving Paula's life. As a girl waits on death row, her fate sparks a debate that not only animates legal circles but also raises universal questions about the value of human life: What is the purpose of criminal justice, especially its harshest penalties? Is forgiveness an act of desperation or of profound bravery? What extreme degrees of empathy might humans be capable of, if given the chance? [This book] opens with a murder and a death sentence, but it is above all about the will to live-to survive, to grow, to change-against the steepest odds. Tirelessly researched and told with intimacy and precision, it brings a haunting chapter in the history of our criminal justice system to astonishing life"--Provided by publisher.

Contains color photographs by Richard Ross of young women in juvenile detention, including staements from the girls about how they came to be in the detention facility.

Twelve year old Deborah Jiang Stein always felt like an outsider. Her racial mix made her feel apart from her well-intentioned adoptive Jewish parents. When she found out that she had been born in prison to a heroin-addicted mother, she spiraled into an emotional lockdown and deeper trauma. For years she turned to drugs, violence, and crime to cope with her grief until she realized she could not go on as she had in the past. She fought to heal herself and has become a national speaker, writer, and is the founder of the nonprofit unPrison Project that serves to build public awareness about girls and women in prison.

The author chronicles her experiences in a "behavior modification" facility for wayward teenagers, to which her parents shipped her under the ruse of sending her to summer camp.