Kids in detention: Ministering to our abandoned adolescents

Denny Kinderman, C.PP.S 

“Our poorest and most vulnerable children — those born into extreme poverty, violent neighborhoods, or violent families, those in greatest need of assistance, have largely been abandoned … forced to grow up without consistent love and affection, without safety, without guidance or direction.”  – Bryan Stevenson 

We hear the youthful cry of the blood of those caught up in the abandonment so well described by Stevenson. Our PBMR call of accompaniment takes us into Chicago’s Cook County Juvenile Detention Center where too many kids “in greatest need of assistance” end up.  

So, I’m sitting on a metal seat attached to a table anchored to the floor, with one of the incarcerated youths, and looking into his eyes, I ask, “What do you want people to know about you?” 

It’s not the first question I ask after introducing myself. Usually we start with, “How are you doing?” The conversations fall into normal patterns: we chat a bit about family and school and “what do you like to do?” “Play the game, shoot hoops, hang with friends,” is the likely response. Sounds normal to me. Some add that they like to read, or rap, or even go to school. “Your favorite subject?” “Math,” typically. The conversation continues, concerning court and other worries about all the things a child, now deprived of choice, has on his mind while stuck in that building of glass and bricks where grief, sadness, and a deeply felt longing for freedom and forgiveness are masked mostly with laughter. I mostly listen. Stevenson is correct: “Children are magical.”  

Their stories are full of hurt and confusion and violence given and received. “Here our voices are without choices,” one told me. Now and again, wounded, painful events are revealed, along with scars where they have been shot. Too many have stories of times being shot at or being there when a homie was shot. One kid told me how he freaks out every time the image of his buddy’s bleeding body pops up in his mind. Another youngster tells of taking off his T-shirt to wrap a gunshot wound till paramedics came. He possibly saved the life of that young girl in the park he didn’t even know, leaving his own life scarred with trauma at age fourteen. 

Their requests for prayer often open our dialogue. “Pray that my judge lets me out on my next court date; I want to go home.” Many are concerned that they have hurt their mother and pray for her and their family and God’s help to change their ways when they get out. Some want prayer for their child or for their baby on the way and the baby mama. “Can you pray to Allah? I’m Muslim.” Why not? Most fold their hands or lay them open or bow down their head in an authentic act of reverence despite the noisy confusion going on around us in the unit. And “amen” is sometimes followed by a variety of motions attempting the sign of the cross. Yet nearly all have stopped going, and some have never gone to church. What is it that God has planted within all of us that had Jesus acknowledging your faith has saved you, healed you, made you whole?  

In a small notebook I enter, with permission, the name and next court date of each kid to keep in my prayers. And some remind me that their name is already in my book, “from last year, remember?” Continuing with a sheepish smile, “I was here for three months and now I’m back.” Some are detained while DCFS (the Department of Child and Family Services) is trying to find a placement for them. One youngster had been to as many as a dozen families or centers and ran from each. “They say they love me, but they don’t show it. I think they just want the money,” is a statement not sadly but calmly spoken.  

Some do cry; maybe a tearful moment as our prayer ends. However, most of the time, they interact playfully with one another or play cards or watch TV. Not much is offered to prepare them for their return to the same setting that got them into trouble in the first place. 

One may wonder, is a brief visit with each kid while they are incarcerated really accompaniment? Whatever my visit does, I trust what God can do. I believe in the power of prayer and the power of the precious blood. All, and especially those in my notebook, I accompany with prayers. I pray daily that the precious blood that flowed in that moment of felt abandonment might cover all the children that too many communities have abandoned while they continue to live in poverty and violence. 

The cycle of detaining juveniles by incarceration continues. We must find effective ways to help our children transform. We are collectively failing to offer them the healing they need and to support them by accompanying them through their creative years of growth. They have the foundation they need — I hear it claimed in their response to my question, “What do you want people to know about you?” Never have I heard, “I am abandoned, I’m without guidance, or I’m poor.” No, nearly every child says, “I’m a good kid.”