Why I Wrote: I Cried, You Didn't Listen

SOLEDAD, Calif.--What began as a distraction, something I hoped would help me to retain my sanity as I sat inside a dark and fixtureless solitary confinement cell for five years, became a "diary," if you will, that would later evolve into the book "I Cried, You Didn't Listen."

Though I realized I would likely be made to answer to my peers for exposing the dirty little secrets we keep hidden through our lives, I knew I had to give this story to all who might now be willing to read it. When faced with the choices between peer retribution or the chance to expose -- and hopefully end -- the widespread abuse of incarcerated children, it was not difficult to choose. I had no idea that my exposé would nearly get me killed -- not by fellow convicts, but prison guards!

Beginning in 1961, through the 46 years I have been incarcerated within the California state prison system, nearly every prisoner I have ever become acquainted with was first incarcerated while a minor child in the California Youth Authority (CYA) -- a powerfully dismal fact when you consider how the failed and dysfunctional youth penal system prepares children for the even more dysfunctional and failed adult prison system. The thousands with me here who were state-raised inside the CYA (newly called the Division of Juvenile Justice within the newly named Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation), are testament to the profound degree of that failure. They represent the consequences of the unchecked, progressively brutal administration of the state's juvenile institutions in place of the nourishing care and treatment that are the necessary prerequisites for "rehabilitation" to take place. Because our political "leaders" are in bed with the powerful guards' union (CCPOA) -- which hands out millions of dollars in campaign contributions to those who will do their bidding -- our incarcerated children continue to be beaten, sexually abused and confined in environments that are too often more psychologically destructive even than what adult prisoners must endure.

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