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I Cried, You Didn't Listen: A First Person Look at a Childhood Spent Inside CYA Youth Detention Systems
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I Cried, You Didn't Listen: A First Person Look at a Childhood Spent Inside CYA Youth Detention Systems
Current price: $12.02
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Barnes and Noble
I Cried, You Didn't Listen: A First Person Look at a Childhood Spent Inside CYA Youth Detention Systems
Current price: $12.02
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"
An early Winner of the
;
is a powerful story. It is shocking, haunting and brutal. Although it is a rare and valuable document, what is exceptional is not Dwight Abbott's experience, but his clarity and courage in sharing that experience.
Dwight tells the disturbing tale of a very young child, first committed to the care of the state because of family tragedy and bad luck. Once institutionalized, he must learn to live within the cruel dynamics of a system that grants power through violence and leaves children at the mercy of predatory adults. He is continually faced with the need to choose between dehumanizing options: Be predator or be prey. Even in Dwight's description of racialist violence we see the effect that the social system has had on him - cementing stereo-types and prejudices that become self-fulfilling prophesy.
Dwight's account is terrifying. Upon reading it, one must recognize that, faced with the stark choice between victimizing another and being a victim oneself, the morals and values that make sense in freedom fall away. Perpetrating violence appears as the best option for self-preservation. This is the fundamental dynamic at work in Dwight's institutional life.
shows that, within incarcerating institutions, violence in all its forms - sexual assault, cliques, crews, gangs, emotional abuse - is essentially about power and control both over and above one's own sense of self. -