Sensitivity Training

Sep 06, 2008 - 01:57 AM PST

When I was training to be a juvenile probation officer I underwent what they call "Sensitivity Training", which amounted to four hours being locked up in the juvenile detention center downtown. According to my trainer, the experience of spending four hours confined to a jail cell would make me think twice about violating a juvenile's probation. But it hasn't worked. It turns out that I ended up liking my little jail cell. It's a pity I didn't stay long enough to decorate. Since I started my tenure as a probation office, I've been eager to send a kid up the river for a bid. But all of them, with the exception of one, has been compliant and the one who wasn't compliant is currently locked up in the same building I was "sensitized" to. In all seriousness, I might've gone crazy if I'd had to spend a day in there.

Here's my worry though. As a agent of the state, I can't escape the feeling that I'm as much a part of the problem as I am the solution. It's true that these kids, by virtue of their actions, have earned the consequences of being locked up, but justice is so arbitrary and inconsistent. Some people have done worse and will never see the inside of a cell. And I'm somewhat of an enforcer for this arbitrary and inconsistent justice system. I wrote about very negatively about this kind of system years ago in grad school and now I'm paid quite well to perpetuate it. But maybe this experience will better equip me for a career critiqing the system.