1. No Matter How LOUD I Shout A Year In The Life Of Juvenile Court By Edward Humes Standrick J. Rhodes SPED 561 - Dr. Witzel

2. Summary Edward Humes brings forth a harsh reality. The reality of the world as we know it, infused with “every-day children” frighteningly in the juvenile justice system. He helps readers realize that though the criminal justice system is presented as an outlet to help keep our world safe, his findings prove otherwise.

3. Summary Continued… Through his work as a volunteer teacher with the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles, he provides a snippet of the lives of several children and their journey through this system; portions of their lives that our nation’s citizens would not normally get to view.

4. Summary Continued… Humes spends time visiting and interviewing probation officers, lawyers, and court judges. He provides an outlet through writing for his students (the children this book is based on) to share and to reflect on the personal life stories.

5. Summary Continued… Humes invites us in to view the lives of a all-star student that kills, a small child and a transvestite that brutally sexually molest a child with autism, and numerous gang-involved children, and shows the reader how the juvenile justice system affects these children’s lives and the lives of those involved, and how it sometimes adds to their problems instead of helping them.

6. n Upsetting This book displays THE WORLD’S POSSIBLE FUTURE…We have to put an end to this! The entire book, Humes took me to another place. I always here about this kind of behavior, but never anywhere near me (that I am aware of). Humes seemed to use the words and personal feelings of the CHILDREN to dig deep into my heart. As a society, we are always discussing intervention, prevention, and so forth, but this helped me get past the “talk is cheap” factor, and helped me realize we have a long way to go. Humes also had a great way of making the reader understand what he was feeling without ever expressing feeling. This made it personal for me because he did not attempt to shape my thoughts. It was heart-breaking to read about how our youth are treated by our nation’s noble form of justice. Taking it Personal

7. Taking It Personal n Insightful/ Informative This book really shows how not only the children are affected by the juvenile justice system, but how it scares parents and frustrates lawyers and judges in decisions that must be made. Humes also shows that just by doing a little to build a rapport and gain the trust of these children, one can have an insightful view of what goes on in these students’ heads on a day-to-day basis. This is extremely important for educators. Humes built an entire literary empire through his findings as expressed by the children, as well as their written submissions he displayed in the book.

8. Taking It Personal n Revelation We must begin to take a deeper interest in the lives of our children and not treat their lives as “part of our jobs”. Though many are educators, lawyers, probation officers, or judges, each new case (or child) should be viewed as such and handled with the utmost care as if it were the first case ever presented to you.

9. Taking It Personal n Harshness Many times, society is overly concerned with the fear of children in the juvenile justice system and sometimes overlooks crimes committed against them because of lack of knowledge of what really goes on behind the doors of a courtroom. We need to begin devising plans to help these children instead of putting them away.

10. Connection to Education   To help devise a plan that will help children with possible risks of getting involved with the juvenile justice system, cross training needs to occur among all professionals in schools, police departments, victim assistance agencies, and in the courtroom as a way to start opening the lines of communication between these systems (Simpson, Carter, & William 1993). This service can be a direct demonstration of how successful a child will be in school, how they will contribute to society, and, in case they do become involved in the juvenile/criminal justice system how they will react.

11. Connection to Education   A great form of prevention and early intervention of criminal offenses committed by students is the positive behavior support. I feel that the implementation of this idea at the early ages can be effective for future years to prevent children from becoming involved in the system. Because of this thought, there should be a move to place this public school plan into the judicial system. “Instead of relying on punishment and school exclusion to control problem behavior there is a great desire to move beyond a focus on punishment and “get tough” policies for youthful offenders, and intervention based solely on punishment is known to be ineffective…(Nelson, Sugai, & Smith, 2005).

12. References Humes, E. (1996). No matter how loud I shout: A year in the life of juvenile court. New York: Touchstone. Humes, E. (1996). No matter how loud I shout: A year in the life of juvenile court. New York: Touchstone. Simpson, R. L., Carter Jr., W.J. (1993). Comprehensive, inexpensive, and convenient services for parents and families of students with behavioral disorders. Preventing School Failure, 37(2), 21-25. Nelson, C. M., Sugai, G., & Smith, C. R. (2005). Positive behavior support offered in juvenile corrections. Counterpoint, 1, 6-7.