'Juvies' makes a case against putting teenagers in adult prisons

"Juvies," a 66-minute documentary by filmmaker Leslie Neale, introduces you to the kind of teenagers we're supposed to be scared of.

Duc was 16 when he drove a car from which two gang members were shot at. Anait, 14, took two friends to a party where they fought and killed a third boy; she was arrested for driving the getaway car. Peter was 17 when he broke into a house and threatened the owner with a gun.

And here's what they received for sentences: Duc got 35 to life, Anait is facing 25 to life, and Peter has been sent to jail for 30 years. All three, "Juvies" persuasively argues, are victims of a legal system that shunts teenage criminals into the adult prison population instead of the juvenile facilities that could help them best.

Narrated and executive produced by local son Mark Wahlberg, the rapper-turned-actor who has long been candid about his own youthful criminal record (at 17, he served 45 days for assaulting two Vietnamese men), and featuring poems by the young prisoners read by rapper Mos Def, "Juvies" will play a one-night engagement at Sanders Theatre tomorrow at 7 p.m.

Wahlberg will be present to introduce the film, with a Q&A session after the screening. Mos Def is also expected to appear, as well as Walter McCarty of the Boston Celtics and Doors drummer John Densmore (whose main connection to the film, apparently, is that he's married to director Neale).

"Juvies" cites statistics indicating that violent juvenile crime has dropped 40 percent in recent years, yet man-in-the-street interviews feature passersby certain that it's "definitely on the rise. It's in the newspapers every day." There's the rub, say Neale and the experts she brings on: Media coverage of youth crimes has jumped in the years since 1996, when the Council on Crime in America called the upcoming generation of teenagers "a ticking time bomb, a national wolf pack of conditioned super-predators." According to the film, the author of that statement, Princeton professor John Delulio, has since recanted it, but California and other states have passed strong anti-gang laws that reflect similar thinking.

The result is that more than 200,000 "juvies" are prosecuted as adults each year, with many heading into maximum-security prisons where whatever is salvageable in them is quickly snuffed out. Indeed, the recidivism rate is 70 percent higher for teens than adults in prison, and their suicide rate is eight times higher than in juvenile facilities. Many turn to gangs, drugs, and sex to survive. "Sending a kid to adult prison is a death sentence," says Aaron Kipnis, an author who has a doctorate in psychology and is a former juvenile defendant himself, in the film.

Neale worked with 12 kids being detained at California's Eastlake Central Juvenile Hall, gave them video cameras, and followed their cases through court. Of the 12, 11 were prosecuted as adults, and most are currently incarcerated with sentences so long as to be beyond their comprehension. "Juvies" is openly sympathetic to their plight and compelling as it brings on parents and even victims to offer supportive testimony. Former Los Angeles DA Gil Garcetti, whose anti-gang initiatives are a reason many of these kids are in adult prison, speaks forcefully about his efforts being taken too far by a runaway criminal justice system.

The most wrenching voices come from the kids themselves. Some committed crimes that are hard to countenance -- at 16, Mayra shot and crippled her best friend when gang members ordered her to, for which you may not forgive her even if her friend has. Others are heartbreaking lost children: Sandra, a runaway who was raped and gave birth at 12, received 27 years to life for a murder charge on which she wasn't even the perpetrator.

Of the darker aspects of prison life, Sandra says, "I block 'em out as if they don't exist." Most of us go through life pretending that people like Sandra don't exist. For the length of its running time, "Juvies" makes it impossible for us to block them out.

Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com.