At just 21 years old, Nariah Anne Jewett is already making her mark in the criminal justice field. Jewett credits her passion for criminal justice with her curiosity for how the legal system operates and its relationship to Philadelphia society. She supplements this academic focus as a senior majoring in criminal justice with practical experience by interning both at the juvenile probation division of the Family Court and at the U.S. Attorney’s Office with the reentry court.
Jewett’s first internship with the juvenile probation division of the Family Court was driven by a desire to learn more about juvenile crime, especially given its prominence around Temple’s campus. She wondered how the juvenile system was different from adult sentencing and what was done to help youthful offenders get their lives back on track. Her time at the Family Court gave her the chance to learn about the steps being taken to address juvenile crime in the community.
Her current internship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s reentry court holds a personal significance. Jewett’s father went through federal reentry after serving time in prison, and the struggles he faced with reintegration had a lasting effect on Jewett. Motivated by her father’s journey, she wanted to witness firsthand how the reentry court has evolved and, in turn, contribute to its growth since his time. Through this internship, Jewett is gaining invaluable experience and contributing to a program that plays a critical role in helping former inmates transition back into society.
What types of crimes do you most often see among young people in Philadelphia?
Even on campus, you can see the whole thing with the Kia boys with stolen cars and a whole lot of theft, whether it be stealing from someone, robbing someone on the street, or actually stealing their cars and stuff like that. There’s also a lot of gun violence in Philadelphia, and that doesn’t exclude the youth in any matter. Unfortunately, a lot of these gun violence crimes do involve youth either behind or in front of the gun, or sometimes both, including drugs as well; drug usage or drug selling. Drugs are just usually involved in any crime within the Philadelphia lines.
Can you tell me about some of your most outrageous experiences working in the juvenile courts?
I think there have been a couple of outrageous scenarios where it’s either, unfortunately, seeing the circumstances kids end up in. It feels outrageous to think like, how could a child slip through so many cracks and not be seen until they got to the point of being in the juvenile justice system? From points like that to points of just, you know, outrageous behaviors from stuff like fighting in the courtrooms, cutting off their ankle monitors. We see a lot of videos of kids who will record themselves cutting their ankle monitors off. Even with some kid, a viral video had went around the city of Philadelphia, where a kid attempted to light the ankle monitor on fire, and instead, of course, he lit his whole foot on fire, and everything engulfed in flames.
What do you think is the biggest problem plaguing youth and juvenile violence in Philadelphia?
I think the biggest enemy that Philadelphia has to attack with what leads to juvenile crime, mostly I will always say its poverty. Like our biggest issue is that these kids don’t have the same options and the same opportunities as their counterparts in other cities or even surrounding counties. A lot of these children come from very, very poor homes, and they’re not involved in healthy activities because their parents either can’t afford them or the city can’t afford to pay for them. They’re not funding them. So, instead, these children end up acting out. Bored children are misbehaving children truly, at the end of the day. So these kids who have free reign for hours at a time, they’re getting into things, and it’s only getting worse and worse. So I feel like once the city of Philadelphia can tackle its poverty problem, we can tackle all of our problems. We can really grow as a society and help the juveniles of this city grow beyond any type of crime they’re committing because there’s more out there, and I think it’s really hard to see that there’s more out there and there’s more in life than crime when it seems like crime is the only thing paying, crime is the only thing to do right now, because the future seems so hopeless because you are in such deep poverty.
How does probation help young people stay out of trouble after they’ve been arrested?
I think probation can keep kids accountable. A lot of children lack accountability and structure in their regular homes, and I feel like probation can somewhat supply that in a small dosage of having someone who does check in on you, someone who does consistently asks about you, someone who can connect you with services and whatnot. I think it can keep them on more of a straight and narrow with drug tests, and they connect the children with resources that would keep them busy and connect them with things like, Don’t Fall Down in the Hood and many other advocacy services where they’re meeting with these people, they’re doing community service to give them something to do and keep them busy and keep them again, on the straight and narrow.
Do you know of any prevention programs or any programs that help previously incarcerated youth?
There is some. It depends on the zip code and where the child is from. There are plenty, but I do know, off the top of my head, Don’t Fall Down in the Hood. We had a lot of kids who were in that program. They spoke highly of it. They were always doing something with their advocate. It’s definitely a program that I feel is effective as juveniles can talk about it with their peers, and they can tell us what they’re actually doing and that they’re not just not doing something. Instead of just sitting at home, they’re having someone take them out of their home while they’re on home probation; they can’t leave. That gives them something to do, lessens their mind wandering, and gives them more activities for them to do to stay out of trouble.
What challenges do young people face when they try to go back to normal life after being in court or in jail?
I think one of the main problems and challenges a child can face after already going through the system and coming out, and even if they’re in a transitional period of coming out, like parole and everything, I think a main issue is to stay away from the crowds you were from before. Stay away from the same temptations that you were subject to before. I feel like that is a consistent difficulty, because for these juveniles, it’s not like it’s just a temptation, but it may be all they know. It’s not just in their homes, but it is even their classmates. It’s their next-door neighbors, sometimes, it’s even family members who have guardianship of them. It’s even harder for someone without full frontal lobe development to stay on the right path if everything around them points them, again, back to these old habits and situations. That goes back to, again, the whole issue of poverty in the city. When you still come home from placement, and even if you’re on house arrest, you’re still deep in poverty. You’re sitting in it still. So, your situations and circumstances don’t necessarily change when you come out of placement. You’re still back in that same situation, which is where I believe resources like prevention programs come in. Still, these programs may not be incredibly accessible, and the city might make it harder for them to be accessible with its lack of funding, and in turn, these programs don’t have proper awareness.
How do the probation and reentry systems work with schools and community service to help at-risk youth?
So I’m lucky to say that both my internships, my current one with the reentry court, as well as my past one with the juvenile court, both pretty much go hand in hand with things like this. So at the reentry court, we do have community outreach. We have someone who goes to the local schools and speaks to the kids about these situations, and our community outreach person talks about even himself; he was personally affected by gun violence, losing so many people in his life growing up and in his childhood, the same way a lot of these kids are actively losing their loved ones right now to the same gun violence in this city. So, it allows the children to be heard. It’s just reminding them that just because you’re being affected by this doesn’t mean you have to turn and do the same things to someone else’s loved ones. Instead, you can do better and continue to grow. And again, reminding them that there is something outside of this. Now, I think the juvenile court, on the other hand, also does a pretty good job of keeping children from coming back to the system again with juvenile probation and the family court’s outreach services.
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