Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Juvenile-In-Justice has put the face on juveniles in the justice system. While data is undeniably important, locating the numbers in the context of a real child is critical to creating empathy. Lives can be measured, but don’t resonate, in the sterile fluorescence of numbers, charts and trends. Data yearns to be articulated in the human experience in fragile voice and portrait to be truly understood and effectively used. Juvenile-in-Justice is a collection of images, interviews, audio documents, and texts created over a dozen years, at 300 sites in 35 states, drawn from the lives of more than 1,000 kids. Join artist and photographer Richard Ross, director of the project, for a discussion of this work of art and activism, to show how he and his team work with educational institutions and non-profits to better understand and/or explain the needs, policies, strategies, and resources required to facilitate better outcomes for the 53,000+ children in custody every day.