[door opens]
[hand cuffs clink together]
- All rise.
[murmuring in background]
- Judge Everett Mitchell: So much pain, so much pain, so much brokenness. [sighs]
- Narrator: Dane County Juvenile Court judge Everett Mitchell
says when he first took the bench in 2016,
his days would often end in tears;
his own tears.
- Mitchell: As I started listening to these children,
and reading their stories, and letting them talk to me,
I started realizing, like,
there's been nobody in their lives.
And every adult that's been in their life
has caused them more and more pain.
- Narrator: Mitchell presides over cases of children
who've been removed from their homes
for dangerous circumstances
including abuse and neglect,
and cases where children are charged
with the juvenile equivalent of crimes.
- Mitchell: At the onset, very traumatized children
who experience all sorts of trauma
from removal of home,
abuse, neglect.
It's not always clear
that they're able to get the resources and the help they need
to process all that pain.
So, it starts with emotional outbursts
and those emotional outbursts
turn into disorderly conducts.
- Narrator: Mitchell says he sees a steady progression
of the same juveniles
catching adult criminal charges.
He calls it 'the child welfare-to-adult prison pipeline.'
- Mitchell: Alright, you're gonna take the handcuffs off.
- Narrator: On this day, the courtroom door
opens to a case in point.
Bailiffs bring in a boy held in the juvenile detention center
who looks much younger than his 16 years.
The judge orders the boy's handcuffs removed.
It's an effort, he says, to try to change what it's like
to be a child in the system.
- Mitchell: We know these children are traumatized.
We knew that they were in pain.
It made no sense to indiscriminately bring them
into the courtroom in handcuffs.
- Youth: Yes, sir.
- Mitchell: Doing alright? - Yeah.
- Mitchell: Better today? - Yeah.
- Narrator: Long before he appeared in this courtroom,
the boy lived a life
of relentless adverse childhood experiences.
In the child welfare system since the age of five,
first as a victim of 23 reports of physical abuse,
neglect, sexual abuse,
living in institutions since he was nine.
Group homes, foster homes,
treatment centers,
juvenile prison.
More than 30 placements.
"I don't have anybody," he told a social worker.
A court transcript reads, "At the age of 10-years-old,
"he could not understand
why his mother would not want to see him."
It says, while living in a foster home,
the boy's mother told him she was coming to visit.
Testimony showed
he walked around for two days with his backpack,
looking out and watching
for his mother to come and visit with him.
But she never showed up.
- Mitchell: And he wasn't given treatment.
- Narrator: And now, he's before a judge
with his own public defender sitting next to him in court.
- Benjamin Gonring: I don't think that anybody
entered the world
predisposed to sell drugs or steal cars necessarily
in the nature versus nurture debate.
How did that 12-year-old--
who may not even be able to touch the ground with his feet--
How did they end up in that chair?
- Narrator: As children become teenagers,
criminal charges can amass, as in this case.
State Representative Evan Goyke
plainly connects trauma to incarceration.
State statistics show 98% of incarcerated youth
have experienced trauma.
- Evan Goyke: The vast majority of juveniles
that are in custody tonight
had some kind of child welfare intervention
when they were younger,
likely where that trauma was experienced.
- Narrator: For his part, Mitchell sends children
to the state juvenile correctional facilities sparingly.
In fact, the judge ordered the boy before him here
removed from Lincoln Hills.
When the teenager wrote to him complaining about
repeatedly being jumped and beaten up at the prison.
- Mitchell: Because he was just getting beat up too bad.
I brought him here the first time.
And nobody showed up from his family to take custody of him.
- Goyke: There are a lot of juveniles
that have been incarcerated
at sub-standard facilities
and we see the evidence through the high recidivism rate.
We see that that program doesn't work
by the fact that they continue to engage
in criminal and risky behavior.
If the facility was working, that number would be lower.
[police sirens] - Narrator: And yet, what to do
in the face of continued criminal and risky behavior
like the alleged behavior of the 16-year-old
before Judge Mitchell?
This police pursuit video shows a chase and crash
on a Madison highway in February of 2018.
According to prosecutors,
the teen before Judge Mitchell
was the driver of the stolen car involved.
As a result, prosecutors in court that day
told the judge they deemed the juvenile
a danger to public safety.
- Prosecutor: I think that the safety of the community
should be of paramount consideration here
and that at this point,
we have enough of a track record just in the recent months
that every time we have released him,
we have had new victims.
We've had new crimes.
[police chatter on radio] - Narrator: There is conflict
between acknowledging a person's traumatized background
and holding them accountable for their actions,
especially when those actions can be crimes.
Mental health police officer Andrew Muir
confronts deep trauma in the communities he serves.
- We see horrible things.
We see horrible abuse.
We see horrible neglect.
We encounter some kids
with really profound traumas
at such an early age
that it impacts brain development,
let alone their relationship
with almost anyone.
The catch 22, if you will, for law enforcement
and being trauma-informed is that
there's only a certain extent to which
we can compensate for that,
based on, sort of, our very nature and what we exist for.
- Narrator: That being to protect and serve public safety.
- Officer: An on-call therapist and see if we can...
- Narrator: Prosecutors in juvenile court lamented
that every time the boy before Judge Mitchell was released,
he committed new crimes.
One new crime landed the 16-year-old in court again.
- Judge: Actually, this child...
- Narrator: This time in adult court on felony charges.
- Judge: Count one is a serious charge:
attempted first-degree intentional homicide,
use of dangerous weapon.
If convicted with the enhancer,
defendant faces 65 years in prison.
- Narrator: Judge Mitchell says this case
that started as a child in need of protection and services
leaves him broken.
- Mitchell: This is to me like the worst CHIPS case ever.
You know, because he's alone.
And not only is he alone now;
now he's alone facing adult consequences
for some of the choices that he got involved in
with some of his friends.
He falls into this unique place where
I don't think all of his needs have been taken care of
and I know all of his treatment needs
have not been addressed
and there's not enough apologies that one could give
to say, "I'm sorry for...
"your mother didn't show up
"or how your father didn't show up,
"or how families didn't show up
or the times in which you were abused in these places."
- Narrator: Even as he presides from the bench,
Mitchell relates to the children of trauma who come before him.
- Mitchell: Part of my patience for these children
is, you know, that was me.
Every last one of them.
I grew up you know, you know,
protecting my sister from an abuser for 12 years.
I grew up being abused myself sexually
and I know what it's like to be locked inside of yourself
and so gone and so confused
and so angry.
And so, I tell the kids all the time,
"I'm not your judge.
"I'm not here to judge you.
"I'm here to show you that I'm your reflection.
"Whatever you see in me, you can be the exact same thing
"because some of you are smarter than I was.
"You're a survivor.
You have power that you
just have not even began to tap into.
"So, if you think I'm special
then remember that I'm just your reflection."
- Gonring: If we could go back in time maybe
and kind of start when these kids were younger
and use that model of:
not, "What's wrong with you?" but, "What's happened to you?"
If that would have been the mantra of when these,
my clients, now who are 12 and 13, were 4 and 5,
I don't think we'd be where we are right now.