Residents and staff at Bernalillo County’s Juvenile Detention and Youth Services Center (BCJDYSC) are looking forward to a visit next week from two Californians who have given them and thousands of youthful offenders a chance to express their feelings in a national publication over the years.

 

“The Beat Within” founder and director, David Inocencio, and his long time colleague, Patricia Johnson--director for the California Council on Youth Relations, will visit BCJDYSC on April 23^rd & 25^th and the San Juan County Juvenile Facility in Farmington on April 24, 2008.

 

BCJSYSC youth program officer Steve Serna has been working closely with “The Beat Within” program since 2007. It hosts workshops and produces a weekly publication of writing and art from inside dozens of juvenile halls across the U.S. Articles and drawings by residents at Bernalillo County’s juvenile detention facility have been featured in the publication each week over the past year.

 

It started in a single, San Francisco juvenile detention facility in September, 1996, as a way to give residents there a way to voice their opinions about the drive-by shooting death of rapper Tupac Shakur. It is written almost exclusively by young people detained in juvenile halls/centers who attend weekly workshops like those being offered at BCJDYSC. From these workshops, “The Beat Within” comes away with a treasury of writing. The popularity of the publication has caused it to expand to at least 60 pages a week, including extraordinary pieces written by former juvenile detention facility residents wishing to contribute a positive message to the readers who remain behind bars.