Book 'Em: Undereducated, Overincarcerated

Youth Rights Media

Youth Rights Media

Documentary
Short Film

More About Book ‘Em: Undereducated, Overincarcerated

After successfully exposing injustices at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in their 2004 documentary, CJTS: At What Cost? youth filmmakers at Youth Rights Media have turned their attention and their cameras-to uncovering the school to prison pipeline. In the face of No Child Left Behind and public outcry about the statewide “Achievement Gap,” YRM media makers pose and explore an important but seldom asked question: how are laws, policies and institutional procedures pushing youth out of the classrooms and closer to jail cells?

In June 2005, 13 youth media makers premiered Book ‘Em: Undereducated, Overincarcerated to a standing room only audience at New Haven’s Little Theatre. The film, which includes interviews with students, teachers, administrators, attorneys and researchers, discusses truancy laws, zero tolerance policies, the overuse of school suspensions, and the role of police officers in schools.

The award winning film has garnered significant press, including coverage in the Hartford Courant, the New Haven Register, the Norwalk Hour, local television news outlets, and on CPTV’s Front and Center with Ray Hardman. In March, the film will broadcast nationally as the juvenile justice feature for Open Transmission youth media showcase on < ahref="http://www.freespeech.org/fscm2/genx.php?name=home">Free Speech TV.

FILMMAKER BIO

Youth Rights Media, Producer

Youth Rights Media’s (YRM) work is grounded in the belief that youth who have been marginalized, stigmatized, and disregarded by the justice system — and by the public at large — have the potential to become committed, focused, and passionate leaders. In order to create transformative leadership opportunities for these traditionally disengaged youth, YRM engages them in video media production and community organizing to affect change in themselves, their communities, and Connecticut’s deeply troubled juvenile justice system.