To help you better understand

It was mistakes that brought me to this place

Where they degrade men,

And hands I would trade

Because it made me a slave,

Bondage and a cage,

Frustration, I'm enraged,

This was my last resort,

I ain't no stickup kid,

On my last Newport, no place to live,

Here's a glimpse into my past to help you better understand,

Everything that I am not makes me who I am.

I was 16.

I had just turned 16.

They had cages like they would have at the zoo,

but they were sectioned off, right.

And there were guys filled with them at capacity.

I just was like, you know, I am not one of them.

I do not belong here.

I do not want to be here.

I want to go home.

(faint voices in background)

I have 13 years.

I don't know if I could do it.

I don't know if I could wake up every day,

look at the same wall every day.

Like, about six months in, I gave up.

I'm not scared to admit.

I can't handle prison.

I'm not that strong.

I wasn't like a hellion or nothing like that,

or like just the worst kid.

But I got in trouble a little bit.

My mom was mad at me.

So I run away.

I met somebody and I went to his apartment.

He talked to me, asked me questions,

like did I want to stay there for a little while.

I could stay there for a couple of days.

They cooked me food, they fed me.

I thought, "You know what?

I'm just gonna try to go home."

And he said, "You're going home?"

So he left and went in the room.

When he came back out, he came back out with a gun.

And he said, "You think you're gonna eat my food for free?

"You think you're gonna live in my house and just walk out?

"And things come free like that?

No, nothing's free."

And he said, "No, you're gonna have to rob this store."

The way he made it sound was like this:

"If you do it for me, and if you do it successfully,

"I'll probably even give you some of the money.

But you're gonna do this for me."

It was in a Fastrip gas station.

I remember seeing gangster movies, "Menace II Society,"

"Boyz n the Hood," where they had guns.

And in all those movies, when they pulled their gun out,

they held it like this.

So that's what I did.

I put the gun to the guy's chest, and I said "Empty up."

- I hit my hand down like that.

The gun went off-- smoke, commotion.

No customers in the store.

- When the gun went off, it snapped me to attention.

I was, like, "Vacate the premises."

So I tried to run.

Store clerks hopped on top of me and started beating me.

I said, "God, if you get me out of this, I swear I'll be good.

"I swear.

"You have my word.

"Get me out of this and I'll be a good boy.

"I promise.

Amen."

- And then we held him at gunpoint until the cops came.

You have a lot of adrenaline running through your head

at the time, so you're not really thinking till after,

and then it all started sinking in

that this is really, um, a kid.

- Alarming news reports

describing teens as time bombs and superpredators.

- Youth is no excuse for committing murder, robbery,

rape, home invasions

or for terrorizing entire neighborhoods.

- Proponents argue stern measures are necessary

to combat rising youth crimes.

- Many of the worst superpredators were juveniles

and they were being referred to a system that was created

to handle bad boys.

We were walking around basically unarmed

in terms of our penal statutes when it came to juveniles.

And that is why Proposition 21 came about.

- In California, a zero tolerance youth crime initiative

is on the March 7 ballot.

- Opponents say the measure would sweep more youth

into the criminal justice system in a state that already locks up

more kids per capita than any other.

- These crimes are dangerous.

What people have to remember is that a lot of people out there

who are trying to make a living

have a right not to be terrified

and their right, frankly, trumps an ex post facto sob story.

- Alonza Thomas was the first minor tried as an adult

under Prop. 21 in Kern County.

- Was Alonza a juvenile superpredator?

- Absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

It surprised me why the prosecutor would file

in adult court because the robbery was botched

and it was botched because he was a 15-year-old youngster.

Many minors are impacted by adults.

They're impacted and influenced to do things

they wouldn't ordinarily do,

and that needs to be taken into consideration.

When you're 14, 15 years old,

even if you commit a serious or violent felony,

the potential is great for rehabilitation.

I don't think that in most cases it's appropriate to process

a 14-year-old or 15-year-old through the adult system

unless it's merited.

Sometimes it is, most of the time it's not.

- He did the crime, and he had to be held accountable.

But to be tried as an adult?

You have this young man that you...

that didn't have one blemish on his record

sent away as an adult, tried as an adult.

Why?

- If I would have been more brave

or a little bit more determined to not go into that store,

maybe I could have did something different, you know?

But I was just so scared, I thought I had no other choice.

- It would be inconceivable for us

and for most prosecutors in California

not to direct file in superior court

robbery with the use of a firearm.

That particular crime is the most dangerous crime

that there is, absent a homicide itself.

We either treat people who commit that kind of crime

very seriously in order to protect people like his victims

or we don't.

There's no middle ground.

- They dropped two counts of armed robbery

and they charged me with one count of armed robbery,

second degree robbery.

So altogether, they gave me 13 years.

- I remember looking at him, and he looked so innocent.

And I hugged him and I kissed him, and I said, "I love you."

And they walked him out.

- Every time you go somewhere out of your cell,

you go to a cage.

Sometimes the cages are half the size of a phone booth.

So, you can't move your elbows even up.

And then when you leave that cage, they cuff you up

and lead you back to another cage.

You're just always from cage to cage.

There's a big wall on 4b.

When I got there and I saw that wall, it was like,

just me against this wall, you know?

I don't know if I could do it.

The whole building was yelling, kicking on the door.

"Man down, he's hanging!

He's hanging, man down, he's hanging, we have a hanger!"

So some time went by.

They brought him out.

Everyone already knows he's dead.

And he never came back.

That's the last time I saw him.

I thought, "That's gonna be me in a couple of years.

"I'm gonna lose my mind.

"I'm not gonna be able to take it.

"I'm not gonna be able to take it

and I'm gonna have to check out."

- "I am writing concerned about my future here in CDCR

"and my life in general.

"I'm not trying to be funny, but I feel I'm Humpty Dumpty.

"I guess you could say I had a big fall.

"I committed a robbery that got me locked up,

"and I honestly feel all the psychologists, psychiatrists,

"counselors, officers can't help me.

"They can't put me back together again.

I need you, badly."

And it's signed, "Sincerely, a young man crying out for help.

Alonza Thomas."

The idea of a 16-year-old going to a California men's prison

is beyond my comprehension.

It is an extremely dangerous, complicated place.

It is a place where you have very few systems of support,

very few systems of protection.

So here's a young man who was put

into this terrible environment

with a long sentence in front of him

and very little ability to cope.

One way that the system encourages people like Alonza

who are vulnerable, who are young, to cope,

is to go into segregation.

They literally encourage you to go into solitary confinement

for protection.

And once you're in segregation,

things just spiral out of control.

- I overdosed.

Swallowed, like, 300 pills, 250 pills.

I would cut myself.

Sometimes I would be curled up in the corner for weeks

not eating, just crying, shaking and stuff.

I would just lose it, you know.

I would just lose it.

I would just sit down and talk to people

like they were sitting right there with me.

I would have full conversations.

I would answer their questions and I'd answer my questions.

But I would have full conversations, you know.

It might sound crazy, but whatever works.

Being in a room for 23 hours a day is crazy.

- How was it seeing him?

It was awful.

Shackles on his hands and feet.

He was in isolation for so long, he didn't have a color.

He was gray.

What did I do?

I smiled.

"I'm glad I was able to make it this weekend.

How are you doing?"

He smiled as well.

And we talked.

And we ignored the obvious.

- What happens is when you send them to state prison

at that young age,

they come out of prison an entirely different person.

- 33, close your door.

44, close your door.

- We should think about what we are doing to our young people,

even if they have committed a violent or serious felony

at the age of 14, 15,

what we're doing to them by sending them to an adult prison

like this county did to Alonza Thomas.

- He was punished, he was taken off the streets

at... during the time period

when he was most likely to commit another crime.

You can't afford to spend an inordinate amount of time

feeling sorry for people,

no matter how young, who are willing to commit crimes.

- Before I got out, I was in a cage

and I was talking to a doctor and I was in a little cage,

probably about the size of this chair, and the doctor said,

"Well, what are you worried about?

You should be happy, you're going home."

And I said, "This right here, this cage,

"me sitting in this cage, it feels safe to me.

"This feels safe, this feels comfortable, this feels normal.

"But when I'm out there and I can't touch these walls,

"I can't pace back and forth and be in my own little world...