To capture the treatment of juveniles, a photographer traveled the country for six years and visited more than 250 facilities as varied as high school classrooms to correctional houses.
The product of that work opened in Camden on Sunday. The work by Richard Ross, who traveled around 31 states with his camera, is on display at the Stedman Gallery at the Fine Arts Complex at Rutgers University-Camden. The exhibit is called "Juvenile in Justice."
“The photographs of youth in detention are sure to provoke a discussion about the scourge of incarceration that plagues our society,” said Cyril Reade, director of the school’s Center for the Arts, in a release.
Ross said he captured the photos as a way to give young people a voice.
“These pictures are a wake-up call to the failure of our imagination,” he said in a press release. “They are a sad testament to the way, as a society, we privilege punishment over the resolution of poverty and other social problems.”
Robert Ross/Rutgers University
