"I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." Vito Corleone, "The Godfather"
Vito the mob boss of cinema fame, promised to do his distraught nephew a favor. He intimidated a movie producer in a very grisly fashion to give his nephew a part that he desperately needed to revive his career.
In a similar vein, Los Angeles Country has provided for the instruction of juvenile delinquents arrested and awaiting trial.
With facilities throughout the county, the most well-know is Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, a facility which houses about four hundred inmates.
Most of them young men, although there is a women's section, these youth still must receive an education. Some students take advantage of their forced stay to make up for time and energy lost gang-banging, getting in trouble, and being held to answer by the state.
For teachers, the facility has some advantages. For one, Los Angeles County is mandated for security reasons to provide small classes (17 is the largest number of students permitted). With a probation officer waiting in the hallway, teachers can dismiss a student right away, no delay or disruption to the lesson.
Yet even here, where the omnipresent state rules supreme, the functional dysfunction of education wends its terrible tentacles around young minds, forcing them to endure the same dull, dreary lessons mandated by idealized passing plans and state standards that prepare no one for the real world.
If anyone needs extra attention for preparation to be reintegrated into the real world, those young prisoners need it.
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