Alongside the PBS documentary Evolution of a Criminal, we thought it’d be interesting to dig a little deeper into the topic of juvenile criminality in America. To step back for a moment, the Indie Spirit Award-nominated film itself is by filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe, who tells the story of how he went from honor student and good kid to robbing a bank as a desperate teenager. Wrote Moira MacDonald in the Seattle Times:
“Now in his early 30s and an MFA film-school graduate, Monroe returned to his hometown to interview his parents, his relatives, law-enforcement officials and the two other young men involved in the crime. The resulting film, which intersperses interview footage with an artfully filmed re-enactment of the robbery, is a thoughtful, gripping exploration of the mindset of a 16-year-old boy.”
To expand on that topic, we created a Juvenile Justice Quiz that was as much an eye-opening experience for us to research and create as it hopefully is for you to take. Don’t worry as much about how well you do (though we try to make it worth your while in the judicial quiz grade categories).