David spent eight months incarcerated at the Youth Justice and Education Center. Center portrait by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report for America; Image of the Shelby County Youth and Justice Education Center by Andrea Morales / MLK50

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In the hours after 17-year-old David was locked in housing unit H, voices filtered into his cell.

The sound came from multiple places at once: the seams of the door, the vent by the ceiling, the walls themselves. They knew he’d just arrived, and now they wanted to know who he was. Why was he there?

The children in the surrounding cells were trying to speak to him, he realized. Just as they were curious about him, he had a question for

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