Sixteen-year-old Michael Duc Ta was sentenced to 35 years for having the bad luck to be in the vicinity of a pistol shot that hurt no-one. Fourteen-year-old Anait faces 200 years incarceration for piling into the back seat of a friend's car, which was later described as a 'getaway' vehicle. Juvies is narrated by Mark Wahlberg - who did time at 16 for his youthful crimes - with heartfelt poetry readings by Mos Def.

"Juvies explores the lives of intelligent, reflective young people caught up in a system that has deteriorated into little more than vending-machine justice. Juvies shows just how unaware the public is about the Draconian result of the laws they voted for." - LA Weekly

"Juvies introduces you to the kind of teenagers we're supposed to be scared of. In 1996 the Council on Crime in America called the upcoming generation of teenagers 'a ticking time-bomb, a national wolf-pack of conditioned super-predators'. The result is that more than 200,000 'juvies' are prosecuted as adults each year..." - Boston Globe