Content in partnership with KQED

Let Me Keep Going: Life After Youth Incarceration

03.14.19
Let Me Keep Going: Life After Youth Incarceration (Xochtil Larios is a youth commissioner for Alameda County. (Photo: Shawn Wen/ YR Media))

When I was thirteen, I wrote an essay looking for my purpose. I asked:

How do I identify my passions, wishes, and dreams? Maybe it’s about being remembered as somebody with a purpose and not just anybody.

This was the year I first tried weed, when I almost got kicked out of school. I had already been arrested once.

I spent the next few years in and out of juvenile hall. I was still looking for my purpose. I was trying to pull myself out of this lifestyle — holding down a real job as a lifeguard and swim instructor. Then, I caught another charge.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m still traumatized by this experience. So I don’t want to say what happened exactly. But it led to me being incarcerated for more than 200 days.

At the start of my time in juvenile hall, I was grieving. But then, I decided, “Hell no, that’s the old me. They’re not going to get the best of me.” 

Two other girls and I became the first in several years to graduate high school from inside juvenile hall. I completed packet after packet of study guides. It wasn’t easy. For geometry, I wasn’t allowed to have a ruler in my cell, so I used my hair for measurements.

I was an exception to the system. I never thought I’d accomplish these milestones.

I have been out now for a year. I feel extremely lucky. I’m in college. Now, I’m back in juvenile hall, but not as an inmate. I’m a youth commissioner. I sit in meetings with probation officers, the D.A., the public defender’s office, and judges. I insist that people working within the system treat incarcerated youth more humanely.

I tell other girls in the system: “Your life is still going. This is not a stop, not a pause.” I didn’t ever say, “Let me restart my life.” Because my life was happening in juvenile hall. Instead, I told myself, “Let me keep going.”

Support the Next Generation of Content Creators
Invest in the diverse voices that will shape and lead the future of journalism and art.
Donate Now
Support the Next Generation of Content Creators
Invest in the diverse voices that will shape and lead the future of journalism and art.
Donate Now