Gage Gallery announces photo exhibit to document incarcerated youth

Photo: Richard Ross

University of California at Santa Barbara art professor Richard Ross's photo exhibit "Juvenile-in-Justice" documents youth in the United States juvenile justice system. 

Ross—who protects the children's identities by not showing their faces—photographed nearly 2,000 images of incarcerated youth in various facilities including treatment centers, group homes, police departments, courtrooms, shelters, interview rooms, maximum security lock-down and non-lock-down shelters. According to Ross, he is using his work to instigate policy reform. 

Gage Gallery isn't a stranger to displays of this kind. Last November, the space featured "Prison: Photos by Lloyd DeGrane." The installation—75 black-and-white shots, from 1990 through 2001—showed prisoners as they ventured from the Cook County jailhouse, through the Joliet Receiving Center, and into the Illinois Department of Corrections’ Stateville Prison. In March, the gallery played host to Lori Waselchuk's "Grace Before Dying," a photographic documentary about Louisiana State Penitentiary's inmate-hospice program. 

Richard Ross speaks at the opening reception of "Juvenile-in-Justice" at 5pm on September 13 at Roosevelt University's Gage Gallery.