Age of The Nerd
The Emmy-winning weekly news magazine series VICE returns to HBO for its sixth season Friday, April 6th (11:00-11:45 p.m. ET/PT). The season will premiere with an extended special titled “Raised in the System,” featuring Emmy-nominated actor Michael Kenneth Williams as he embarks on a personal journey to expose the root of the American mass incarceration crisis: the juvenile justice system.
“Raised in the System” offers a frank and unflinching look at people caught up in the system, exploring why the country’s mass incarceration problem cannot be fixed without first addressing the juvenile justice problem, and investigates solutions communities are employing that are resulting in drastic drops in crime and incarceration.
With more than 850,000 juvenile arrests a year and 48,000 kids sitting in lock-up daily, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of minors in the world. However, recent FBI statistics reveal that the highest arrest rates for violent crimes, including murder, robbery and car theft, come in late teenage years and then fall significantly.
Having grown up in Brooklyn’s Vanderveer projects, Williams has seen first-hand how family and close friends have been swept up in the criminal justice system at an early age. In “Raised in the System,” Williams meets with his nephew Dominic, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder at age 19, and his cousin Niven, who entered the prison system age 14, was released with restrictions preventing him from returning to his family, and ultimately fell back into crime. In Baltimore, Williams reunites with Felicia “Snoop” Pearson, his former co-star on the HBO series The Wire, who describes how her life was transformed after being sent to a maximum security facility for adult women as a teenager.
[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/Uwrg9sI5Eys”]INSERT VIDEO HERE[/su_youtube_advanced]From Brooklyn and Toledo to Richmond and Baltimore, Williams meets young offenders stuck in the system, as well as the judges and community members trying to keep them out, while also listening to the heartbreaking accounts of young children in Newark striving to stay out of prison, despite living against a backdrop of family incarceration.
“Raised in the System” also examines solutions already being enacted across the country. In Newark, Howard University’s Dr. Bahiyyah Muhammad works with children of incarcerated parents and helps them cope with their emotions by opening up lines of dialogue in the classroom. In Toledo, Ohio, a juvenile court is using the latest in child psychology and data to help offenders correct their behavior. In Richmond, Calif., one of the nation’s leading firearm-related homicide rates has dropped by 75% through a controversial program that pays a small stipend to the most at-risk offenders; the goal is to incentivize them to undergo counseling with former violent offenders, who help them reform their behavior.
For more information: raisedinthesystem.com.
With the return of the weekly series on Friday night, VICE News Tonight will move to four nights a week, airing Monday through Thursday, and on Friday, HBO will air an early preview of the weekly show in that 7:30 p.m. slot, ahead of its regularly scheduled debut at 11:00 p.m. When the weekly series is on hiatus, VICE News Tonight will resume on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Vice is executive produced by Bill Maher, Shane Smith, Eddy Moretti and Josh Tyrangiel; executive producers, Tim Clancy and Jonah Kaplan; consulting producer, Fareed Zakaria.
