Rancho Cielo aims to give students the skills to get good jobs and a sense that their lives have purpose and meaning.

Superior Court Judge John Phillips remembers the day 23 years ago like it was yesterday.

A kid stood in his courtroom who’d committed a murder, a young man who was still angry and unrepentant. Then the boy’s grandmother entered.

“He broke down and started crying,” said Phillips. “He was just a kid. And I’m thinking, ‘I’m sending kids to prison for life.’”

Phillips, now 81, had seen it all in 13 years as a district attorney and then 21 as a judge. Shootings, thefts, assault. He handed out difficult sentences, but he was troubled by the stories of many children who went through his courtroom.

“It’s very easy to pull a trigger if you don’t have any future, you don’t have any goals and you don’t have anything to look forward to,” he said.

  • AItoothbrushEnglish
    42·
    7 months ago

    Gangs give children with no past or future guns so they kill people. Kids only get a few yearsbin juvy for murder so they go back to the gang and kill another person. Rince and repeat. Putting kids in jail wont solve anything because theres an endless suply of kids without a life or those who grew up in bad conditions. Instead we should give reason for kids to live and should crack down on gangs.