Reporters’ Beat
In January 2007, with the help of a Luci S. Williams Houston Scholarship, Craig Young started documenting the struggles of young women making the transition from street life and incarceration. He began his exploration at the Center for Young Women’s Development, a San Francisco non-profit that has won national recognition for its work. The center helps women labeled unreachable, untreatable, unchangeable and invisible. Most of these women existed in the informal and underground economy committing non-violent crimes, prostitution, drug dealing and theft. Mr. Young followed his subjects for six months, sitting in on meetings, and getting to know the women. At the center, in-risk women listen to other women they can identify with. The center is the only peer-led advocacy and outreach organization in the United States staffed and operated entirely by women under 30. Some of the staff members have lived similar lives as their clients. Though they come from different ethnic backgrounds and often from different neighborhoods, they share some commonalities. Generational cycles of incarceration, generational cycles of gang violence, family violence and abuse, isolation, poverty, lack of educational opportunities, teen pregnancy, drugs, homophobia and time in foster care all contribute to their identity. Most are caught in the conflict of an inner city culture that is hostile, autonomous, homogenous and unchanging. Mr. Young has been a witness to their struggle to break free of their past.