LOS NIÑOS

About the Book

They are little children, in little bodies, and with little children mentalities; but they have committed adult-size crimes, like armed robbery, assault, rape, and even murder. They can’t be housed with juveniles that have committed petty offenses; and they can’t be housed with adult delinquents. They are then, incarcerated in a limbo of sorts; the Juvenile Adult Remand Detention System; in adult facilities, but “out of sight and sound” of the adults. They must, however, abide by the same rules. Some of them exhibit tough exteriors, but many times, their childish minds cannot comprehend even what they have done. It is then that the Detention Officers confront the “child” (el niño), who weeps, and mourns for his mother, his family and his lost future. Los Niños tells the story of only 31 of these children. There are hundreds of thousands of them nationwide. Along with our child prodigies, and our honor students, they also are America’s future.

About the Author

Maria Victoria Murua is a wife, mother, grandmother, poet, writer, singer and musician. Of all her literary work, Maria is proudest of the many gospel songs she has authored for her Church choir, at the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Guadalupe, Arizona. “When I hear the people singing my songs of praise to God, my heart literally takes flies to Heaven,” she says. Maria has also spent the last 25 years as a Detention Officer for Maricopa County, in the State of Arizona. Most of those years she worked in the Adult Remand Juvenile Detention Unit. “Those years were very painful,” she admits. “As a mother and a grandmother, it breaks my heart to see all the young children, ‘Los Niños,’ that are facing bleak, uncertain futures of lengthy prison sentences and even life imprisonment. Childhood should never end like this, but for many children, it does.