For 15 years, Jerome Gold worked as a rehabilitation counsellor in a juvenile detention facility in Washington state. Throughout his time there, he kept a journal of his experiences with youths who had been imprisoned for murder, kidnap, assault, rape, theft, burglary and drug offences. What started as a journal designed to relieve stress turned into the evocation of one man's nuanced perspective on a unique group of young people who have crossed over to the other side of their own humanity.