Last month, I woke up to the news spreading like wildfire: Ten young men had escaped from the Orleans Justice Center. The media painted them as monsters. Officials called them criminals. Politicians labeled it a failure of leadership.

I call them what I know them to be: Boys. Wounded. Silenced. Forgotten.

I taught them. I listened to them. I loved them. One of those boys once told me, “You treat me better than my own mother ever did.” He cried in my arms. He softened in my presence. For the first time, he said, he felt what love could feel like. Then he was removed from my class. Silently. No goodbye. No explanation. Just gone.

This was not just administrative mishandling. It was generational trauma—reenacted. Stripped. Separated. Sold off. The same pain felt by our ancestors on auction blocks centuries ago. No one listened when I said removing them was a mistake. No one heard me when I said they were on the edge of something—something hopeful or something fatal.

Just days earlier, they had petitioned the sheriff to create the first podcast from inside the OJC—a platform to reflect on their actions, their trauma, and their desire to change. They were preparing to become assets. To themselves. To OJC. To the world.

But instead of being nourished, they were uprooted. As a prison traumatologist and decarceration expert, I saw what no textbook could ever teach. I witnessed trauma unfold in real time. These were kids locked up 23 to 24 hours a day. No fresh air. No programming. No purpose. Only silence. Only steel.

According to the Sentencing Project, solitary confinement for more than 15 days is considered psychological torture. These boys lived it 24 hours a day.

What did they expect would happen? What’s more dangerous than a child with a weapon is a child with nothing left to believe in. Let me be very clear: These kids didn’t break out because of one woman, Sheriff Susan Hutson. They didn’t escape because of her rehabilitation vision. They didn’t escape because she opened the door for holistic healing. They escaped because the people hired to provide custody, care, and control neglected their care and weaponized the control.

They escaped because the one program offering emotional and psychological hope—the Decarceration Program—was taken away. They escaped because they had someone on the inside who convinced them that this was the way to prove their point, garner attention, and express their pain. They didn’t turn the water off, allowing them to go through the hole in the wall. They escaped because there was no one they trusted to share their plans with who could have altered the outcome. They escaped because, in their minds, they had no other options. They were already broken when they arrived at OJC. That’s why they escaped.

I’ve been there. I’ve watched them gather at the door at 1 p.m. sharp, waiting for class. Their faces lit up when they heard the echo down the tier: “SisterHearts is here! Let’s go!”

For four hours, they weren’t inmates. They were honorable men, worthy of love, respect, and validation. They were students. Sons. Survivors. Humans.

Then my four-hour class was reduced to three. Some days—depending on the deputy—there was no class at all. And then it all vanished. They waited and waited for their decarceration group to come day after day. Their frustration grew, creating an idle mindset that led to self-destruction.

I watched these boys be slammed to the ground with such force that it could have broken their bones. I watched guards talk to them as if they weren’t human, as if blood didn’t flow through their veins. I watched officers hover over them and speak about them like they were caged threats. I watched the system ignore them, punish them, and then act shocked when they ran.

But I also watched something else. I watched the boys wait for me, lined up at the tier doors. I watched their faces glow with excitement just to be seen. I watched them beg for the opportunity to heal. And I heard them say the words no one expected: “I want to do better, Ms. Maryam.” Or “I want to make my mama proud.” Or “don’t want to die in here. I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

When the Decarceration classes were active, fights decreased. Suicide attempts stopped. Tensions eased. Harmony returned. No escapes. No violence. Just a human connection. Just hope.

And now I ask: Where is the support for Sheriff Hutson? Where are the headlines that mention she allowed a formerly incarcerated woman—me—to bring in a revolutionary reentry program that rehumanized the incarcerated? Where are the stories that highlight her repeated requests to fix the broken locks, her fight for rehabilitation in a city built on punishment? Where is the truth about the systemic sabotage around her? Where is the truth about her taking immediate actions against all those who violate the mission of custody, care, and control under her supervision? Where is the truth about the fundamental reforms she’s made—keeping our community safe while bringing healing and hope to those inside?

Let me say this: I do not work for the Sheriff. I owe her nothing. And still, I defend her. Because what’s right is right. And if we don’t speak up now—if I don’t speak up now—we’re going to lose more of them.

Not to escape. Not even to prison. But to something worse: A society that never gave them a reason to return whole.

Let’s give these boys a reason to come. To embrace decarceration, not incarceration. Let’s stop giving them reasons to run. Let’s give them every reason to return. Let’s give them a reason to stand tall—to take responsibility and be held accountable, not through shame or punishment, but through truth, healing, and community.

Because some of us aren’t just shouting from the sidelines. Some of us were in the room. Holding them. Hearing them and witnessing the cries of children being treated like outcasts.

This is my line in the sand. I will not be silent. I will not retreat. And I will not stop telling the truth—no matter how inconvenient it may be to hear.

Maryam Henderson-Uloho is the founder of the SisterHearts Decarceration Program, which offers a space for healing while rehumanizing those suffering from the trauma of incarceration.