By Sarah Seltzer
/ AlterNet
September 19, 2014
In the summer of 2012, the country was riveted by the story of young Diane Tran, a high school junior age 17, who was tossed in jail for a night because she was missing too much school.The
reason her case attracted so much attention? Tran missed those days of
school--or arrived late--due to exhaustion. She worked two jobs to help
support her siblings. Her parents had split and moved out of town. She
became, in essence, a poster-girl for both the recession and for the
criminalization of youth. Even those local newscasters expected to be
dispassionate were moved to say their "hearts went out" to this girl.
One of Tran's employers was a wedding planning business, which she assists and whose owners house her with her parents out of town. The other was a full-time job at a dry cleaning store. Her third job was going to school, where she is enrolled in several AP and honors classes, but missed 18 days. After a previous warning, a judge decided that a night in jail would teach her a lesson. He didn't see why people were kicking up such a fuss. "A little stay in the jail for one night is not a death sentence," the judge told the same local news channel. READ MORE
One of Tran's employers was a wedding planning business, which she assists and whose owners house her with her parents out of town. The other was a full-time job at a dry cleaning store. Her third job was going to school, where she is enrolled in several AP and honors classes, but missed 18 days. After a previous warning, a judge decided that a night in jail would teach her a lesson. He didn't see why people were kicking up such a fuss. "A little stay in the jail for one night is not a death sentence," the judge told the same local news channel. READ MORE
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