ABSTRACT
On October 26, 2008, Tysheema Brown placed her 12-year-old son in her Chevy, loaded up a few of his things, and started the 1,000 mile drive from Atlanta, Georgia, to Omaha, Nebraska. Th e decision to surrender her child to the state, particularly one half way across the country, was not an easy one. Tysheema explained later in interviews that she always hoped to raise a son who made the right choices and stayed out of trouble. Over the past few years, she grew increasingly concerned that was not going to be the case, however. He started talking back to teachers. He regularly disrupted class. Th en things became more serious; he started stealing. “I had to lock up everything,” Tysheema explained. Hoping to use fear to set him on the right track, she fi rst turned to the police, who provided him with a tour of a juvenile detention facility. Much to her dismay, the tour seemed to have no eff ect on his outlook: “He came back laughing about it. He’s basically fearless” (Davis & Mahone, 2008, ¶ 22). From there things seemed to get worse. He was suspended from school twice and arrested for stealing a camera. At his juvenile court hearing, Tysheema pleaded with the judge to allow her to enroll him at Boys Town High School, a youth-centered rehabilitation facility. Th e judge complied but, much to Tysheema’s dismay, his application was denied. Out of options, Tysheema found out from her mother about Nebraska’s newly enacted safe haven law, one that covered children up to the age of 17 and allowed parents to relinquish custody of their children without fear of prosecution, as long as there were no signs of child abuse. Tysheema decided it was worth the 1,000-mile drive and loss of parental rights if she might fi nally be able to give her son access to the rehabilitation services he needed and, she believed, deserved.
