( CNN ) When photographer Richard Ross wants to talk to a child at a juvenile detention center , he knocks on their cell door . He asks them if he can come inside . The 67-year-old Californian is used to taking off his shoes when he enters homes , so he does the same in a cell . `` Most of the kids , they 've never had that kind of respect , '' he said . `` But I give it to them , I give them the power . I sit on the floor so they 're looking down on me . '' Ross does n't begin by hammering them with questions . He wants to have a conversation . `` I say , 'What 's gone on in your life ? ' `` The result of that tenderness and patience is Ross ' latest collection of photos , `` Girls in Justice . '' The images are unflinching . They convey the ugliness of a young person 's life behind bars . The pictures are replete with the unique loneliness , anger and boredom of a juvenile detention center . But the girls also tell their stories alongside the images . One photo shows a girl in a tan jumpsuit , hand on her head , sitting alone in a drab , cavernous room . `` I 've been here 17 times , '' one girl says . Many of the stories are bleak , reflecting adults who endangered the girls or , at the very least , failed repeatedly to protect them . `` Mom 's a stripper . Dad was an alcoholic , drug addict , murdered last year , '' said one girl explaining her past . `` They took my brother and I away because my dad chained us in the house and tried to burn it down . I lived with my grandma and uncle . The people who are supposed to love you never do . '' The photos show girls wasting the day in their bunks , staring at the wall . Some struggle with mental illness . The girls obscure their faces or are turned away from the camera . That works to protect their identities , but it also evokes shame . Ross seems to be saying the shame is n't the girls ' -- it 's ours as a society for jailing children . His images are n't always literal . A photo shot toward an azure sky is framed by concertina wire . A straight-forward photo , of a utility wall holding dozens of scissors , turns the stomach after reading the caption -- the guards need the scissors to cut away any cloth a teenager might use to trying to hang herself . Social media . Follow @ CNNPhotos on Twitter to join the conversation about photography . Ross recalled one particularly agonizing interview with a girl who kept telling him , `` I ca n't wait to get out of here so I can kill myself . '' `` She was just a kid , but she was at that place where you have no hope , '' he said . `` I feel all these stories , but that one just hit me hard . I was sobbing . You want to say , 'It will get better , ' but you also know the system and you know that you ca n't say that . '' Ross , the son of a New York City police officer , had a happy upbringing in a home of modest means . He got into a decent amount of trouble growing up , and he said he could have easily wound up in the justice system . But times were different then , he said , and there 's been a cultural turn in America toward criminalizing a child 's bad behavior . He recalls a detention-center director in Reno , Nevada , who asked him to visit and take photos . At intake , he photographed a fifth-grader who had been taken to jail because he had acted up in class . `` This fifth-grader came up to my belt buckle , '' Ross recalled . `` He was drinking warm milk , like someone gave him a cardboard thing of milk . I can still smell that milk . That intake area smelled like elementary school . '' The child 's single mother could n't pick him up for hours . She was holding down a job that would n't allow her to leave until after 6 p.m . The detention-center director sent Ross ' photo to every principal in the area to make a point : Children do not belong in lockup , so find another solution . Ross is adamant that he 's making photographs to bring about `` immediate change . '' He speaks across the country to law schools and works closely with child welfare advocates . His work has been shown during legislative sessions to illustrate how sorely the juvenile justice system needs fixing . `` I 'm trying to wake people up , make them realize there are lives at stake , '' he said . `` At the same time , I do n't , I ca n't , position myself as the great hope . I might not be able to do much but listen . But I think I 'm a good listener , and I think these kids deserve to tell their stories . '' Richard Ross is a photographer based in California . You can follow his Juvenile in Justice project on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .
Photographer robin Ross shows what it is like for girls in a juvenile detention center . He tries to ` ` lock people up '' about the consequences and warns about ` ` immediate consequences ''