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September 29, 2016 Breakfast Spotlight: Benjamin Lear, Director of ‘They Call Us Monsters’
Ben Lear will receive the Samuel P. Peabody Award at CCC’s 2016 Celebration Breakfast on October 26th. Lear, 27, is a producer and director of the award-winning new documentary, They Call Us Monsters, which follows three young offenders in the Compound, a maximum security facility that houses Los Angeles’ most violent juvenile offenders. All three youth are between the ages of 14 and 16 and face adult sentences. The film humanizes a particularly complicated issue and asks difficult questions about America’s juvenile justice system and how we treat our youth.
Ben is a juvenile justice advocate and sits on the Advisory Boards of Los Angeles’ Anti-Recidivism Coalition, which advocates for fair juvenile justice policies and provides support to the formerly incarcerated; and InsideOUT Writers, which works to reduce juvenile recidivism by using creative writing as a catalyst for transformation. He teaches writing in the Compound and mentors former juvenile offenders upon reentry.
Lear is a second generation producer and activist who graduated from NYU in 2010 with a degree in music composition. Previous to They Call Us Monsters, Lear wrote and performed his folk-opera, Lillian, about a man who travels to the great pacific garbage patch to reclaim all he’s lost, with a 20-piece orchestra and light show. Upon the album’s release, he partnered with Plastic Pollution Coalition and 5Gyres to raise awareness for plastic pollution. This work has led Lear to performances at TED and the United Nations. Please join Ben Lear, Heidi Stamas, Julia Turner, and Dan-el Padilla Peralta at CCC’s 2016 Celebration Breakfast and help CCC make New York a better place for children.
Learn more about CCC’s work in juvenile justice:
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