"Stop Acting Like You're Trash," Georgia Judge Tells Teens

A Georgia judge brought a courtroom full of troubled teens to tears when she described the consequences of a life of crime.

“You can have the ultimate experience; you can be in this body bag,” Judge Verda Colvin told the group, showing them an actual large white body bag in the Bibb County courtroom. “The way you’re going, you will go to jail or you will end up in this body bag. The only way someone will know you are in here is by this tag with your name on it.

“Stop acting like you’re trash.”

Colvin was participating in the Bibb County Sheriff's Department's "Consider the Consequences" program, according to Yahoo News. Much like the heralded Scared Straight program, which attempts to steer at-risk teens away from the criminal justice system, Bibb County's program, created in 2015, is an early intervention effort designed to shock the participants away from a life of crime.

The kids were given an eight-hour tour of the county jail ... and then were introduced to Colvin, who told them that life in prison included "somebody raping you in the middle of the night, and there's nothing you can do but just lay there because guess what, everybody got to get their turn.”

Colvin also tried to get the teens to realize they have self value and worth.

“You are special. And you are uniquely made and nobody else can do what you’re supposed to do in this world. Nobody else! And if you don’t do it, we won’t have it.”

Colvin is a single mother.

Most of the participants in the session had been involved in crimes such as drug abuse, car thefts and property damage.