'We Grew Up' Opens 2026 Chain NYC Film Festival

When Rashawn Hope was 15 years old, he was 'bound over' to the adult criminal justice system and sentenced to 18 years to life in prison.

The practice of ‘bindover’ is a legal process in which a juvenile court transfers a minor's case to adult criminal court.

Today, at 44, Hope stands among a growing cohort of formerly and currently incarcerated individuals speaking out about the lifelong impact of being tried, sentenced, and imprisoned as children.

Some of their harrowing stories are featured in the documentary, We Grew Up: Kids in Adult Prisons, which opened the 2026 Chain NYC Film Festival.

'We Grew Up' screens at 6pm on Friday, August 8 at 312 West 36 Street in New York City. Tickets are $15 at the door and $13 in advance online.

The one hour and 20 minute film was directed by John Bacon and produced by John Bacon and Leah Winsberg.

Hope is among 9 others interviewed whose lived experiences mirror the critical findings of a landmark 2018 report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

The IACHR condemned the United States for systemic human rights violations regarding its treatment of juveniles in the adult penal system.

At the time, the report highlighted a routine failure across local, state, and federal jurisdictions to consider child development, trauma, or rehabilitation when processing young offenders.

For many transferred to adult facilities, the hardship began long before their contact with the legal system. Advocates and survivors note that an estimated 90 percent of youth bound over to adult courts come from environments marked by extreme poverty, fatherless households, lack of positive mentorship, community violence, physical abuse, or human trafficking.

"When we take kids who've experienced all of these different types of abuse and neglected harm and put them into the adult system, it's just another type of trauma that we're imposing upon that child," one advocate said in the documentary.

Individuals transferred at ages 13, 15, 16, and 17 describe a system where prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys routinely failed to account for their youth, treating them as fully developed adults despite clear developmental differences.

In Ohio, children can be 'bound over' as young as 14 years old.

As formerly incarcerated individuals like Hope share their stories, human rights organizations continue to push Ohio and other states to rethink bindover laws, mandate age-appropriate rehabilitation, and end the practice of housing minors in adult correctional facilities.

Tickets to view the documentary can be purchase here.

The movie is screening at the Chain Theater at 312 West 36 Street.