Hey everyone, it's Sabrina.

I'm just jumping in here to tell you that today we're sharing the first episode of a brand new

series from our colleagues over its serial productions.

It's called The Kids of Rutherford County. I don't want to give away too much,

but I will tell you that the show does one of the most powerful things journalism can do,

which is to examine how we treat the most vulnerable among us.

In this case, young children.

The show tells the story of a juvenile detention center in Tennessee,

and from the beginning, the realities that lays out are pretty shocking.

But even more than that I want to say they're illuminating.

They help you understand the world and what could or maybe should be different.

Okay, I hope you give it your time.

Here's Maribon Knight and Serial Productions with the first episode of the Kids of Rutherford County.

You can find the full four-part series wherever you get your podcasts.

Or if you're a subscriber in the New York Times audio app.

It was a March afternoon in Rutherford County, Tennessee, a growing community about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.

School was out for the day and a dozen or so little kids were playing a game of pickup basketball in someone's backyard.

And then, as kids do, one said something about another kid's mom. This insult led to some shoving. And then as kids also do, one of them pulled out a cell phone and started filming.

There's some kind of heavy neon filter over the whole video, so it's hard to make out any faces.

But here's what you can see.

An eight-year-old boy, hands shoved into the pockets of his oversized parka, is trying to walk

away from everyone when a smaller boy, about five or six, runs up behind him and smacks him in the back a few times.

...