Blog Mar 9, 2010
More Abuse in Youth Prisons
In the two most recent blogs, Dan Macallair called attention to the continued abuse being reported by the news media. He first noted reports dating back to the 19 th century in the San Francisco Industrial School, noting that this was an institution created in an era that began with the New York House of Refuge, which was abusive in the extreme and eventually had to be closed. Then he jumped on the proverbial “time machine” and took us to present-day Texas and California — same story, more…
Blog Feb 24, 2010
Abuse in the LA County Juvenile Justice System
In my previous blog I wrote about the endemic nature of abuse in juvenile institutions. No sooner had I written that blog than the following article appeared in the Los Angeles Times regarding the beating and molestation of youths under the custody of the Los Angeles Probation Department. The article’s authors highlighted incidents where staff were actually prosecuted for particularly egregious criminal acts including sexual exploitation and beatings of youth in their custody. In one instance a…
Blog Feb 17, 2010
Abuse in Youth Correctional Institutions
One of the most common examples of widespread abuse in American juvenile correctional institutions is the callous and malicious treatment often employed by institutional staff. Institutional abuse can mean many things, but usually refers to the physical or emotional cruelty inflicted on youth by staff. This pernicious reality has been constant throughout American history since the opening of the nation’s first youth correctional facility in 1825 — the New York House of Refuge. Occasionally,…
Blog Feb 3, 2010
Three judges and the California prison system
The recent decision by the three judge panel in the Coleman/Plata case should be applauded as a short but positive step forward in forcing some degree of sanity upon the broken California prison system. Unfortunately, the fact that a panel of Federal judges was forced to step in and force the state to make long overdue policy decisions is simply another poignant reminder of our political systems dysfunctionality. California’s prison crisis is a political construct that an evil scheming mad…
This text identifies the macroeconomic forces relevant to imprisonment — poverty and political powerlessness — and explores viable and humane alternatives to our current incarceration binge.