Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/author/john-lash/page/2/)
It’s not easy being black in the United States. Despite America’s Horatio Alger mythology and its focus on personal effort as the way to overcome all obstacles, being born black can work counter to success.
We don’t always understand the world as well as we imagine, especially when it comes to the effects of public policy.This includes the crime rate and the impact of various interventions on it.
Running a prison is difficult under any circumstances. With conflicting demands to provide both security and rehabilitative services, and often understaffed and poorly funded, it’s not surprising that most prisons struggle to rise above the level of hellhole.
I have sometimes imagined that because of my time in prison I can understand what it is like to be black in the United States. I lived for nearly 25 years under conditions of control, viewed with suspicion and presumed dangerous.
Are there those for whom redemption is impossible? I have known a lot of men who committed terrible deeds, and it seemed to me that every one of them had the potential to change, if they chose to and if they were properly supported.
Michael Brown was killed because he was black. He was killed because the police in his community, like those in many other communities across the nation, view citizens as the enemy, not as those whom they are sworn to “protect and serve.”
In the U.S. we usually consider prisons and jails to be violent places, as if there were no alternative, but the conditions of prisons and jails are the direct result of what we allow.
Are Connecticut child welfare officials more concerned about avoiding political fallout than protecting children?
For youth in detention (including post detention) the rate of completed suicide is two to four times higher, surpassing the rate of adults most at risk in the general population.
Evidence suggests that restorative practices produce superior results when compared to punitive and retributive systems, but those who support this philosophy need to be on guard.