OP-ED: Everyday Assaults of Young Offenders in Adult Prisons
|
Teenagers in adult prison live with an endless series of violations on a daily basis, violations that I could only think to describe as “everyday rapes.”
Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Kids in Solitary Confinement
|
When most Americans hear the constitutional phrase “cruel and unusual punishment” they can tell you what it means. Hanging. Flogging. Chain gangs. But high on my list of “cruel and unusual punishment” is sentencing juvenile offenders to solitary confinement.
Children of Disappointment and the Season of Hope
|
If anyone doubts that the young people locked up in our jails are children they should spend some time in one of those prisons around holiday time. I did just that for the 10 years I taught high school students, some as young as 15, in an adult county jail, and every year it got tougher to deny the impact being locked up for the holidays had on these teens. Jail’s a pretty isolating place. That’s one of the ideas. But in lockup they watched a lot of TV — that great purveyor of culture — and so despite all that concrete and steel and lack of freedom the holidays still seeped in.