Reporter’s Notebook: Girls in the System

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I knew I didn’t look good, but after a day of ice packs and Netflix, I was getting used to it. The curve of skin where my nose met my face had been cracked open. A bright purple crescent bloomed across my puffy cheek, swooping out from the inner corner of my right eye. “A girl did that to you?” my coworkers asked when I came back to the office, wincing at the sight. “Why?”

It was the same question I’d asked in the emergency room, waiting to find out if my nose was broken, and the same question I tried to answer a year later while reporting a story on girls in the juvenile justice system.

Scared Straight Continues, Despite Misgivings

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This week, the fourth season of the A&E TV show “Beyond Scared Straight” follows two young sisters to the adult jail in Douglas County, Ga. “We’ve got a real serious ethical program here,” said Professor Del Elliott, the founding director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We’ve got a TV production that’s promoting a program which is doing harm to our children.”

OP-ED: Too Many Are Touched by the System

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It’s tragic that so many people can say they have been touched by the U.S. prison system. A great uncle here, a brother there, a younger nephew or niece, and for far too many from our most vulnerable communities, they can point the finger at themselves.