reform

Dispatches from Juvenile Hall: Fixing a Failing System

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:01:00 +0000

By John Aarons, Lisa Smith, Linda Wagner

As depressing as they can often be, I’m generally interested in books on social justice issues. It’s essential to know the facts about issues before getting into a spirited debate about them. As an Urban Studies grad student, I’m especially interested in books on social justice as academic material, particularly ones on youth issues. Dispatches from Juvenile Hall engaged both the generally interest and the academically-minded parts of my brain—and it is a great read from either perspective.

Dispatches from Juvenile Hall gains most of its power from the narratives, which are told by their subjects in first person style with brief introductions and conclusions by the authors. We hear from the very people whose lives are most affected by the juvenile justice system: people who are still in the system and those who have been released who are willing to share their stories, as well as those who have spent their lives trying to help those on the inside. The authors, who have decades of experience in youth services work, present the narratives with little embellishment, which works well and are very effective. For someone who has never had firsthand experience with juvenile detention, their words are often brutal and shocking.

Jasmine, the subject of the book’s opening narrative, began using meth when she was eleven years old. A pattern of drug use, incarceration, and running away from home began from there. Michael, now a tattoo artist in South Carolina, was kicked out of his home at sixteen because his mother felt he was old enough to be a man. As a homeless teen, police generally ignored him, until he was apprehended for felony stealing. Stephanie, a high school guidance counselor and former juvenile probation officer, tells stories about the at-risk youth she worked with in both jobs, and stresses the importance of early detection of warning signs that a teen is in trouble.

Dispatches from Juvenile Hall isn’t just a collection of personal stories; there is also a section on how the system can be fixed. It includes a fascinating (if brief) history of juvenile justice in the United States and an analysis of what the authors believe does and does not work when working with juvenile offenders. Clearly, given the rates of juvenile incarceration, the hard-on-crime position currently taken by the juvenile justice system doesn’t deter crime. This is not to say the authors suggest being “soft” on crime; in fact, they argue it’s better to be “smart on crime.”

The authors suggest a blend of corrections reforms—like separating low-, medium-, and high-risk offenders and using cognitive behavioral strategies and gender-specific services—and rehabilitative treatments, and suggest that there can (and should) be a lively, fact-based debate about the United States’ attitude toward juvenile justice. Dispatches from Juvenile Hall is a thoughtful, intelligent, affecting piece of that debate.

Written by: Dana Reinoos, November 29th 2009

Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth Century America

admin — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:49:00 +0000

By Maria Carla Sanchez

University of Iowa Press

Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth-Century America explores the complex relationship between American social activism and literature in the nineteenth century. At times symbiotic, at times turbulent, this relationship was formed both by the power of literature and by the hopes and dreams of American social reformers for their country. In perhaps the most compelling argument of the book, Maria Carla Sanchez describes the many ways in which period writers both used fiction as a tool of reform, and used reform as an excuse to write fiction. Sanchez argues that the beliefs and views of these antebellum reformers indelibly shaped literature, literary criticism, and the literary canon.

Sanchez skillfully depicts the “reform culture” of the antebellum period, at the apex of the temperance and abolition movements. In addition to the popular moral initiatives, groups of nineteenth century reformers tackled many niche issues such as prison reform, vegetarianism, and Indian rights. Sanchez posits that though Christian preachers and other religious figures played an unmistakably important role in the movements, the antebellum period truly came to be the first time in American history when social reform was carried out by groups of people with diverse philosophical, class, race, creed, and educational backgrounds. Sanchez also makes special note of the fact that women used the social reform movements as a vehicle to “resist the confines of domesticity.” Their activism thrust them into the public sphere and allowed them to participate in a discourse to which they had been previously unwelcome. An important part of the way they participated, of course, was through the written word.

Reform culture in antebellum America was both fearful of and excited by the power of fiction, and Sanchez deftly demonstrates the complicated maneuverings that period authors went through to ensure the respectability of their work. This was especially true for women writers, who had to prove both that the writing they did was truthful and morally upstanding, but also that it had an “uplifting or edifying” purpose. Reading or writing for pure pleasure was not something that could be admitted to. Sanchez contend convincingly that the reform culture of the antebellum period gave women the chance both to enter the public sphere as readers and writers, and as champions of causes they believed in.

Written by: Jennifer Wedemeier, June 20th 2009

When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story in the Movement for Prison Abolition

admin — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:55:00 +0000

By Jamie Bissonette

South End Press

Those of us who spend a lot of time lollygagging in the distant pass frequently encounter scenes of horror — people being tortured for their religious beliefs or identities, for example - and find ample evidence of our capacity for cruelty and inhumanity littering the landscape of human history. The game many of us play to ameliorate whatever righteous indignation we feel as members of the superior present is to imagine what horrors future historians will find in our own generation.

The current administration has single-handedly ushered in a whole host of candidates, beyond the many obvious ones - such as our confidence in the rightful supremacy of our species, which may well turn out to destroy us. Another obvious example is provided by this book and what its authors ominously refer to as the “prison industrial complex.” We can only hope that our enlightened progeny will be able to look back on our penal practices with the same sort of abhorrence with which we now view human slavery. In fact, the authors argue in stark terms, human slavery continues in the United States: prisoners, stripped of their rights and status as citizens, have become the property of the state. The system, they believe, is beyond reform and needs, literally, to be abolished.

Bisonette focuses on an all-too-brief episode of dramatic rebellion and radical change, and she enlists participants in the Walpole Prison rebellion, which began in 1972 and for a brief time transformed a draconian institution in Massachusetts. This historical moment was the result of a confluence of several extraordinary factors; one was the emergence of a strong, idealistic, African American criminologist named John O. Boone, who, remarkably, was given the responsibility (or at least the opportunity), as Massachusetts Commissioner of Corrections, to reinvent a failed penal system - one that was racist, violent, and the worst imaginable environment for human rehabilitation.

Another factor was the creation of the National Prisoners Reform Association by the prisoners themselves, a group that gained negotiating authority in times of conflict, developed programs such as education in Black History that confronted institutional racism and, to a remarkable extent, became self-governing. For a short time, it appeared that incarceration could, at least, be made more humane with work-release programs, education, and inmate participation in institutional governance. The furlough program was another of their innovations. Under Boone, 97 % of the furlough participants followed the rules and were able to make a contribution to their families and their communities. Of course among the 3% was the infamous Willie Horton, made a symbol of racial dread by Lee Atwater and his fellow hatemongers in the 1988 elections.

When the Prisoners Ran Walpole is a sad and exciting book: a very brief moment when some people in positions of power felt that prison reform — or even abolition — was possible and necessary. The book is short of practical specifics in laying out the road to prison abolition, and the polyvocality of the narrative sometimes interferes with the clarity and organization of the book. Still, for those looking for evidence that radical change is possible, the book is an encouraging beginning.

Written by: Rick Taylor, July 30th 2008