Tuesday 28 October 2014

PrimeTime - Juvenile Prisons





ABC News PrimeTime - Juvenile Corrections
Adobe Mountain School, Phoenix, Arizona

Chris Cuomo
Eric M. Strauss
Mark Stanoch

ABC News

Standing Together to End Death in Prison for Children







The US is the only country in the world that sentences children to die in prison.

The Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that it is unconstitutional to impose an automatic life-without-parole sentence on a child.

Victims' families, formerly-incarcerated youth, advocates, and loved ones of people serving juvenile life without parole traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the oral arguments in this case and to, together, call for an end to the practice of sentencing children to die in prison.

Join the movement.

Sunday 12 October 2014

STOP Police Terror, Mass Incarceration, Repression, and the Criminalizat...





The Revolution Club Bay Area, the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, and "Uncle Bobby" call on YOU to be part of a national month of resistance against police terror, mass incarceration, repression, and the criminalization of generations.

National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality: OCTOBER 22 (#O22) in a city near you. Stand up! Walk out! No business as usual! STOP police brutality!

www.StopMassIncarceration.net
@StopMassIncNet
#O22

Saturday 11 October 2014

Alone: Teens in Solitary Confinement



Capping a year of reporting about teens held in solitary confinement, The Center for Investigative Reporting is releasing our documentary "Alone," which can now be seen on our YouTube channel, The I Files.

This follows stories we've done in print, for broadcast on the PBS NewsHour, as part of CIR's new "Reveal" radio show, and in an animation ("The Box") and graphic novel.

With the publication or broadcast of each version of our reporting, we have seen the issue of teenage solitary confinement become part of a growing national debate.

In May, after more than a year of lobbying by youth advocates, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called on states to end the excessive use of solitary confinement on juvenile inmates.

CIR began investigating the solitary confinement of teenagers in prisons, jails and juvenile halls across the U.S. in March 2013. Juvenile justice experts had been pressing the Department of Justice to flex its muscle on behalf of young inmates, to no avail. Holder's shop declined all interview requests by CIR.

Our reporting quickly zeroed in on Rikers Island, the massive jail complex in New York City, where last year about a quarter of juvenile inmates were held in isolation for 23 hours a day. We spent almost a year requesting to see Rikers' teen solitary units, but the city's Department of Correction denied them, as did officials at Cook County jail in Chicago and five county jails in Florida. We figured out quickly that juvenile solitary was an often secretive practice, largely unregulated and rampant in most states.

Our investigation early on pointed to thousands of American teenagers held in solitary every day. We wanted to show what that looked like and how it affected kids. We talked to criminal justice experts in California who said virtually every juvenile hall in the state used some form of prolonged isolation.

That's when we remembered Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall. Covering juvenile justice over the years, Trey Bundy had heard again and again that officials in Santa Cruz had created a model that had reduced the use of isolation so much that corrections officials around the country routinely traveled to California's Central Coast to see how they did it.

Santa Cruz Chief Probation Officer Fernando Giraldo, and Sara Ryan, the hall's superintendent, allowed us to film inside their facility for five days, unescorted, and talk to anyone we wanted. Our resulting documentary, "Alone," toggles between New York City and Santa Cruz, where young people tell their own stories of isolation and how the justice system can do better.

Now that Holder has said he wants to end excessive solitary for youth, we'll keep watching for changes. In the meantime, watch "Alone" and see for yourself what it's like for kids in isolation and how one facility is trying to keep them out.


"Alone" was produced Daffodil Altan. It was reported by Altan and Trey Bundy, edited by David Ritsher and Andrew Gersh, and filmed by Marco Villalob

Wednesday 8 October 2014

END JUVENILE LIFE SENTENCES NOW!


All kids across America that serve natural life without parole must be shown mercy and granted second opportunity. Immaturity should not and cannot be ignored when they have "legally" obtain the adult age to be treated like a adult. A certain crime is not accepted as a reason to call kids legal adults. When you was a kid you made mistakes...what if you was condemned for life for something you did between the age of 14 to 18. Stop being phony acting as if you are righteous and understand that laws that exist today did not exist so harshly when many of you were kids. END JUVENILE LIFE SENTENCES.


Mark A. Clements

Saturday 4 October 2014

Serious Juvenile Offenders hear heartfelt message from Brian K Rice





Brian speaks to juveniles who have been classified as Serious Juvenile Offenders at Mt. Meigs Juvenile Correctional Facility in Alabama. Brian speaks about weed, the value of education, avoiding friends involved with criminal activities, the importance of family, black male stereotypes, ex-offender stereotypes, job searching advice, entrepreneurship, and traits of successful men. To learn more about Brian K. Rice visit www.briankrice.com