Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison - Nell Bernstein

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nIn what the San Francisco Chronicle called an epic work of investigative journalism that lays bare our nation's brutal and counterproductive juvenile prisons and is a clarion call to bring our children home, Nell Bernstein eloquently argues that there is no good way to lock up a child. Making the radical argument that state-run detention centers should be abolished completely, her passionate and convincing (Kirkus) book points out that our system of juvenile justice flies in the face of everything we know about what motivates young people to change. Called a devastating read by Truthout, Burning Down the House received a starred Publishers Weekly review and was an In These Times recommended summer read. Bernstein's heartrending portraits of young people abused by the system intended to protect and rehabilitate them are interwoven with reporting on innovative programs that provide effective alternatives to putting children behind bars. The result is a work that the Philadelphia Inquirer called a searing indictment and a deft strike at the heart of America's centuries-old practice of locking children away in institution--a landmark book that has already launched a new national conversation. n nThe nationally acclaimed engrossing, disturbing, at times heartbreaking (Van Jones) book that shines a harsh light on the abusive world of juvenile prisons, by the award-winning journalist n nNell Bernstein's book could be for juvenile justice what Rachel Carson's book was for the environmental movement. --Andrew Cohen, correspondent, ABC News n nWhen teenagers scuffle during a basketball game, they are typically benched. But when Brian got into it on the court, he and his rival were sprayed in the face at close range with a chemical similar to Mace, denied a shower for twenty-four hours, and then locked in solitary confinement for a month. One in three American children will be arrested by the time they are twenty-three, and many will spend time locked inside horrific detention centers that defy everything we know about what motivates young people to change. In what the San Francisco Chronicle calls an epic work of investigative journalism that lays bare our nation's brutal and counterproductive juvenile prisons and is a clarion call to bring our children home, Nell Bernstein eloquently argues that there is no right way to lock up a child. The very act of isolation denies children the thing that is most essential to their growth and reh