You absolutely must start reading the work of the remarkable young journalist, Sarah Stillman. She has, in the past year, done two long-form pieces in the New Yorker on injustice in this countrys justice systems that are thorough, penetrating and absolutely jaw-dropping. If they dont spur you to write your congressional representatives, the president and the attorney general, I dont know what will. I cant share the first, as its still for subscribers only on the New Yorker website, but if you are desperate to read it and cant get a copy, let me know--Ill scan it and send it to you. I can share the older one, which is now available on her blog. These are a heck of a lot longer than 140 characters, but I cannot encourage you strongly enough to read them. The first (the one I cant link to) is from the current New Yorker and its called Get Out of Jail, Inc. It chronicles the travesty that is the growing system of for-profit alternatives to incarceration. Ms. Stillman dispassionately and rigorously reports this Kafkaesque abomination. It left me ashamed to be an American. The second has to do with something you may not even know about: civil forfeiture. It is, plain and simple, a shakedown of the poor and vulnerable by sheriffs departments and other law enforcement agencies all over the US. Embedded here is a link to Taken: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture from the August 12, 2013 issue of the New Yorker. These ignominious traditions go way, way back in US history. They contain echoes of the infamous debtors prisons that started Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts in the winter of 1786-87 which, in turn, led to the Constitutional Convention. If you sense an irony here, youre right: these practices helped lead, at least indirectly, to the creation of a document that codified the rights that these practices violate with impunity. They also call to mind the chain and work gangs of the Jim Crow South. Pittsburghers wanting an angle on this might read August Wilsons Joe Turners Come and Gone, the second play of his famous Century Cycle--a 20th century decalogy built around African American life in Pittsburgh. As an American, Im appalled by these practices and profoundly disturbed at the ongoing war on the poor in this country, and it makes me feel hopeless. As a teacher, though, the work of a young woman like Ms. Stillman gives me hope. That a person as talented and dogged as she would choose to devote herself professionally to exposing these injustices means that, even in a fight as fixed as this one, the underdog has a fighting chance. Keep raking that muck, Sarah Stillman. Ida Tarbell is smiling somewhere. newyorker/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman
Posted on: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 12:51:58 +0000
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