From The Marshall Project:
I visited my first jail in 1970, when I was 16. I had a high school sociology teacher who talked about the disparity of bail and how people were being held simply because they couldn’t afford to pay it. Disturbed, I wrote to many wardens asking if I could come and talk to them about the issue. The only one who would meet with a teenager was John Case, warden of the Bucks County jail in Pennsylvania.When I arrived with my notebook and pencil, Case said to me, “Carol, it’s great you came with your list of questions for me, but you really need to talk with the men here.” What I learned was that a lot of them were there for minor things, like drug use and resisting serving in the Vietnam War. On my way out, I remember thinking, I just met human beings. I am going home for dinner, and they’re not. It gave me a purpose in life.
When I arrived with my notebook and pencil, Case said to me, “Carol, it’s great you came with your list of questions for me, but you really need to talk with the men here.” What I learned was that a lot of them were there for minor things, like drug use and resisting serving in the Vietnam War. On my way out, I remember thinking, I just met human beings. I am going home for dinner, and they’re not. It gave me a purpose in life.
I started a pre-release life skills program at Lorton Prison in Virginia while I was a grad student studying social psychology and social work. In the ‘90s, I worked as an assistant commissioner at New York’s Rikers Island Jail, and I went on to start a family-based drug crisis center called La Bodega de la Familia. We worked with the Lower East Side community to provide support for families at risk of being or already involved with the criminal justice system through probation, parole and arrest. We mapped their family systems to find the strengths and connections. There might be child welfare, public housing, probation and parole all in one household. But you might also see that Grandma takes care of the kids and is a positive influence. It was a strengths-based family case management system. Continue reading >>>
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