Children Behind Bars

Every day children exiled to prison are exposed to abusive and neglectful treatment, yet their plight is hidden. Based on wide-ranging research and first-person interviews, this passionately argued book presents the shocking truth about the lives and deaths of children in custody. Drawing on human rights legislation and progress in the care and treatment of vulnerable children elsewhere, it outlines the harsh realities of penal child custody including hunger, denial of fresh air, cramped and dirty cells, strip-searching, segregation, the authorised infliction of severe pain, uncivilised conditions for suicidal children and ever-present violence and intimidation. The issues are explored through the lens of protection, not punishment, and the author finds there can be only one conclusion: child prisons must close. Providing a compelling manifesto for urgent and radical change, this book should be read by everyone who cares about child protection and human rights.

Provides a close-up examination of the instability and uncertainty that plague the children of prisoners, in a collection of personal, anecdotal accounts that chronicle their attempts to cope with the unique challenges in their lives.

Every day children exiled to prison are exposed to abusive and neglectful treatment, yet their plight is hidden. Based on wide-ranging research and first-person interviews, this passionately argued book presents the shocking truth about the lives and deaths of children in custody. Drawing on human rights legislation and progress in the care and treatment of vulnerable children elsewhere, it outlines the harsh realities of penal child custody including hunger, denial of fresh air, cramped and dirty cells, strip-searching, segregation, the authorised infliction of severe pain, uncivilised conditions for suicidal children and ever-present violence and intimidation. The issues are explored through the lens of protection, not punishment, and the author finds there can be only one conclusion: child prisons must close. Providing a compelling manifesto for urgent and radical change, this book should be read by everyone who cares about child protection and human rights.

“Venkatraman has never met a heavy theme she did not like....Borrowing elements of fable, it's told with a recurring sense of awe by a boy whom the world, for most of his life, has existed only in stories.”—New York Times Book Review The author of the award-winning The Bridge Home brings readers another gripping novel set in Chennai, India, featuring a boy who's unexpectedly released into the world after spending his whole life in jail with his mom. Kabir has been in jail since the day he was born, because his mom is serving time for a crime she didn't commit. He's never met his dad, so the only family he's got are their cellmates, and the only place he feels the least bit free is in the classroom, where his kind teacher regales him with stories of the wonders of the outside world. Then one day a new warden arrives and announces Kabir is too old to stay. He gets handed over to a long-lost "uncle" who unfortunately turns out to be a fraud, and intends to sell Kabir. So Kabir does the only thing he can--run away as fast as his legs will take him. How does a boy with nowhere to go and no connections make his way? Fortunately, he befriends Rani, another street kid, and she takes him under her wing. But plotting their next move is hard--and fraught with danger--in a world that cares little for homeless, low caste children. This is not the world Kabir dreamed of--but he's discovered he's not the type to give up. Kabir is ready to show the world that he--and his mother--deserve a place in it.

The 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 “Nell Bernstein’s book could be for juvenile justice what Rachel Carson’s book was for the environmental movement.” —Andrew Cohen, correspondent, ABC News When 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 rehabilitation: positive relationships with caring adults. Bernstein introduces us to youth across the nation who have suffered violence and psychological torture at the hands of the state. She presents these youths all as fully realized people, not victims. As they describe in their own voices their fight to maintain their humanity and protect their individuality in environments that would deny both, these young people offer a hopeful alternative to the doomed effort to reform a system that should only be dismantled. Interwoven with these heartrending stories is reporting on innovative programs that provide effective alternatives to putting children behind bars. A landmark book, Burning Down the House sparked a national conversation about our inhumane and ineffectual juvenile prisons, and ultimately makes the radical argument that the only path to justice is for state-run detention centers to be abolished completely.

Male prisons can be dangerous places with a climate of distrust, but can long-term prisoners be given the space to reflect and grow ? This ground-breaking study found that engaging prisoners in philosophy education enabled them to think about some of the ‘big’ questions in life and as a result to see themselves and others differently.

From the author of The Last Marathon and The Devi's Emerald, comes a soul stirring hook, that is the first of its kind. Shadows In Cages, is a book on mother and child living in Indian Prisons. In India, a woman prisoner can keep her child, with her in prison, till the child reaches the age of five. Shadows In Cages, throws light, on the emotional aspect, where mother and child, in Indian Prisons are concerned. The author has visited prisons in India and interacted with numerous women inmates and their children. The hook reveals the prison conditions, insecurities, trials, joys, hopes and dreams that women inmates feel and share with their children. Interviews with prisoners, children, social workers, prison authorities and lawyers, make for a very interesting read and a deep emotional experience. The author, with tenderness and humour, takes the reader on a journey, that touches the soul and leaves one frequently with an ache in the heart and tears in the eyes. It's the story of the pain and anguish that mother and child suffer in Indian prisons. Their misery has been captured by Ruzbeh N Bharueha in his hook Shadows in Cages, which looks at the "emotional aspect" of the mother-and-child in Indian prisons as they live through insecurities. joy, hope and dreams. Shadows in Cages reveals the prison conditions, provides interviews with prisoners, children and social workers in the sector, and takes the reader through an emotional journey oflife and its pain... THE HINDU. Based on the accounts of women and children in prisons such as Yerawada in Pune, Tihar Jail in New Delhi and prisons in Haryana and Srinagar. the hook deals with ival life inmates and the day-to-day life of their children behind bars.. SUNDAY MID- DAY This hook undoubtedly shakes the reader deep inside and is presented in a very impressive and a tender manner.. DAINIK TRIBUNE