Skip to main content

Create an account or sign in:

Young, Mentally Ill and Behind Bars

Aug 17, 2009, Letters to the Editor, New York Times

Re “Mentally Ill Offenders Stretch the Limits of Juvenile Justice” (front page, Aug. 10): Solitary confinement is among the harshest legal punishments that American society inflicts on its adult inmates. To inflict it on children is cruel and immoral. I studied suicides in New York State’s prisons over a six-year period and found that half occurred in solitary confinement units even though just 7 percent of the population was housed there. In 1890, the United States Supreme…


View the full text of this article

Get our newsletter to keep track of what is new in juvenile justice system reform.