"We should not put young people in cages for nonviolent offenses, and certainly not before we have tried to reform them through less severe means. A cursory examination of contemporary juvenile detention centers should alone stop us from locking up even the most obnoxious nonviolent offenders...
"We cannot reform kids by intensifying the rage that may have contributed to their misbehavior in the first place. Let’s take young first-time offenders of all backgrounds out of intellectually and physically restrictive detention centers and put their variety of talents to good use. Engage them in community work projects that require them to use their bodies (through, say, construction on dilapidated parks and homeless shelters). Engage their minds through the arts and music, and discussion and therapy-like sessions in which the value of community-oriented thinking is inculcated. Crime is an affront to the very foundations of community, so its response must reinforce communal bonds by affirmatively reversing young, petty criminals in their tracks...."
http://www.thenation.com/blog/175477/stop-locking-nonviolent-juvenile-offenders#axzz2aTii3RAD
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