After working over thirty years in the prison system of the state with the highest per capita income outside of DC I have to say that of the thousands of individuals and their families I came to know- I read all their files- no one was there for having poor morals, and I actually recognized their ‘criminality’ was a testament to their su…
After working over thirty years in the prison system of the state with the highest per capita income outside of DC I have to say that of the thousands of individuals and their families I came to know- I read all their files- no one was there for having poor morals, and I actually recognized their ‘criminality’ was a testament to their survival skills in a society unable to see them as human beings worthy of even having a name or identity. The ‘poor choices’ view wasn’t as pronounced in the early eighties as it was in nineties, when it was the grease that sold the ‘privatization’ of social service systems advanced of course by the ‘tough on crime’ posturing of political hacks and their corporate friends.
The first institution I worked at was established in 1965 as “a home for wayward and delinquent” boys, but it also functioned as the State orphanage into the twenties: the astonishing thing was that all the original handwritten ledger books , twelve large volumes,identifying who entered and who was released had been preserved as well as all the classification/court records, the
social worker correspondence with families and the released individuals had been about 80% successfully preserved. We had an active State Archives department I was working with in the early nineties to preserve the original ledgers (used until some time around WW I) and the best examples of all the other records that had accumulated) when the State Archivist office was eliminated, and I had no legal power to do do anything with them; and now I bet none of them exist.
Note: the institution was created in 1865, not 1965- I don’t see any feature to let me edit these kinds of errors once they are posted. That was one of those fat fingers tiny buttons kind of a mistake….
After working over thirty years in the prison system of the state with the highest per capita income outside of DC I have to say that of the thousands of individuals and their families I came to know- I read all their files- no one was there for having poor morals, and I actually recognized their ‘criminality’ was a testament to their survival skills in a society unable to see them as human beings worthy of even having a name or identity. The ‘poor choices’ view wasn’t as pronounced in the early eighties as it was in nineties, when it was the grease that sold the ‘privatization’ of social service systems advanced of course by the ‘tough on crime’ posturing of political hacks and their corporate friends.
Thank you for your powerful testimony as someone who knows the situation personally. I wish everyone could read this.
The first institution I worked at was established in 1965 as “a home for wayward and delinquent” boys, but it also functioned as the State orphanage into the twenties: the astonishing thing was that all the original handwritten ledger books , twelve large volumes,identifying who entered and who was released had been preserved as well as all the classification/court records, the
social worker correspondence with families and the released individuals had been about 80% successfully preserved. We had an active State Archives department I was working with in the early nineties to preserve the original ledgers (used until some time around WW I) and the best examples of all the other records that had accumulated) when the State Archivist office was eliminated, and I had no legal power to do do anything with them; and now I bet none of them exist.
Note: the institution was created in 1865, not 1965- I don’t see any feature to let me edit these kinds of errors once they are posted. That was one of those fat fingers tiny buttons kind of a mistake….