David Ramsey, writing for the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network in an article in the Times, reports on the firing of a guard for choking a child at the Alexander Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, a lockup for juvenile offenders.
A new private, for-profit operator, Rite of Passage, was hired to run the center last year, but an advocate for children says an overly punitive approach continues, which she likened to a “culture of casual violence.”
Advertisement
The article delves, beyond the handling of the specific case that led to a firing, into the belief that large lockups, nominally intended to rehabilitate, harm rather than help the people they hold.