Nonfiction

[rivkat]

Comments

[ter369]

The firefighter narrative goes on my list.

Seeing your Wonder Woman icon reminds me of the Katie Holmes up for casting rumors. Meh.

[rivkat]

Oh God no. She's already threatening to ruin Batman Begins for me (though to be fair, the voice Christian Bale uses as Batman might do that anyway). I like the idea of Charisma Carpenter, actually.

[ter369]

I hear you on the she-might-muck-up-Batman Begins.

Ditto, on the Charisma Carpenter (excellent) idea.

I don't want to see someone who comes off as a bland fourteen year old as Wonder Woman. And I don't really know the character's mythos. It just seems off.

[destina]

He argues for a resource-intensive program focusing on the sixteen percent of kids who become repeat offenders, starting when they commit petty offenses the system currently ignores as not important compared to the murders and armed robberies happening right now.

I'm intimately involved with the California juvenile justice system, and he's right; early intervention programs and prevention-based strategies are the only way to go. (You really wouldn't believe the number of felony juvenile cases that are plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor prior to adjudication because the courts and public defenders are too overwhelmed to really care. Or maybe you would. *g*) Unfortunately, our beloved governor sees prevention programs funded by state dollars as expendable bargaining chips in his war with various government agencies like the California Youth Authority. It's a shame, because these have been proven to be our best and most effective methods of preventing juvenile crime.

[morgandawn]

I have been so clueless - I had no idea you were a fellow Californian. North or South?

[destina]

South. :)

[morgandawn]

Hey, have you ever made it to any of the local slashbashes down there? I wish we had something like that up here.

[vivwiley]

He argues for a resource-intensive program focusing on the sixteen percent of kids who become repeat offenders, starting when they commit petty offenses the system currently ignores as not important compared to the murders and armed robberies happening right now. Like western civilization, it sounds like a good idea.Interesting - I wonder if this (i.e., intensive services focusing on a particularly problematic population) is going to be the newest vogue in policy debates particularly as "discretionary" spending dollars (i.e., everything at the Federal level that isn't defense, medicare, medicaid, social security or debt service) are increasingly crunched. I just attended a presentation by one of the leading researchers on homelessness prevention and policy and his point was very similar - there are some very simple and relatively inexpensive interventions (primarily small housing subsidies over defined, and often short durations of time) that will "cure" 85-90% of homelessness situations (among homeless families, anyway, there is a

[luvmax1]

Have you read David Simon's books- Homicide:A Year on the Killing Streets (on which the incredible TV show was based), and The Corner, about the families and addicts in one Baltimore neighborhood. They're both in the vein of the first book you reviewed (which I'd like to read), and they're both great. I just finished rereading "The COrner" for about the tenth time- I'm tempted to order the DVD of the miniseries off Amazon.

[rivkat]

I read "Homicide" but not "The Corner" -- you're right, I should probably read that too. If you're interested in the juvenile aspects, there's a book called "Turning Stones" by a guy doing child protective services in NYC that is also incredibly powerful. And "Random Family," which seems to cover related ground, is on my to-read shelf.

[luvmax1]

I'll check those out, thanks.

Another rec

[anonymous]

Not that you need more to read, but you might also want to check out A kind and just parent: the children of juvenile court by William Ayers.

-Syb