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Physical Abuse In Nell Bernstein's Burning Down The House

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When I first started reading, ‘Burning Down the House,’ by Nell Bernstein, I was surprised at what juveniles went through while in jail. One of the chapters that caught my attention the most was chapter 5, called “The Fist and the Boot.” This chapter covered physical abuse in jail, and while reading the chapter, one of the examples of physical abuse which stood out to me the most was on page 84, where it said that, “In Mississippi, guards ripped the clothing from suicidal girls, then hog-tied them, naked and tossed them into solitary.” When I read this, I was shocked that the prison in Mississippi could even do that. Ripping clothes from suicidal girls and hog-tying them naked will not help them at all, that will only make them worse for them. …show more content…

before I read this chapter, I had known that being reentered back into society was hard, but I didn’t know it was as hard as the book describes. All I knew was that if the person had a felon, they could have a hard time finding a job or getting some of the things that people who didn’t go to jail could easily get. In chapter 9, it talks about David, who was seventeen when he was convicted of armed robbery. Even though he is twenty-two now and is out of jail, he is having a hard time finding a job because of his criminal background. One of the main things he said was that in jail, they dedicate a lot of time with providing the juveniles with tools they need to succeed outside of jail, but once they are out of jail, the tools and resources they have won’t help them. This surprised me because I thought that the programs in jail were made to help the people reenter society when they were out of jail, but from what I read, it isn’t that way. During the time frame that I have wanted to be an officer, I thought it was a great idea to have programs in jail to help the people when they are done with jail because I thought it could help them. I was disappointed to find out that what I thought would work didn’t. Because of this, I’m wondering if there is a way to have programs that the people in jail can participate

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