Prosecuting Youth As Adults Creates Racial Disparities and ‘Justice-By-Geography’ [JJIE.org]

As an adjudicated "Youthful Offender" (supposedly no "Criminal Record"), I saw the inside of two [New York] "Correctional Facilities" (Elmira [formerly - "Reformatory"], and Attica "State Prison"-1970-71 [just before the "rebellion"].

In Elmira, I had an index card on my cell wall, with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: "To Punish a man, you must Injure Him; To Reform a man, you must Improve him; and men are Not Improved by Injuries." [I noted on the card the quote was from George B. Shaw]. During a "shakedown search" of the entire prison, months later, that index card was the only item taken/confiscated from my cell.

One of the Chaplains there, at the time, was president of the American Correctional Chaplains Association, and had [earlier] testified before the U.S. House Un-American Activities Commission, urging the need for  Maximum-Maximum Security Institutions for "militant prisoners"-where they'd remain in their cells, alone, 23 1/2 hours per day.... [that testimony was presented before the Attica Rebellion].

The telephone conversation transcripts of calls between then President Richard Nixon, and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, around the time of the Attica 'rebellion', became available in 2011, and are available at the "Attica 40" Conference (40th Attica rebellion Anniversary conference at SUNY-Buffalo Law School) Facebook page. A [then] New Hampshire Historian reviewed the transcripts, and presented at the SUNY-Buffalo Law School Conference, and the video of her presentation and discussion are also included in the Facebook page.

Please let me take this opportunity to publicly thank the American Arbitration Association's National Center for Dispute Settlement's Rochester, New York office for assembling a gender/racial balance of former prisoners and guards who trained and served together as part of the AAA/NCDS [nationwide] Prison Dispute Mediation Team; thanks also to AAA Board members Herbert Heaton and Mark Gelber who oversaw its development, and AAA/NCDS [Rochester] Tribunal Director James T. Ellis for initiating the project. I don't immediately recall the [last name of the] SUNY-Brockport faculty member who provided "technical assistance" for our training, but she [Catherine ____] is deserving of note, as well.