Burning Down the House

The End of Juvenile Prison

By: Nell Bernstein

Narrated by: Joana Garcia

One in three American children will be arrested by the time they are 23, and many will spend time locked inside horrific detention centers that defy everything we know about what motivates young people to change. Nell Bernstein eloquently argues that there is no right way to lock up a child. The very act of isolation denies children the thing that is most essential to their growth and rehabilitation: positive relationships with caring adults.

Bernstein introduces us to youth across the nation who have suffered violence and psychological torture at the hands of the state. She presents these youths all as fully realized people, not victims. As they describe in their own voices their fight to maintain their humanity and protect their individuality in environments that would deny both, these young people offer a hopeful alternative to the doomed effort to reform a system that should only be dismantled. Interwoven with these heartrending stories is reporting on innovative programs that provide effective alternatives to putting children behind bars.

A landmark book, Burning Down the House sparked a national conversation about our inhumane and ineffectual juvenile prisons, and ultimately makes the radical argument that the only path to justice is for state-run detention centers to be abolished completely.

©2014 Nell Bernstein (P)2022 Tantor

Agree to Disagree

Although this is an important perspective and the mistreatment of any juvenile is unacceptable this work will only seek to undermine the efforts to rehabilitate child offenders. This is the work of a career journalist and not an expert or anyone who even attempted to understand the complexities of juvenile criminal procedure and tension of safety and treatment. This is tantamount to a defund the police argument for juvenile justice that falls flat. I am a career law enforcement professional who leans very left, but these are incomplete arguments at best or bad faith messaging at worst. Despite my education and experience telling me to disregard this book, I still believe it is something that criminal justice professionals should read in order to make the appropriate changes and articulate the complexities and nuances of juvenile justice.