Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.
Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.
His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.
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Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement
Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris
Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.
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who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!
For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video
Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.
Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.
"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.
Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.
Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.
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Interview with Ashley Nellis, research analyst with The Sentencing Project, conducted by Melinda Tuhus
For decades of criminal justice practice in the U.S., juveniles were considered to have a special status, different from adult offenders, by virtue of their age and higher likelihood of rehabilitation. The criminal justice system put in place a process to insulate young people from the negative consequences of being thrown in with adult prisoners and being branded a “criminal.” Prosecutors followed procedures that allowed the conviction of young offenders to remain confidential matters.
But over the past 20 years, the U.S. has seen a near reversal in the handling of youth crime, moving from an emphasis on private rehabilitation to public accountability. Even as the death penalty for juveniles was declared unconstitutional in 2005, juveniles have been treated increasingly like adult offenders, with criminal records that follow them the rest of their lives. Upon release, young offenders -- even those incarcerated for relatively minor offenses -- face what are often lifelong barriers to securing employment, housing, obtaining health care and enrolling in college.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Ashley Nellis, research analyst with The Sentencing Project, about her recent article, “Addressing Collateral Consequences of Convictions for Young Offenders,” which appeared in The Champion, published by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Here, Nellis discusses the obstacles facing young offenders long after they serve their sentence and pay their debt to society.
ASHLEY NELLIS: With this piece, I was really trying to highlight the fact that even for those who commit less serious crimes and get involved with either the juvenile or the criminal justice systems, the sanctions go way beyond what the courts impose, in terms of when the person is released from the system and tries to re-integrate into society. And for a young person, you know that's a very crucial period of their lives when they are transitioning into adulthood, and they face a number of barriers to that successful transition because of collateral consequences imposed by other systems other than the criminal and juvenile justice system, such as the education system, the housing system, public benefits, employment and things like that, where they sort of get the punishment after the punishment.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Can you give some specific examples of these impacts?
ASHLEY NELLIS: If you have a felony conviction you can be disqualified from public education grants, you can be disqualified certainly from voting, from housing assistance or living in public housing -- or even visiting public housing in certain cases – and also from certain employment opportunities or even getting into college in some places now, because where they used to ask on applications whether you had had a conviction, now they ask many times on applications whether you've ever been arrested. And so juveniles, when a juvenile is adjudicated in the juvenile justice system, that's not considered a conviction. So they can honestly answer no to that question if they're asked if they've ever been convicted. But they have been arrested, and that presents a red flag automatically, even though our juvenile justice system was based on the premise that youth should be safeguarded from these collateral sanctions because of their young age and their great potential for reform.
BETWEEN THE LINES: What about juveniles being listed in criminal registries, like sex offenders' registries?
ASHLEY NELLIS: They used to be more protected. Now there are many more states and now the federal system which mandates that young people as young as 14 years old who are convicted of a sex offense are put on registries, and those can be life-long registries. And with the Internet now, and all of these searchable data bases, convictions for any age can be identified; now you pay $10 and you can see somebody's whole past, whether or not it would have any implications on their current employment or education. So it's sort of the combination of both of those that makes someone's delinquest past much more open to public view.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Ashley Nellis, what are you proposing to deal with this steady erosion of what used to be the special status of juveniles not to be treated like adults in the criminal justice system?
ASHLEY NELLIS: There is this growing awareness among the public and the courts and even in some legislatures that kids are different from adults. This is not news to people who have been experts in the juvenile justice system and have watched it transition from its beginnings in 1899 - because the juvenile justice system was created on that knowledge and belief - that juveniles are different than adults; that's why they need a different system. But we got way off track with that, particularly in the '80s and '90s. And so the greatest thing we can do is return to that earlier belief - to that earlier treatment of juveniles, where they were considered deserving of a separate system and uniquely capable of reform - and privacy for their misdeeds, because of the long-term ramifications of publicizing that information. So that would be one thing - just that shift in the way we view juveniles would do a lot. But we also need to provide special protections for youth because of the easy access to information that the Internet offers, and also these mandated registries. All of those are ways that somebody's offenses as a young person can haunt them for the rest of their lives despite the fact that they have changed, and matured into a law-abiding adult.
For more information on The Sentencing Project, visit www.sentencingproject.org/ctc
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