Between The Lines - Ashley Nellis, research analyst of The Sentencing Project: Issues of Juvenile Justice: Lifelong Obstacles (Week Ending Oct. 7, 2011)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

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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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

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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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

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.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"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.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

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.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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New Policies in Juvenile Justice System Obstruct Goal of Youth Rehabilitation

RealAudio MP3

Posted Sept. 28, 2011

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