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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 8, 2019)
THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 // 19 BOOKMONGER Youth behind bars I’ve been fretting about the immigrant kids incar- cerated at the United States’ southern border. Surely all of us recognize that children require nurturing – without it, how do they become fully human? The con- ditions those youngsters are living in due to current United States government policies are causing psycho- logical and physical duress and, no doubt, long-term trauma. This episode will come back to haunt society, perhaps through generations. I bring this up because I’ve just finished reading “Children in Prison,” Jerome Gold’s third and final book about working for 15 years as a rehabilitation counselor in “Ash Meadow” (a fic- titious name), one of Washington state’s prisons for juvenile offenders. Although Gold is writing about a home-grown demographic, not the immigrant children, he offers profound insights into the challenges of taking care of incarcerated youngsters. A reader could certainly draw some alarming par- allels. In either case, does our society know what it’s doing? And if it is aware, why – for pity’s sake – doesn’t it care enough to insist on making meaningful changes? When Ash Meadow was built in the 1960s, it was intended to serve as an intervention facility – a time- out space for at-risk youth. But within 20 years, and with the rise of youth gangs and the drug econ- omy, it had become a prison. Gold writes that the young people he worked with at Ash Meadow lived “in a world they have little power to affect, whether in or out of prison … almost all had the ill luck to be born into the lower strata of the American class system with its concentrations of drug and alcohol abuse and addic- tion, domestic and neighbor- hood violence, lack of effec- tive supervision of children, joblessness and underem- ployment, housing instabil- ity, untreated or inadequately treated mental illness and poor education.” Gold chronicles the expe- riences of six juveniles – two girls and four boys – who were sent to Ash Meadow for offenses they had committed, and who eventually aged out of the system and were sent on to adult prison facilities, or were released after serv- ing their time. Their out- looks and their outcomes have been varied. Some seemed to find their foot- ing, others fell back into their accustomed ways and ended up right back in prison. Gold points out THIS WEEK’S BOOK “Children in Prison” By Jerome Gold McFarland – 218 pp – $35 these kids have led disrupted lives for a variety of reasons: parental neglect, abuse, poverty, violence, drugs and homelessness resulting in crippling gaps in their education and familiarity with social norms. One extremely bright kid had never known there were other colleges besides the University of Washington. Another boy had never learned how to read. In another pathetic case, when one 14-year-old girl’s mother simply vanished, that girl dropped out of school, got a job and tried to raise her younger sib- lings. She was shocked, then, when they reported her for physical abuse, because that was how their mother had always punished them – “how else were they to learn if they did something wrong…?” “Children in Prison” is heartbreaking and eye-open- ing and utterly worthwhile. The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Pacific Northwest. Con- tact her at bkmonger@nwlink.com Planting Educational Seeds within Our Communities Watch for upcoming live cooking, yoga & art classes Mr.niceguy.wellness1 Mr Nice Guy 20 Locations Statewide - Find us on: • LARGE CBD SELECTION Receive up to • VAPE PENS your your purchase when you donate canned food supplies. • GLASS and ACCESSORIES 15% OFF Additional Coastal Locations: ASTORIA • 690 Olney Ave • 503-741-3420 ASTORIA • 730 Bond Street • 503-741-3666 ROCKAWAY BEACH • 656 US-101 • 971-306-1313 ONLINE ORDERING FOR ALL LOCATIONS AT MRNICEGUYOR.COM
