Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
"It's More of a Systemic Problem."

The Los Angeles Times reports on a new federal study – the first of its kind – that found about 3 out of every 25 youths in state and privately run juvenile correctional facilities have experienced at least one incident of sexual victimization.

The study, which is the first of its kind, brings attention to the need for more training and accountability for staff members at such facilities, said Linda McFarlane, deputy executive director of Just Detention International, a nonprofit human rights organization that works on preventing abuse in detention centers.

“It’s more of a systemic problem,” she said. […] “When we put kids in custody and staff has absolute power and control over what happens to those kids, it is crucial that very careful mechanisms to check that power are put into place.”

Absolutely shameful. But I think even more concerting is the punitive stance we hold toward youth that allows for juvenile correctional facilities to be as they are in the first place. It’s fundamentally opposite to the principles of human rights, and I believe we should adopt a more welfare-based approach like much of Europe – that emphasises the societal structures and motivations that would lead youth to commit crimes to begin with.

Jan 08, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

PBS's 'The Reckoning' Recounts the Beginning Years of the International Criminal Court

An official selection of the 2009 Sundance festival, the 90-minute documentary “The Reckoning” will see its television premiere tomorrow on PBS’s POV: Point of View. The film has been lauded as a truly stirring examination of the longstanding struggles since World War II to establish an international justice system.

Over 120 countries have united to form the International Criminal Court (ICC) — the first permanent court created to prosecute perpetrators, no matter how powerful, of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. The Reckoning follows dynamic ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and his team for three years across four continents as he issues arrest warrants for Lord’s Resistance Army leaders in Uganda, puts Congolese warlords on trial, shakes up the Colombian justice system, and charges Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir with genocide in Darfur.

The film will play on most PBS stations tomorrow, July 14 at 10pm. (It’s probably best to double-check your local listings to make sure you can catch it, though.) You can also find a wealth of background information on some of the issues covered in the film at the Enough Project.

(And speaking of PBS’s POV, I also wouldn’t miss the documentary “Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go”, coming up in a few weeks.)

Jul 13, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Pope Benedict: Calling For 'A Profoundly New Way' of Organizing Capitalism

Pope Benedict XVI issued his third encyclical today – entitled “Charity in Truth” – and in it he calls for a radical reformation of the global economy, to be restructured in line with the principles of “love, truth and charity”.

“The conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from ‘influences’ of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way. In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social freedom, and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise.”

The Washington Post’s Thomas Reese summarizes:

In his encyclical, Benedict calls for charity guided by truth. “Charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples,” he says. “Justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs,” he writes. “Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.”

Our economic and financial systems should hold at their center a desire for “the common good,” Pope Benedict writes. They should be guided not by profit alone but in hand with “an ethics which is people-centered” we should recognize that “the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side.”

It’s certainly a profoundly different idea of what should drive capitalism and be at the center of our societies. As Reese points out:

Although Benedict’s emphasis in the encyclical is on the theological foundations of Catholic social teaching, amid the dense prose there are indications, as shown above, that he is to the left of almost every politician in America. What politician would casually refer to “redistribution of wealth” or talk of international governing bodies to regulate the economy? Who would call for increasing the percentage of GDP devoted to foreign aid? Who would call for the adoption of “new life-styles ‘in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments’”?

Jul 07, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #