An amazingly gripping article about a subject that is painfully in need of more public discussion. The problem, as I see it, is that the subject is boring, lacks news media ‘sexiness,’ most people (75% by the article’s own statistics) cannot relate to the issue, most people can’t even begin to imagine the horror that is sitting in a jail cell with predatory and/or insane people free to act out however their demons direct and a subject that must be experienced to truly empathize with those who are tossed in jail for the first time. This conversation has been intentionally overlooked for in excess of 35 years.
This issue goes back further than Rudy Giuliani’s tenure as mayor to the argument of law enforcement being used to enforce morality, at the expense of enforcing amoral (amoral not in a bad way) laws against crime objectively far more damaging to societal order. I can recall several long discussions of this problem as an undergraduate in criminal justice courses that were part of the required course of a political science major.
This article does a masterful job of making a gripping subject of an issue that can, to say the least, create an instant cure for insomnia. Kudos to Ms. Kirkland.