Burning Down the House The End of Juvenile Prison [Paperback]

In what theSan Francisco Chroniclecalled “an epic work of investigative journalism that lays bare our nation’s brutal and counterproductive juvenile prisons and is a clarion call to bring our children home,” Nell Bernstein eloquently argues that there is no good way to lock up a child. Making the radical argument that state-run detention centers should be abolished completely, her “passionate and convincing” (Kirkus) book points out that our system of juvenile justice flies in the face of everything we know about what motivates young people to change.

Called “a devastating read” by Truthout,Burning Down the Housereceived a starredPublishers Weeklyreview and was anIn These Timesrecommended summer read. Bernstein’s heartrending portraits of young people abused by the system intended to protect and “rehabilitate” them are interwoven with reporting on innovative programs that provide effective alternatives to putting children behind bars.

The result is a work that thePhiladelphia Inquirercalled “a searing indictment and a deft strike at the heart of America’s centuries-old practice of locking children away in institution”—a landmark book that has already launched a new national conversation.

Praise forBurning Down the House:
Nell Bernstein’s new book could be for juvenile justice what Rachel Carson’s book was for the environmental movement.
—Andrew Cohen, correspondent, ABC News

What adults do to children behind the walls of America’s juvenile prisons is criminal. If we want to change the United States’ senseless addiction to incarceration, the best possible place to start is transforming how our justice system treats our children. This book shows just how that can be done.
—Piper Kerman

An unflinching look at America’s unbalanced juvenill£5