Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison

In what the San Francisco Chronicle called “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 House received a starred Publishers Weekly review and was an In These Times recommended 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 the Philadelphia Inquirer called “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.