Innholdsfortegnelse for Oct-27-14 i The New Yorker

CRIMINAL INJUSTICE Jennifer Gonnerman’s article exposes a brutal correctional system (“Before the Law,” October 6th). No civilized society should do to a child what New York did to Kalief Browder on Rikers Island. He tells Gonnerman that he is “mentally scarred,” and this is likely post-traumatic stress—an inevitable consequence of the treatment he received. Browder’s experiences are not unheard of in the juvenile-justice system, but it is worth noting that New York, unlike most states, treats sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds as adults; this decreases the chances that they will emerge from prison as productive members of society. The city’s plan to end solitary confinement of adolescents like Brow der by the end of this year is long overdue. Solitary confinement is a human-rights violation, and banning its use is a…

When the corn gave,a boy was sucked to the bottomof the cement silo whose wallshe was paid almost nothingto scrape clean with a steel pole.It took thirty-five men to pull his bodyfrom the outlet spout. Corn had plugged his nostrils,ears, and throat as far downas his lungs. In the calf barn,rescuers cleared the fieldof his face, a few fistfuls of graina calf sluggishly ateon its way out to pasture. In the Iliad, the momentDolon, young, ugly, volunteeredto spy on the Argives whenno one else would, he was doomedto have his weasel cap strippedwhile his head rolled into a trenchdarkened with other sons’ blood where his mouth would slowly fillwith blades of grass.…