Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Joseph’s birthday is May 29. He is in a difficult and depressing situation. I know a few cards would brighten his day.
Here is Joseph’s address:
Joseph Lee Allen #A293-486
Belmont Correctional Institution
P. O. Box 540
68518 Bannock Road
St. Clairsville, Ohio 43950
Here are some previous posts about the Smith/Allen case:
https://bobchatelle.net/category/smithallen
-Bob
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
This article, by NCRJ director Emily Horowitz, addresses the past few decades of mass media coverage of crimes against children and the new laws, including the explosion of sex offender laws, aimed at protecting them, by placing rampant media coverage and extensive new legislation in a broader historical and social context, in an effort to understand the causes and consequences of the historic and persistent hysteria and irrationality about this issue. Horowitz argues that child protection efforts emerge from the telling of sensational stories about abused children and abusive adults, transmitted in ways that support American cultural beliefs concerning individual responsibility for personal behavior and economic circumstances. Specifically, Horowitz uses examples of how this narrative persists in mass media, by examining the content and frequency of stories about child abuse. While data and research consistently show that crimes against children are inexorably linked to poverty and economic distress, the mass media story about child abuse focuses on the most egregious and statistically rarest cases (e.g., child kidnapping by strangers). Consequently, or correspondingly, laws emerge that sanction these exceedingly unusual events (e.g. child sexual abuse by strangers), and this narrative regarding the behaviors of evil and immoral people creates and maintains a misguided and ineffective approach to child protection, in the structural realms of American social welfare, criminal and legislative policies.
Get the full article here.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
An editorial by NCRJ Advisor Dr. Susan Robbins. Dr, Robbins reviews the history of the DSM as psychiatry evolved from being psychoanalytically based towards a biomedical model. Robbins says “Each DSM revision attempted to add a patina of scientific discovery, despite the failure to empirically denonstrate major advances in either reliability or validity.” She also points out that “The very fact that diagnoses can be voted in or out, based on little more than the opinions of the persons charged with revising or creating those diagnoses, or as a result of political activism, speaks directly to the ideological and constructivist nature of the diagnostic enterprise.” She expresses concern about social work programs that require a DSM course with a lack of critical thinking about the DSM. Social workers must do more than simply assign a DSM diagnoses. She also aruges that “the continued lack of reliability and validity in DSM diagnoses combined with a narrow biologic etiology also raises etical and practical issues related to its use in research.”
Read the full editorial, posted here with Dr. Robbins’ permission.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
The case of Robert Hill, convicted of murder in 1988 on the eyewitness accounts of some high crackheads, brings the Catch-22 of parole to the fore. Thinking it would get him paroled, Hill expressed remorse for a crime he says he did not commit. It’s a perennial problem for attorneys appealing false convictions.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
NPR’s “This American Life” airs an intelligent and compassionate story about a young pedophile who has never offended and is helping other young pedophiles not to offend.
This story was suggested to Luke Malone by NCRJ Board Member Debbie Nathan.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
It has long been said, in varying language, that a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. You do not have to reach back 200 years to Scotland to find enduring wisdom in that adage. You need return only to the 1980s and to the subject of this week’s Retro Report documentary video, part of a series re-examining news stories from the past. This week’s subject is the notorious McMartin Preschool abuse trial.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
NCRJ President Mike Snedeker is interviewed for The Atlantic.
http://69.195.124.104/~ncrjorg/in-texas-a-new-law-lets-defendants-fight-bad-science/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
By Mark Godsey
Director, Center for the Global Study of Wrongful Conviction;
Director, Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project
http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2014/02/13/woody-allen-and-the-virtual-lynch-mob/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
“While I, of course, cannot be certain about what happened any more than those who would condemn Allen on the spot, I can say this: Some of the earmarks of a false allegation can be seen in this case. There are reasons to be concerned, just as many of the investigators and child psychologists were so gravely concerned when they closely interviewed the seven-year-old Dylan Farrow back in 1992 and told the authorities they believed the allegations were false.”
http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2014/02/13/woody-allen-and-the-virtual-lynch-mob/
The writer, Mark Godsey, heads the Ohio Innocence Project.
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