Atul Gawande Essay

1028 Words5 Pages
“Hellhole” and “We Need To Talk About An Injustice” In Atul Gawande’s article in the New Yorker “Hell Hole” in this article he wrote an eye-opening piece about the conditions of solitary confinement as well as the negative effects that long term solitary confinement has on a good amount of the prisoners. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and journalist, asks the question “is this torture?” Gawande makes the point that long term solitary confinement serves no purpose, that the justice system is actually hurting the prisoner rather than rehabilitating the prisoner and also that there are a lot of prisoners who have medical issues such as ADHD, these should be examined and treated before being sentenced to long term confinement. Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer, a professor and also the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative spoke at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) convention, We Need To Talk About An Injustice. In this speech Bryan Stevenson made a lot of good points. One of those good points was how the American justice system treats certain juvenile delinquents. Stevenson remembered a case where the judge declared that a 14 year old would be waived, meaning he would stand trial as an adult. He said to himself “How can a judge turn a child into an adult? The judge must have super powers.” He believes that the average African American male is not really protected through the justice system, mainly because it was not built to protect them. So after the judge made his ruling Stevenson thought of ways he could turn this young, poor, black male into a 74 year old, wealthy, white man. According to the NAACP African American males now make up a total of nearly 1 million of the overall 2.3 million incarcerated populations. Also stating that “nationwide, African Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44% of youth who are detained, 46% of
Open Document