Review by Kirkus Book Review
Sullivan provides a comprehensive overview and sharp critique of the ways in which innocent children are harmed by the criminal justice system. The author, an associate professor of international studies and global affairs at St. Mary's University, begins his remarkably thorough study by observing that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world; while this is pointed out often enough, the consequences of this fact for the children of those imprisoned and detained is a strangely neglected subject. Sullivan focuses on these "collateral consequences," the many ways in which the blameless children of those arrested, detained, or deported suffer from a "vicarious punishment." Several categories of these sanctions are explored, including the denial of citizenship to the children of non-citizens deported or detained, family separations imposed at the border that leave children without their parents, the "denationalization" of children of those accused of terrorist activity, and the separation of Indigenous children from families that were seen as resistant to full assimilation. The author prosecutes a persuasive case detailing the unacceptable imbalance between the needs of preventive justice and deterrence on the one hand and the rights of children on the other: "Preventive justice approaches prioritize risk management over individual civil liberties and the presumption of innocence." He discusses the practice of meting out "stealth punishments disguised as administrative sanctions," disingenuously strategic ways to legally impose harsh penalties upon those who have committed no crime. Sullivan also lucidly discusses technically prohibitive subjects such as competing theories of punishment, rendered in admirably accessible language. The author can advocate too unreservedly for rehabilitation, especially given its spotty empirical track record. And some may object to the idea that, in the case of detention for an immigration violation, job training and education should be provided to "help the detainee to grow as a human being," as this assertion goes far beyond the respect of individual liberties. Still, this is a rigorously researched and argued assessment of the ways in which the criminal justice system unduly disadvantages children who have committed no offense. An impressively synoptic treatment of a complex and important subject. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
