Locked Out - Injustice in the Justice System. - Video

Holden is just one of the 2.4 million people who was entrapped within the criminal justice system. After his release from prison he does all he can to make it in a world that does all it can to keep him “Locked Out.”

The systematic and state sanctioned disenfranchisement of people with criminal records creates second-class citizens, as people are stripped of their right to vote and their chance to challenge oppressive policies. Being excluded from access to public housing, educational loans and jobs makes bettering their lives an unattainable American Dream.

Via:    http://goo.gl/cP2jEm

Exonerations, Compensation for Wrongful Convictions in the US

Via:   http://goo.gl/Xy7QYi

Migration-Related Detention Centers: The Challenges of an Ecological Perspective with a Focus on Justice

BACKGROUND:

In recent years, border control and migration-related detention have become increasingly widespread practices affecting the lives of undocumented migrants, their families, and communities at large. In spite of the concern within academia, few studies have directly witnessed the life and experiences of people confined to migration-related detention centers. In the medical and psychological fields, a considerable body of research has demonstrated the pathogenic nature of detention in terms of mental health, showing an association between length of detention and severity of distress. Nevertheless, it was limited to the assessment of individuals' clinical consequences, mainly focusing on asylum seekers. There currently exists a need to adopt an ecological perspective from which to study detained migrants' experiences as context-dependent, and influenced by power inequalities. This paper addresses this gap.

DISCUSSION:

Drawing upon advances in community psychology, we illustrate an ecological framework for the study of migration-related detention contexts, and their effects on the lives of detained migrants and all people exposed to them. Making use of existing literature, Kelly's four principles (interdependence, cycling of resources, adaptation, succession) are analyzed at multiple ecological levels (personal, interpersonal, organizational, communal), highlighting implications for future research in this field. A focus on justice, as a key-dimension of analysis, is also discussed. Wellbeing is acknowledged as a multilevel, dynamic, and value-dependent phenomenon.

SUMMARY:

In presenting this alternative framework, the potential for studying migration-related detention through an ecological lens is highlighted, pointing the way for future fields of study. We argue that ecological multilevel analyses, conceptualized in terms of interdependent systems and with a focus on justice, can enhance the comprehension of the dynamics at play in migration-related detention centers, providing an effective tool to address the multi-level challenges of doing research within them. Furthermore, they can contribute to the development of policies and practices concerned with health, equality, and human rights of all people exposed to migration-related detention. Consistent with these assumptions, empirical studies adopting such a framework are strongly encouraged. These studies should use mixed and multi-method culturally situated designs, based on the development of collaborative and empowering relationships with participants. Ethnographic approaches are recommended.

Below: Kelly’s four principles, and the dimension of justice across multiple ecological levels of analysis. Interdependence, Cycling of Resources, Adaptation, Succession, and Justice are interdependent components, whose effects, across multiple ecological levels (personal, interpersonal, organizational, communal), are interactive rather than additive

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/to7ws5

By:  Esposito F1, Ornelas J2, Arcidiacono C3.

• 1ISPA, University Institute, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 32, 1137-039, Lisbon, Portugal. fesposito@ispa.pt.
• 2ISPA, University Institute, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 32, 1137-039, Lisbon, Portugal. jornelas@ispa.pt.
• 3Department of Humanities, Federico II University of Naples, Via Porta di Massa, 1, 80133, Naples, Italy. caterina.arcidiacono@unina.it. 
• BMC Int Health Hum Rights. 2015 Jun 6;15:13. doi: 10.1186/s12914-015-0052-0.

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'Positive Women: Exposing Injustice' Criminalization of HIV and Women in Canada

Via:  http://goo.gl/SbpGLf

Hymen Reconstruction as Pragmatic Empowerment? Results of a Qualitative Study from Tunisia

Hymen reconstruction surgery (HR), while ethically controversial, is now available in many countries. Little clinical evidence and hardly any surgical standards support the intervention. Nearly as scarce is social science research exploring women's motivations for the intervention, and health care professionals' justifications for its provision. 

In order to better understand decision-making processes, we conducted semi-structured interviews in metropolitan Tunis, in 2009, with six women seeking the procedure, four friends who supported such women, four physicians who perform the operation, and one midwife. 

Health care professionals and patient companions expressed moral ambivalence about HR: although they could comprehend the individual situation of the women, they expressed concern that availability of the procedure might further entrench the patriarchal norms that compel the motivation for seeking HR in the first place. Some women seeking HR shared this concern, but felt it was not outweighed by their personal aims, which were to marry and become mothers, or to overcome past violent sexual experiences. 

The women felt HR to be uniquely helpful in achieving these aims; all made pragmatic decisions about their bodies in a social environment dominated by patriarchal norms. The link between HR and pervasive gender injustice, including the credible threat of serious social and physical harm to women perceived to have failed to uphold the norm of virginity before marriage, raises questions about health care professionals' responsibility while facing requests for HR. 

Meaningful regulatory guidance must acknowledge that these genuine harms are at stake; it must do so, however, without resorting to moral double standards. We recommend a reframing of HR as a temporary resource for some women making pragmatic choices in a context of structural gender injustice. We reconfirm the importance of factual sexual and reproductive education, most importantly to counter distorted beliefs that conflate an "intact hymen" with virginity.

Purchase full article at: http://goo.gl/1SKxgI

By: Wild V1, Poulin H2, McDougall CW3, Stöckl A4, Biller-Andorno N5.

• 1University of Zurich, Switzerland; Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany. Electronic address: wild@ethik.uzh.ch.
• 2EHESS, Paris, France.
• 3University of Toronto, Canada.
• 4University of East Anglia, Norwich, Great Britain, United Kingdom.
• 5University of Zurich, Switzerland.  

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