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South Africa buries 'greatest son' Mandela
The anti-apartheid hero is being laid to rest in his ancestral village of Qunu.
domingo, 15 de dezembro de 2013
Grammar schools 'do not help poor'
BBC News - Home
Grammar schools 'do not help poor'
Grammar schools are "stuffed full" of middle-class children and do not improve social mobility, the chief inspector of schools in England says.
Affluenza: the latest excuse for the wealthy to do whatever they want | Jessica Luther
World news and comment from the Guardian | theguardian.com
Affluenza: the latest excuse for the wealthy to do whatever they want | Jessica Luther
Ethan Couch, a teenager in Texas, killed four people but got off because he comes from a rich family and 'didn't know better'
There are many reasons to feel disgust over a judge in a juvenile court in Fort Worth, Texas, sentencing 16-year-old Ethan Couch to 10 years of probation for killing four pedestrians and paralyzing his friend while driving drunk this summer.
Leading up to the tragedy that killed Breanna Mitchell (aged 24), Hollie Boyles (42) and Shelby Boyles (21) and Brian Jennings (43), Couch and a group of friends stole alcohol from a Walmart nearby. At the time of the crash, he was driving a pickup owned by Cleburne Sheet Metal, his father's company. Couch had seven passengers in his truck and a blood-alcohol content of 0.24, three times the legal limit in Texas. He also had valium in his system. Two of his passengers were severely injured, including Sergio Molina, who suffered brain damage that has left him with blinking as his only form of communication.
Couch has never denied that he was driving drunk that night, nor that he killed those people. Instead, the defense argued that Couch grew up in a family that was dysfunctional, in part because of its wealth, and that he deserved therapy, not incarceration.
During the court trial, the defense called psychologist G Dick Miller as main witness. He gave now-infamous testimony. Miller diagnosed Couch as suffering from "affluenza" where his parents' wealth fixed problems in their lives. Miller explained it this way:
The teen never learned to say that you're sorry if you hurt someone. If you hurt someone, you sent him money.
He said that Couch had an emotional age of 12 and that both of Couch's parents failed him. Miller continued:
He never learned that sometimes you don't get your way. He had the cars and he had the money. He had freedoms that no young man would be able to handle.
According to Miller, Couch was left to raise himself in a consequence-free environment. Miller advocated for Couch to receive therapy and cease contact with his parents.
The prosecutors had asked for Couch to receive 20 years in prison. Instead and as a result of the defense's argument, Judge Jean Boyd ordered Couch to a long-term, in-patient facility for therapy, no contact with his parents, and 10-years probation. His attorneys have stated that his parents have offered to pay for him to do his in-patient therapy at a center in Southern California that costs $450,000 a year. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Judge Boyd said that "she is familiar with programs available in the Texas juvenile justice system and is aware that he might not get the kind of intensive therapy in a state-run program that he could receive at the California facility suggested by his attorneys. Boyd said she had sentenced other teens to state programs but they never actually got into those programs."
Ethan Couch, therefore, will spend no time behind bars for killing four people and paralyzing another despite admitting guilt and despite the fact that the diagnosis the defense centered their case around – that of "affluenza" – is not even recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as an actual mental illness. On top of it, it appears that the judge found therapy and probation to be valid because his parents could pay for an expensive center and that he would not have to rely on the state programs. In summary, Couch got off because he comes from a wealthy family.
But there is something else going on here. It matters that Judge Boyd saw Couch as someone that not only could be rehabilitated but whom it was worth it to rehabilitate. The vast majority of kids in the juvenile justice facilities are youth of color, with only 18% of the population described as "anglo" (compare that to the fact that 44% of Texas' population of 26 million is "white" according to the latest census; Couch is white). Only 14% have parents who are still married, 52% need treatment for a capital or seriously violent crime, 48% for mental illness, and 78% for drug and/or alcohol abuse. Other than being wealthy and white, Couch and his crime match the majority of offenders in juvenile justice facilities in Texas.
There is also the point that Judge Boyd believed that Couch's chance of good rehabilitation would be at a wealthy, private, out-of-state facility.This is especially striking in Texas, a state known much more for its ever-growing privatized prison-industrial complex than its compassion for prisoners. Just this year, the Texas legislature slashed the budget of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department by $23m (despite the state having a surplus of funds). There is also an on-going battle over the possible closure of one of its health facilities for mentally ill juvenile offenders, both because of years of violence and abuse as well as being far from treatment providers. The juvenile criminal system is bad enough that one writer at the Dallas Observer asked in response to this case, "Because we condemn everybody else's kid to violent prisons, does that mean it's unjust to let any one kid go?"
Many of these problems in treating the mental health of criminals are mirrored in the adult criminal population in Texas. A 2009 report from the University of Texas showed that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) had a total of 112 facilities, only four of which were for the psychiatric care of the prisoners. According to the TDCJ's 2012 statistical report, of the 152,000 prisoners "on hand", only 3,400 were in SAFPF, or a Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility which has an "intensive six-month therapeutic community program (nine-month program for offenders with special needs)". Of the 2,600 men in those facilities, 42% are white (pdf) despite accounting for just 30% (pdf) of the overall prison population.
And Texas is just a microcosm of a larger problem throughout the US. Private prisons are growing, earning more and more money, and lobbying politicians to call for even more private prisons. Mass incarceration, of which the US is the global leader (pdf), is leading to more and more mentally ill people entering prison. It appears that only criminals like Couch – those who can afford to pay their way through expensive, private rehabilitation and therapy programs – have access to a system that has a chance of working in their favor. If judges know how poor the system is for the mentally ill, as Judge Boyd implies in her remarks regarding Texas, does that mean that they see the wealthy as more likely to be worthy of attempting true rehabilitation? Worse, does that mean even more lenient sentences for the rich?
Judge Boyd has now participated in the very cycle that she wants to break: instead of Couch having to face the tough consequences of the horrific crime he committed, his wealth has once again padded his way. She has reinforced the fact that being very wealthy and throwing money at a problem will allow you to avoid the punishments that your peers who do not have the same resources as you cannot.
Wealth literally bought this kid's way out of prison and into a facility that can help him. The tragedy this case highlights is all the children who cannot do that and will instead enter an ever-growing, ever-problematic US criminal system that will most likely fail them – and us.
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South Africa buries Nelson Mandela
USATODAY.com Feed
South Africa buries Nelson Mandela
The anti-apartheid hero is being laid to rest in his ancestral village of Qunu.
Thousands Gather to Bury Mandela in His Home Village
NYT > World
Thousands Gather to Bury Mandela in His Home Village
In a cavernous marquee set in the rolling green hills of the Eastern Cape, thousands assembled on Sunday to mourn Nelson Mandela at his state funeral.
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Miles de personas dan el último adiós a Mandela en su aldea natal
Portada de Internacional | EL PAÍS
Miles de personas dan el último adiós a Mandela en su aldea natal
Unos 4.500 invitados asisten desde las ocho de la mañana (una hora menos en la península) al funeral de Estado de Nelson Mandela en lo localidad de Qunu, en la pobre provincia de Eastern Cape. Finalmente, su amigo el arzobispo emérito de Ciudad del Cabo y uno de los activistas anti apartheid más destacados, Desmond Tutu, ha venido al último adiós después de que ayer anunciara que causaría baja y el posterior aclarado del Gobierno.
Completan la lista de personalidades los ex primer ministros franceses Alain Juppée y Lionel Jospin, la periodista Ophra Winfrey, el Príncipe de Mónaco y su mujer, la sudafricana Charlene, o el reverendo Jesse Jackson que llegaron a la enorme carpa instalada en terrenos propiedad de la familia Mandela para atender los servicios.
El día se levantó soleado y con bancos de niebla sobre esta pequeña aldea encima de suaves laderas verdes en la que Mandela se crió y volvió a pasar temporadas vacacionales una vez cumplió 27 años de prisión y fue liberado, en febrero de 1990.
El cuerpo de Mandela llegó ayer por la tarde a Qunu y pasó la noche en su residencia, velado por su familia, que esta mañana celebró en la intimidad una homilía, antes de que el ataúd fuera trasladado en la parte posterior de un camión militar hasta el lugar de las exequias.
Con los primeros acordes de la tradicional canción xkosa (la etnia de Mandela) Lizalis' idinga lakho, entró el ataúd llevado por mandos militares y escoltado por su nieto mayor y actual jefe del clan familiar, Mandla, su viuda, Graça Machel, y ex mujer, Winnie, vestidas de riguroso negro y con un tocado en la cabeza del mismo color, así como el presidente, Jacob Zuma. La caja quedó instalada delante del escenario, rodeado de grandes velas blancas y un enorme mosaico de un Mandela sonriente. Un coro mixto de góspel entonó también el himno nacional y será el encargado de la parte musical durante todo el sermón.
La ceremonia contará con los parlamentos de un nieto de Mandela, su viejo camarada Ahmed Kathrada, con el que coincidió en los 27 años de encarcelado, y como ya pasó en el acto de Soweto cerrará el turno de palabras Zuma.
Hacia las 10 está previsto que el ataúd salga de la carpa para dirigirse en procesión de nuevo al mausoleo familiar de Mandela, en el jardín de su residencia y donde yacen tres hijos suyos.
Los vecinos de Qunu recuerdan al ex presidente paseando por los prados y saludando a cualquiera que se encontraba a su paso. “Siempre tenía una sonrisa, una palabra amable”, explica Zola, que recibió algún regalo de manos del propio Mandela las navidades que éste acostumbraba a pasar en la aldea con sus hijas y nietos o Machel.
Las fuerzas de seguridad han tomado este pequeño pueblo, que hasta la llegada de Mandela a la presidencia en 1994 no contaba con electrificación ni agua potable. También en la única carretera de acceso se han multiplicado los controles y cortes al tráfico para facilitar la llegada de los numerosos invitados.
La organización vetó la participación de los vecinos de toda la vida de Mandela, que al saber la noticia de que no podían acercarse a la carpa para decir adiós a su vecino Tata quedaron decepcionados ya que sólo podrán acceder a su tumba una vez abandonen el pueblo las personalidades invitadas. El único consuelo es que pueden seguir la ceremonia a través de una pantalla gigante instalada cerca del Museo Nelson Mandela, lo mismo que se espera que hagan miles de sudafricanos en estadios y plazas. La televisión pública sudafricana retransmite en directo la señal de la ceremonia desde primera hora de la mañana. Sudáfrica pondrá hoy fin a 10 días de luto decretados el pasado 5 de diciembre cuando falleció el primer presidente negro del país, a los 95 años en su mansión de Johannesburgo.
Miles de sudafricanos se han volcado literalmente en los actos organizados por todo el país. En los lugares más emblemáticos para la vida de Mandela, como Soweto la gente se reunió para cantar y bailar en memoria del hombre que desmanteló el apartheid. Durante los tres días de la capilla ardiente abierta en la sede del Ejecutivo sudafricano en Pretoria hubo tanta gente que el viernes, el último día, la policía cerró el acceso antes del horario previsto porque no podía asumir más público. Sudáfrica, como dijo Zuma la noche que anunció la muerte, se ha quedado un poco huérfana al perder al “padre” de la nación y al héroe.
Funeral farewell to Nelson Mandela
BBC News - Home
Funeral farewell to Nelson Mandela
Political and religious leaders pay tribute to South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela before his burial in his ancestral home of Qunu.
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