Nell Bernstein

It is not ordinary to see people lined up around the block to hear a panel discussion on juvenile justice. But on the evening of Jan. 14 in downtown Oakland, California, nearly 200 people gathered for a conversation about, as moderator Lateefah Simon of the Rosenberg Foundation put it, “how we end the brutal systems we’ve created.”

Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison, a new book by Nell Bernstein, steps back for a longer look at the juvenile justice system. In synthesizing years of studies and research, Bernstein makes a case for why the juvenile justice system may be failing in its mission to provide rehabilitation to children.