Book review: Abrams, L.S. and Anderson-Nathe, B. (2013). Compassionate confinement: A year in the life of unit C. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. 188pp., ISBN 978-0-8135-5412-9

I have to admit that I approached this review with some prejudices. When working at the University of Strathclyde, I took part in the Social Work Department's long-standing exchange with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. On one of my trips there I asked to visit a juvenile justice facility. The request itself took people a bit by surprise for juvenile justice was not really considered to be part of social work but was located firmly within a criminal justice paradigm. The memory of the visit remains with me; there was certainly confinement but little evidence of compassion. Kids, often untried, were held in cells off a main hallway and slopped out in metal buckets. This experience more than any other highlighted to me the fact that America had not and continues not to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.