Friday, October 16, 2009

New Warden for ME State Prison - how's the media coverage?

Fresh from the Thumb of Michigan comes warden Patricia Barnhart,  with twenty years of service behind her and a respectful record of corrections reform, particularly in the Michigan systems' treatment of incarcerated minors and mothers.

Today's news coverage of the announcement of her appointment to be first woman warden of Maine State Prison, in the   Bangor DailyNews , "Prison activists: Reform Needed" 

For a backstory, here are some interesting Michigan news bits on Barnhart:


Adolescent Women in Prison Respond better to Nurturing than Harsh Discipline
"Patricia Barnhart, warden at a Michigan prison and founder of trueprison.com, has spent the last ten years working with behavioral scientists at the University of Michigan to put together a program for rehabilitating young girls. After an estimated 12 million dollars in research and facility upgrades, she believes they have found a solution for dealing with troubled female offenders."

Teen lifers a burden for state's prisons  "Prison Warden Patricia Barnhart said some of those housed at her facility, who as teens were sentenced to life, could safely be released back into the community. "Absolutely," she said. "The question becomes: Are you scared of them, or are you mad at them? When we're locking up people because we're mad at them, we're compromising our resources."


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Click here for a cases brought by inmates against Patricia Barnhart as Michigan Corrections official.
Access to PACER necessary . PACER =national federal court docket program