Author and former inmate of Virginia’s corrections system details his experience as a child tried and sentenced as an adult
Legal Aid Justice Center:
Who: | R. Dwayne Betts, poet and author of A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival and Coming of Age in Prison. Betts was tried and convicted as an adult for a crime he committed at the age of 16. Now released and pursuing a master’s degree at Warren Wilson College, Mr. Betts has just published his memoir titled A Question of Freedom which details his experience. Mr. Betts also recently rallied to defend The Quest Bookshop’s “Books Behind Bars” program when the Virginia Department of Corrections attempted to shut it down. | ||
What: | Reading and book signing | ||
When: | 3:00 p.m., Monday, October 19, 2009 | ||
Where: | The Quest Bookshop, 619 West Main Street, Charlottesville, VA 22903 | ||
Why: | To raise public awareness of a pressing social issue that affects human rights and public safety for all Americans. At any given time, more than 2 million people are in prison in the United States. While the prison population increases, states continue to shut down education, treatment and vocational programs—leaving many parolees unprepared for life after release. Even worse, each year thousands of teenagers like Dwayne Betts are tried and sentenced as adults. Although research confirms that treating youth as adults increases the likelihood that they will re-offend upon release, in Virginia alone approximately 700 youth each year are convicted of felonies as adults, many of them non-violent offenders. | ||
About the Legal Aid Justice Center
The Legal Aid Justice Center offers free civil legal services to low-income families throughout Central Virginia and to low-wage immigrant workers, children and institutionalized persons statewide, while also engaging in systematic legal advocacy for all low-income Virginians. For more information, please visit our website at www.justice4all.org
Contacts:
At the Legal Aid Justice Center:
Andrew Block,
434-882-2667
andy@justice4all.org
or
At
The Quest Bookshop:
Kay Allison, 434-295-3377
