Author, Expert & Speaker

Mark Roseman

Prisons have become mental health asylums. The data is overwhelming. While researching my last post about Dorothea Dix, an early advocate for mentally ill prisoners, I learned more about the how mentally ill persons are treated in prison populations. I also became aware of parameters that proscribe the legal rights of mentally ill inmates.… Read the rest

It’s easy to lose your mind in prison. The insane world of forced routine accentuated by culture clashes, boredom, and the loss of personal freedoms can cause people to question their sanity. In February 2005, I wrote a quote from John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row in my personal journal. Sitting on my bunk on a cold and dark winter day, I was looking for a way to express my depressed mood.… Read the rest

Donald Trump is a foe of prison reform. It’s not surprising. The president’s track record for keeping promises on critical social issues regularly washes away those promises like footprints on the seashore. Consider the foul record on his key campaign speeches—affordable healthcare for all, tax reform for the middle class, and economic recovery (jobs, jobs, jobs)—as examples of Trump’s governance misfeasance.… Read the rest

We’re all going to die. We’re not all going to prison. Is there a connection between the popularity of prison-themed programming and our fear of dying? Put another way, why are movies and television programs about prison so popular to people who will never see the inside of a jail or prison?… Read the rest

In April 2001, the Prison Law Office in Berkeley, California, filed a bold class action on behalf of California prisoners. The lawsuit, filed in the US Supreme Court, brought front and center a pernicious, festering problem that the California prison administrators had ignored, or worse, didn’t care about. The issue was overcrowding and the problems associated with inmates being forced to live, eat, work, and sleep in cramped, unsafe, and unhealthy environments.… Read the rest

We live in exasperating times. With a let’s-make-a-deal president in charge, what’s ensued is a frightening roller coaster ride of deceit, corruption, and incompetency. There’s a long list of substantial failures, including health care reform, the deregulation of Wall Street and environmental controls, hateful immigration ploys, the alienation of world allies—need I go on?… Read the rest

Statistics from The National Center for Victims of Crime website reveal that one in five girls and one in twenty boys is a victim of child sexual abuse (CSA). A 2009 study by The National Child Trauma Stress Network finds that “as many as 1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of 6 boys will experience some form of sexual abuse before the age of 18.”… Read the rest

A lot of time in prison is spent thinking about getting out; it’s natural. For any trapped animal, escaping captivity is instinctive and deeply wired. Being held captive is traumatic for wild animals. A March 6, 2017, Time magazine article entitled “The Future of Zoos,” reveals that “new discoveries about the environment of animals are raising difficult questions about keeping wild things in captivity.”… Read the rest

I never really learned about crimes and the criminal mind until my time in prison. I studied criminal law in law school in an intellectually sterile context. Law students learn the elements that constitute criminal conduct from textbooks and lectures. Using the Socratic method of questions and answers, students learn the puzzle pieces that constitute jurisprudence.… Read the rest

I recently gave a prison reform talk to members of a book club at an upscale country club. The book club members were well informed and asked excellent questions. As always happens when I speak, I was peppered with questions about prison living conditions. People are fascinated by their knowledge vacuum.… Read the rest

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