Wednesday, March 30, 2011

One more radio story then I'll call it a night

More extraordinary journalism from This American Life about how a small drug-related offense at the wrong place and the wrong time can have truly horrifying consequences.

Ira reports from Glynn County Georgia on Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams and how she runs the drug courts in Glynn, Camden and Wayne counties. We hear the story of Lindsey Dills, who forges two checks on her parents' checking account when she's 17, one for $40 and one for $60, and ends up in drug court for five and a half years, including 14 months behind bars, and then she serves another five years after that—six months of it in Arrendale State Prison, the other four and a half on probation. The average drug court program in the U.S. lasts 15 months. But one main way that Judge Williams' drug court is different from most is how punitive it is. Such long jail sentences are contrary to the philosophy of drug court, as well as the guidelines of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. For violating drug court rules, Lindsey not only does jail terms of 51 days, 90 days and 104 days, Judge Williams sends her on what she calls an "indefinite sentence," where she did not specify when Lindsey would get out.
As the story notes, Williams' court is also unusually ineffective.

1 comment:

  1. Please help us! We have been suffering since this woman took office in 1990! Now that her power-mad corruption has finally reached national attention we have a chance to finally get rid of her. Don’t believe there’s real corruption in Brunswick? Our local paper has still yet to print one word about this. Listen to the podcast. Google her name. This doesn’t even address her conduct in civil and criminal court! The story http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/430/very-tough-love Our site. http://impeachjudgewilliams.com/what-you-can-do/ (UPDATE 3/31/11)Brunswick News finally printed something on this today,but as usual small town corruption had to put its spin on things. She received death threats, likely from her own camp to discredit those trying to oust her. The article comes out six days after the national radio broadcast. Six days not a word, then this. Corruption in Brunswick, you decide. Here's the "news" article. http://www.impeachjudgewilliams.com/bwknews-3-31-2011.pdf

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