Following the news…..

Posted on by K

The death penalty. It’s been in the news a lot as of late, so I feel a little obligated to write about it. It’s actually an interesting topic to think about as social workers, though, admittedly not one we will come across in New York state.  In a capital offense case (like any crime really), our clients could be anyone; they could be the perpetrator, the victim’s family, a survivor of the crime and likely our view on whether the inmate should be executed would shift as we come in contact with each. There are many arguments from each side; ranging from “an eye for an eye” to “cruel and unusual punishment”. I could present these arguments here but I think you already could guess what my own point of view would be so I thought I might just give y’all some facts, some stories, ya know, some information so maybe you could make your own decision

According to dealthpenalty.info (yes, thats a website), there have been 1,379 execution in our country since the death penalty  was reinstated in 1976.

So far this year, there have been 20.

Several of these 20 executions have made headlines. The problem that arose in a number of those executions was a shortage of the drugs used to lethal injections.This has left prison officials scrambling to find new lethal combinations.  In January, Ohio inmate Dennis Mcguire was killed used a new combinations of drugs and he appeared to gasp and convulse for 10 minutes after his injection. That’s not supposed to happen. Last month, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court ruled that inmates on death row did not have a right to know what drugs were going to be used in their execution. What followed was a the horrifically botched lethal injection of Mr. Clayton Lovett, a stay of execution for Mr .Charles Warner who was scheduled to be killed shortly after Lovett and nationwide debate. Beyond the modality of execution, there has been a recent calling for the end of the death penalty, based largely on the concern that innocent or incompetent individuals will be unjustly executed. CNN aired a series called Death Row Stories, discussing this. A little over a month ago, in Mississippi, Michelle Byron was granted a stay of execution on account of her possible innocence.

This clip sums things up pretty nicely.
And because I’m realizing the facts I’ve presented are REALLY biased… This article, and maybe this one too, might show the other side of things (I swear I searched for a good argument for and found very little to work with)

On youth court…..

Posted on by K

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m pretty interested in alternatives to incarceration, alternative sanctions in general, for individuals involved with the criminal justice system. In my elective class this semester, I learned of one alternative program for juvenile offenders that’s effectiveness kind of blew my mind: youth court. What is so incredible about youth court is that its essentially run entirely by young people in the community. I mean, yes, there are adults overseeing things, but the court staff consists of youth court members aged 10-18; the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the defense attorney – all neighborhood kids.  When we are young, we are taught that peer pressure is an evil bad thing (did anyone else suffer through the DARE program?), but a youth court turns that idea on its head. The premise of youth court is that it harnesses the power of positive peer pressure to teach youth accountability to their community and put an end to patterns of disruptive behavior by addressing underlying causes of deviant behavior.

Youth court procedures vary depending on location but I’ll just give you a general overview on how it works. Youth courts get their cases through referrals from outside sources typically – the police, schools, community-based programs, the criminal courts themselves, social workers like us. After a referral, youth court adult staff members reach out to family and offender to explain the process and then if they choose to participate, schedule a hearing. The hearing is run entirely by youth members of the court. Youth members are teenage volunteers from the community. They receive extensive training in all the court roles. The youth members volunteer for a variety of reasons. One of the members that spoke to my class joined because his mother pressured him to. Another because it would look good on her college applications. The third because she, herself, had been a respondent in youth court and she wanted to give back to the program she credited with changing the course of her life for the better. Youth members act as the judge, jury and lawyers (referred to as advocates) during the hearing. The jury after hearing the case decides on a fair and appropriate sanction for the offender – community service, essays, psycho-educational workshops. Another interesting fact about youth courts is that, despite their inability to really enforce sanctions, they tend to have a high rate of compliance. One youth court in Brooklyn has a compliance rate of somewhere near 80%. Thats much higher than a typical criminal court.

I think this sort of program is a really amazing intervention option for social workers with clientele that includes youthful offenders.  We know that criminal courts don’t have a great reputation for providing services that address the underlying causes of crimes. For a teenager, getting to the cause of their destructive behavior can be particularly life altering. Youth courts provide a great opportunity to do this. They also provide a chance for socialization with peers that offenders might not have otherwise met; these relationships could have a positive impact on a youth. Additionally, from a youth court program, individuals learn more about the law. Maybe they learn how to react when police stop them or how to advocate for themselves to authority figures, all things that can greatly impact an encounter with law enforcement. As the humble social workers we are, we know that can never really know what sort of intervention our clients will respond best to. Some juveniles, like the one who spoke in my class, will benefit greatly from this sort of program, others will not but I really think we have to recognize referral options that may have a meaningful impact on our clients. We can’t  always be the catalyst for change, sometimes we need the community.

Read more here.

on this again…..

Posted on by K

Last summer, for an elective class I was taking, I wrote a paper discussing whether a seriously mentally ill inmate can give informed consent for treatment. I know what you are thinking and the answer is yes, I am talking about this again. If you think about the three elements involved in granting informed consent – disclosure, understanding and voluntary consent – the prospect of a seriously mentally ill prisoner granting such seems bleak. To satisfy the disclosure aspect, a doctor must tell his patients  all material information about their treatment – possible side effects, alternative treatments, the whole lot. In a prison setting where cost efficiency is paramount, my guess is treatment options are incredibly limited — “if you want to get better, this is the pill that you can take.” The doctors are placed in an impossible conflict between the needs of the institution that they work for and the patients that they see. Understanding of their diagnosis and implications of treatment may be hard to come by as well when an inmate only begins receiving treatment after they have decompensated. As for voluntary consent, well…. In the case Washington v Harper, the US Supreme Court ruled that states could forcibly medicate their seriously mentally ill prisoners if the the medical practitioners on staff could demonstrate that the prisoner is a threat to themselves or others (Just FYI, outside the prison walls a judge is the only person who can rule a person incompetent and pave the way for forcible medication).  In a prison setting, one can imagine how easy it would be to determine that a prisoner is a threat to themselves and others. Disorder legitimately poses a threat to correctional officers and other inmates; being orderly in the midst of psychotic break is pretty unlikely.

Ya know, when I wrote that paper, I put a lot of thought into the logistics of informed consent, into the rights an inmate should have and how those rights were being violated but what I didn’t really think about was why an inmate might not want to be compliant with their medication.  A speaker in a different elective class that I am taking this semester provided some valuable insight on the topic. While I was aware that many seriously mentally ill individuals stop taking their medication because of side effects and a dulling of their senses, I hadn’t really thought about what those side effects could mean in a prison setting. Being over-medicated or numbed by a course of treatment while in the general population of a prison is not safe. I become then a target for predators, someone who is easily taken advantage of. I become vulnerable to sexual assault and other violent attacks.  A person might refuse their medication in that environment to survive; the symptoms of one’s mental illness may be a defense for them, perhaps a badly needed one.

While my liberal social worker self feels compelled to side with the prisoners in this debate, I absolutely see the other side of it. Having a seriously mentally ill inmate suffering from psychotic breaks or paranoid delusions who is refusing medication among the general population in a prison is a serious problem. It poses threats to the order of the correctional facility, to the staff and to the other prisoners. Its not hard to see why sometimes force needs to be used to maintain control. I do not at all believe the answer to this problem is to allow these inmates to refuse medication and decompensate. That solution isn’t good for anyone not the seriously ill inmates or the staff.  I believe the answer is to stop these individuals from entering the prison system at all. The answer is more community services, more alternative sentences, more acknowledgement of the underlying causes of crime and the creation of more programs to address such. The solution to me is an obvious one but the way that solution comes to fruition, I do not know. What I do know though is that every solution starts with acknowledging the problem. It starts with advocates; It starts with me and you and whoever else we can get ( preferably some people with access to funding. As much as I hate to admit it, money, we are for sure also going to need that…)

On spotting legal issues…..

Posted on by K

One thing I’ve learned to do pretty well as a paralegal is a spot a legal issue. I don’t necessarily know how to rectify the issue but, hey, identifying a problem is the first step to solving it, right? This skill has turned out to be a huge asset for me in my work with clients. It’s been really shocking for me to realize just how often people unaware of the law are taken advantage of. In my work at an organization providing free legal assistance, the clients are aware there is something a lawyer can do for them. That is why they call in the first place. At my field placement, this is not the case. My clients are often completely oblivious to any legal remedies available to them. One client that I have been working with for the past month presented with issues paying her bills. After speaking with her at length, I’ve come to realize that her current problems stem from an eviction that took place two years ago, an eviction that the client could have fought in court. While she may not have been able to retain her apartment, she could have bought herself time and that time would likely have made a world of difference for her. Unfortunately, my client wasn’t aware at the time that she could fight the eviction in court and no one told her. That fact got me thinking just how much better social workers might be able to serve their clients if they are trained to spot legal issues and have appropriate referrals for services.

I once attended a webinar taught by the Victim’s Right Law Center about issue spotting with victims of sexual assault during intake (thats a mouth full). The thing that the presenters really stressed was just how many facets there are to a client’s story, to their presenting problem. A young woman sexually assaulted on her college campus may present asking for assistance processing her attack and its effects on her life but when probed so many other issues, ones with legal remedies might present themselves.  She might say she feels horribly unsafe because she keeps getting messages from her perpetrator on Facebook. It might turn out she has an order of protection against her abuser from criminal court but she doesn’t understand it. It might not contain any provisions prohibiting him from contact via social media. It could though, she should contact the DA on the case. Maybe her perpetrator was her boyfriend. She might be eligible for a Family Court Order of Protection. She needs a family law attorney.  Does the client feel safe in her apartment? Maybe she wants to break her lease but can’t afford the fines. She needs a housing attorney.  Did she lose her job after she was assaulted because she was afraid to be there or because she was suffering psychological repercussions from the attack? She should speak with an attorney familiar with worker’s rights or one who knows the provisions of the VAWA act. What about school? What about her immigration status? You see where I am going with this.

I think it can be very easy for social workers to focus on their clinical work and miss other ways they can assist their clients. When you are working with clients that have no involvement in the court system, it can be difficult to recognize when a client should, in fact, get involved. Now, I’m not suggesting we all go out and study the law but I am suggesting we learn to notice more when our client’s rights are being violated. Sometimes we might be wrong, sometimes we/our clients might consult an attorney and learn there is absolutely nothing that can be done to assist them with their problem. There will be other times though; other times when our clients will be able to use the courts to their advantage and be all the better for it. If my client had known housing law remedies available to her, she never would have had to walk through the door to meet with me and, while I’m happy that I had the occasion to meet her, I would much happier if she had the financial security she deserves.

On trying a different solution….

Posted on by K

About a year ago, I read this article in the New York Times. The article discussed sex offenders in Suffolk County who were forced (because of restrictive conditions placed upon them after release from prison) to live in two trailers on the edge of town. About 40 men all told split between 2 trailers, only one of which had a shower. Men from unlucky trailer #2 would be bussed to shower every few days in trailer #1. The men reported conditions were exactly as one might imagine them to be when 20 frustrated, angry men are living in bunk beds in a tiny trailer.  What struck me (and the reason that I remember the article vividly over a year after I initially reading it) was how very much it sounded like even though the men had served their time in prison, they were still prisoners of the system (yes, I’m talking about this again).  Sex offenders, I would venture to say, are among the most hated members of our society. They are pariah, modern day lepers.  Believe me, I get it. I’m sure there are many who believe  that these deplorable living conditions are more than those who have committed sexual assault deserve, and I can’t fault them for thinking that.

The idea that I’ve most connected to as I become indoctrinated as a social worker is that in order to understand  a person’s presenting issue, one must step back and take a look at the person in the context of their environment (past and present).  I thought about this when I read this article published on CNN’s website as a part of their Change the List project. The article was one in a series attempting to find an explanation for Alaska’s high rate of sexual assault and highlighting efforts to change that statistic in the state. The author, John D. Sutter, was able to sit in on a group session held at a treatment program for sex offenders that seemed to embody this doctrine of social work. In this particular treatment program, participants are assigned a “safety net” of 5 volunteers from the community to assist them with their rehabilitation. It keep the participants engaged in the community and near the support and counseling that they very much need. Its the antithesis of hulling the offenders up in a trailer outside of town. It holds the offenders accountable for their actions, their “safety net” is watching after all and places their struggles front and center. By doing this, the program addresses the underlying issues that may have lead to the assault in the first place. Many sex offenders were themselves victims of sexual abuse or violence at sometime in their life. Others struggle with feelings of unworthiness, helplessness, lack of control. Working at all these underlying issues seems to give the offenders hope and motivation for change. Being cast off from society and sent to the outer edges of town where your neighbors hate you and protest your presence probably doesn’t do that.  I would guess it adds an additional dimension to an already uphill battle.

Sometimes I get it in my head to write about  topic, like this one, and everything seems to align to promote my agenda. I came across this article by the grace of the universe earlier this week. The author, a survivor of incest,  says it much more eloquently. She calls on us (among other professions) to promote the creation of programs, like the one in Alaska, aimed at addressing the issue of sexual assault in a family WITH the family.  She rejects the shunning of offenders (even the perpetrator of her assault) and calls for more group work, more family therapy, saying   “We know where to begin to heal our families and our country. We know what to do. And yet, we’re not doing it. We’re giving in to fear and looking for a quick fix.”

I agree. I don’t think trailers and isolation are the answer …..  what about you?

on Juvenile Justice……

Posted on by K

 

I just finished reading a book called “How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (while they are still on this earth)” by Henry Alford; long have I been a sucker for anecdotal wisdom from those who have been on this planet decades longer than myself. I don’t think there was one person whom the journalist/author interviewed that professed to having been wise since birth, giving the impression (and not a very unique one at that) that wisdom comes with age and presumably experiences. While I was reading this book, I thought of a story a friend had told me recently.This friend is an MSW student at one of the many other social works in NYC and through her field placement, she often comes across individuals who are involved in the criminal justice system. One of the clients she met with recently was just 16 when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Now the young man is 26 and, for all intents and purposes, just beginning his life. I don’t know about all of you, but I believe I can say with some confidence that I was considerably more wise at 26 than I was 16. The experiences I garnered in those 10 years have provided invaluable lessons that still influence the decisions I make now, at 29. For example at 17, I learned that I do not look good as a redhead. At 29, my hair remains its natural color, brown. At 18, I learned that I can survive out from under my parent’s roof. At 22, that lesson served me as I hopped into the passenger seat of a friend’s car and moved across the country to California. It played a role as well in my decision, 3.5 years later, to leave California and head here to New York City. Lessons like these (and a boatload of others) come over time when one has the freedom to make their own decisions, for better or worse. These are not things my friend’s client could learn inside a jail cell. Sure, there are things he learned that I (hopefully) will never have to learn, those being hard lessons learned about surviving in prison, no doubt;.  but those regular little lessons, the silly experiences that cause personal growth, my friend’s client was stripped of those when the judge ordered he be locked in prison for the next 10 years of his young life.

There is a growing debate in this country about the nature of the juvenile justice system. One that we should certainly have an eye on.  In the last five years, the Supreme Court of the United States has issued two important decisions on this matter. The first came in the matter of Graham v. Florida in 2010. This ruling established that juveniles could not be given life sentence for crimes not involving a homicide. The New York Times recently published this article (to which I posted the link last week) discussing a loophole defense invoked by some states, exorbitantly long sentences like 70 or 90 years are not technically “life sentences.”  Common sense would dictate that they are. The second ruling stemmed from Miller v. Alabama in 2012. This decision dictated that juveniles who committed homicide could not automatically be assigned life sentences. The Juvenile Law Center reports that 2,600 inmates nationwide are serving life sentence for crimes committed as a juvenile.

At the heart of these Supreme Court decisions is the idea that youthful offenders should be given a ““meaningful opportunity for release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”   I interpret that (and I’m no Supreme Court Justice) as the chance to grow and improve with age. If I was still being punished for the rash decisions I made in my youth, I would still have red hair. I know its not as simple as that, and certainly, there are offenses that a youth can commit that demand severe punishment. But shouldn’t there be a chance for a future? In New York City, we have the Division of Youth and Family Justice whose goal is to work with families and youth to break patterns of recidivism and put youth offenders on the path to successful adulthood. This is the sort of program my friend’s client probably would have benefited from instead of a jail sentence. Just today, I read this article about “Girl’s Court” in Alameda County, California. Their objective is much the same, except the focus is exclusively on young female offenders. I’m of the opinion, though, that the wonderful work that is being done in  these juvenile justice courts and detention centers should have begun earlier in the office of a social worker; someone who can see the systemic and individual barriers facing these offenders (prior to them becoming such) and help identify the strengths they can use to overcome them to achieve positive outcomes.  I think this reform and debate is brilliant but its reactive and some may  argue –  too little, too late. How about us, social workers, take a different approach and start at the other end, doing some preventative work? Maybe then we could meet in the middle at a just juvenile justice system …. what do you think?

A little extra reading if you are so inclined: Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System , New Trial Sought for George Stinney, executed at 14

 

On filing fees….(or something more clever)

Posted on by K

With the start of a new semester looming, I’ve found myself a little, ehhh, lazy (to put it mildly) this past week. So, in an effort to concern what little energy I have for the demands of my job and my field placement, I picked a nice straight forward topic for this week: Applying for Poor Person Status (terribly named, I know). I’m sure it’s not shocking to anyone reading this that there are filing fees associated with starting a court case, with filing a motion, with picking up a certified copy of a court’s order, etc.  What may surprise some of the more naive folks is the fact that these fees are not minimal. In fact, they are downright hefty. For people with low income (ie: many of our clients), the courts fee would certainly be prohibitive for starting a court case and so the courts in New York State (and everywhere else, I’m sure) have set up a way for people who qualify to become exempt from paying fees (certain other expenses may occur depending on the type of case you are involved in). In order to qualify for the fee exemption, a person must file an application for such. The first step of application is filling out an Affidavit in Support of Application to Proceed as a Poor Person. A sample can be found here. The affidavit is fairly extensive. It should contain information about what it is that you are trying to file with the court, what your income and assets are as well as information about dependents and extraordinary expenses. Anything sworn to in the affidavit should be backed up with documentation like pay stubs, tax returns, receipts etc.  The affidavit must then be signed in front of a notary public. You must also provide a filled in Poor Person Order. The form looks like this. The Judge will sign this, not you. If you are just starting the case, you will likely also have to file a Request for Judicial Intervention (RJI). Find a sample here. The next step is to take the affidavit with supporting documentation, poor person order and the document you are trying to avoid paying the fees for filing (for example: a summons with notice, summons and complaint or a motion) accompanied by your RJI down to the county clerk’s office located in the Supreme Courthouse in each county. The clerks will direct you from there.  Just a side note: The court will take the original, MAKE COPIES. In my experience with clients, it takes anywhere from two weeks to a month to learn if you qualify. You will have to go down the courthouse again to pick up the signed Poor Person Order once it is signed by the Judge. If Poor Person status is granted, then the person is exempt from fees throughout the case. Though, I can assure you will be necessary to remind the clerk of your status every time something is filed.

A second side note: If your client is being represented by an organization that provides free legal services, it is likely their lawyer can submit a Poor Person Certification on their behalf and they will be able to avoid this whole application process.

And a third: Family Court has no filing fees.

PS: here’s some articles of interest:

Juveniles Facing Lifelong Terms Despite Rulings

An update on Detroit.

Lawyers and depression sounds like study is in order….

 

…a post during finals…..

Posted on by K

It’s time for finals around here which means, for me at least, A LOT of paper writing and A LOT of chocolate eating (I’m not entirely sure why the two are linked but they most certainly are).

Finals time also means that I didn’t find myself with a lot of or, really, any time  to come up with this week’s blog posting. So I thought it kismet when in the course of suffering through  the ebbs and flows of my sugar highs, I came across CNN’s  new documentary: An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story.   As you may have read in my introductory post, or noticed in the several other posts on related topics,  I have a pretty serious fascination with The Innocence Project and the work it does. Its a fascination that in its own round-about way led me to enroll at  Silver School and, ultimately, dedicate my time here to exploring the social injustices that lead to individuals being wrongfully convicted in the first place.   311 individuals have been exonerated through DNA testing in the United States. 18 of them were proclaiming their innocence from death row. The rest of them served on average 13.6 years before being set free. Michael Morton is part of these statistics. So are the Central Park Five and the West Memphis Three. Who isn’t counted though? Who served three years in prison and  became a registered sex offender on the account of  an extremely flawed criminal justice system and never said anything? Which wrongfully accused immigrant  unknowingly signed a plea deal hoping to be released from prison only to find themselves deported back to their  country of origin? Life sentences for the wrongfully convicted are appalling but what about the small sentences that add up to a life of poverty and unjust treatment? How can we proactively prevent this from happening instead of just reacting once its already been done?

While I take a break from thinking about these questions to complete my final papers,  I encourage you to pick up where I left off.  Check out Michael Morton’s story. And maybe these articles too….

How to Fight ‘Bad Apple’ Prosecutors who Abuse the Criminal Justice System

Released but Never Exonerated, a Man Fights for Freedom

An Arrest in the News, an Exoneration in Silence

We can talk about it if I make it through the semester….

A Portrait of What Exactly?

Posted on by K

Last week, the Connecticut State Attorney’s office released a 44 page summary of their investigation into the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the wake of this report, many articles were published like this one on CNN’s website — “Portrait of Adam Lanza.” Essentially all the articles did was attempt to pick apart investigative details in  search for the answers as to why this had happened, why Mr. Lanza did what he did. The answers aren’t there.  Journalists pulled at details about Adam’s life that may or may not have had anything to do with his egregious actions and touted them as if they were a blueprint to murder. Adam was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Adam pulled his sleeves over his hands to touch things. Adam preferred to communicate with his family members via email. Adam could play Dance Dance Revolution for 10 hour stretches. 10 years ago, Adam drew a cartoon in which an old woman shot people with a cane. After reading several of these articles, I had a picture of a boy and his family who both seemed very much in need of mental health services, not necessarily one of a boy who would end up killing 26 people including his mother. My picture though was painted  with the influence of years spent in undergraduate psychology courses and masters level clinical practice classes. My picture wasn’t necessarily the one that was conjured in the mind of most people reading the article and why would it be?  That’s not what the articles are aiming for, that’s not what the journalists intended. What they intended was to report the facts, the who, the what, and the why. In the course of that though, they seem to be perpetuating the stigma of mental illness and leading the public to believe that the majority of mentally ill persons are violent and dangerous. As social workers and mental health professionals, we know different.

We know that where the mentally ill are most likely to reach our country’s court system is through non-violent misdemeanors and felonies. The prison population in the United States is estimated to be around 2 million inmates. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill estimates that about 16% of these inmates are seriously mentally ill. The effects of incarceration on the severely mentally ill are demonstrated rather poignantly in the Frontline documentary, “The New Asylums”. Take Mr. Robert Bankston for example. During one interview in the film, Mr. Bankston says “In 1989, I snatched a purse. If I had known I was going to have to go through all this, I would have never snatched no purse.” On account of Mr Bankston’s mental illness, he frequently suffers delusions. When he is delusional, he tends to act aggressively with the guards. This has led to Mr. Bankston spending over ten years in prison (much longer than his original sentence), most of which was spent in maximum security facilities. Later in the documentary, Mr. Bankston is released on parole. This is not the first time, he had been released. Mr. Bankston, on several occasions, has violated his parole and been sent back to prison. His parole violations are largely on account of him failing to take his medicine and control his mental illness. The documentary makes the point that there aren’t many options available to Mr. Bankston to seek treatment for his illness once he is released from prison, making his return seem rather inevitable. In a state with the “three strike rule,” Mr. Bankston’s recidivism, entirely on account of his mental illness, could have lead to a life sentence.

This is where I need to climb up on my soapbox because this is where I believe social workers should be called to action.  These are our clients entering the criminal justice system largely based on their diagnosis with mental illness and an inability to access resources in order to control it. Its the veteran with PTSD. Its the substance abuser and the schizophrenic, the homeless youth and the manic mother. Its our clients receiving non-violent felony convictions that bar them vital community resources,from public housing or possibly financial aid to attend college, that could have turned out to be their saving grace. Its OUR clients and OUR potential clients fighting this stigma in their daily lives and so I firmly believe WE who should be fighting there with them. For every 100 articles championing gun control as the answer, it seems like there is just one that suggests an increase in funding to community mental health services. We talk for years about the handful of mentally ill persons who commit violent offenses, yet we rarely discuss the hundreds of thousands sitting in jail currently for non-violent convictions. I see the NRA lobbying all over the place, where is the NASW? Here you see my contribution, where can I see yours?

PS…. Check out this article written last year by one of our Silver School Professors in the Huffington Post.