HEFFNER: I’m Richard Heffner, your

HEFFNER: I’m Richard Heffner, your host on THE OPEN MIND and my guest today, who I count among the most decent and concerned human beings as well as a dear friend and dedicated public servant, is Sol Wachtler, the former Chief Judge of the State of New York. Now Judge Wachtler’s new Random House volume, After the Madness: a Judge’s Own Prison Memoir, is the compelling and, in our times, too frequent story of tragically unrecognized, undiagnosed, and untreated mental illness compounded in this instance by naivite and massive doses of self-medication followed finally, and almost inexorably, by crime and then punishment; punishment that many of us thought, reflected others’ personal and political imperatives and ambitions, but was really blind and indifferent to human frailty, particularly to the pain of mental illness. Now, writer Tom Wolfe says about Sol Wachtler’s book that “it is the riveting prison diary of one of America’s most powerful judges who fell abruptly into the abyss of the criminal justice system; Fascinating observations about crime and punishment, many of them startling, some of them bitterly funny”. So that I want to begin our program now by asking Judge Wachtler to what extent he would now also refer to the abyss of the criminal justice system. How do you respond to that phrase?

WACHTLER: Well, abyss is a very apt description of being in prison. It’s humiliating, it’s dehumanizing. It’s the kind of experience that I would wish for no one. Unfortunately, the popular mythology out there is that prisons are country clubs. They refer to some prisons as “Club Feds”. They talk about a life of ease. But it’s none of those things. It’s an abyss and a terrible place to be. And actually prison should be a terrible place to be. It’s for punishment.

النتائج (العربية) 1:

HEFFNER: I’m Richard Heffner, your host on THE OPEN MIND and my guest today, who I count among the most decent and concerned human beings as well as a dear friend and dedicated public servant, is Sol Wachtler, the former Chief Judge of the State of New York. Now Judge Wachtler’s new Random House volume, After the Madness: a Judge’s Own Prison Memoir, is the compelling and, in our times, too frequent story of tragically unrecognized, undiagnosed, and untreated mental illness compounded in this instance by naivite and massive doses of self-medication followed finally, and almost inexorably, by crime and then punishment; punishment that many of us thought, reflected others’ personal and political imperatives and ambitions, but was really blind and indifferent to human frailty, particularly to the pain of mental illness. Now, writer Tom Wolfe says about Sol Wachtler’s book that “it is the riveting prison diary of one of America’s most powerful judges who fell abruptly into the abyss of the criminal justice system; Fascinating observations about crime and punishment, many of them startling, some of them bitterly funny”. So that I want to begin our program now by asking Judge Wachtler to what extent he would now also refer to the abyss of the criminal justice system. How do you respond to that phrase?واتشتلير: حسنا، الهاوية وصف مناسب جداً من يجري في السجن. أنها مهينة، هو إنسانيته. هو نوع الخبرة التي كنت أتمنى للا أحد. ولسوء الحظ، الأساطير الشعبية هناك أن السجون هي النوادي القطرية. أنها تشير إلى بعض السجون "نادي الحكومة الفيدرالية". يتحدثون عن آه سهولة. ولكن أيا من هذه الأشياء. هو هاوية ومكان رهيب لتكون. وفعلا ينبغي أن يكون السجن مكاناً رهيب يكون. أنها للعقوبة.