New Video: Charlie and Pauline Sullivan of C.U.R.E.

by | October 18, 2011

CURE–Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants–is an international organization that was founded in Texas in 1972, and became a national organization in 1985. Now nearly 40 years old, CURE has remained loyal to its original ideals, even as the politics of punishment brought about a shift in ideology and resources away from rehabilitation and toward retribution.

Working out of a small office in the belfry of St. Aloysius, a few blocks from the Capitol, Charlie and Pauline Sullivan, the husband-and-wife team who are the co-founders and co-directors of International CURE, run an inclusive group devoted to prison reform and prisoner support. It has chapters all over the country and worldwide: In 2001, the first International Conference took place; last February, the fifth such global conference was held in Nigeria.

CURE’s goals are described in its mission statement:

We believe that prisons should be used only for those who absolutely must be incarcerated and that those who are incarcerated should have all of the resources they need to turn their lives around.  We also believe that human rights documents provide a sound basis for ensuring that criminal justice systems meet these goals.

CURE is a membership organization.  We work hard to provide our members with the information and tools necessary to help them understand the criminal justice system and to advocate for changes.

In this video by Solitary Watch videographer Valeria Monfrini, filmed at CURE’s offices in August 2011, the Sullivans–a former priest and former nun–talk about CURE’s work and about solitary confinement.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ldf25evl4E]

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

James Ridgeway (1936-2021) was the founder and co-director of Solitary Watch. An investigative journalist for over 60 years, he served as Washington Correspondent for the Village Voice and Mother Jones, reporting domestically on subjects ranging from electoral politics to corporate malfeasance to the rise of the racist far-right, and abroad from Central America, Northern Ireland, Eastern Europe, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia. Earlier, he wrote for The New Republic and Ramparts, and his work appeared in dozens of other publications. He was the co-director of two films and author of 20 books, including a forthcoming posthumous edition of his groundbreaking 1991 work on the far right, Blood in the Face. Jean Casella is the director of Solitary Watch. She has also published work in The Guardian, The Nation, and Mother Jones, and is co-editor of the book Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement. She has received a Soros Justice Media Fellowship and an Alicia Patterson Fellowship. She tweets @solitarywatch.

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