Zoé Orfanos once taught a convicted murderer how to use Google. She was volunteering with Offender and Restoration, a nonprofit in Arlington, Virginia.
Suicide haunts jails across our country. Unfortunately, the Central Detention Facility, DC’s city jail, is no exception.
More than half of all prison and jail inmates in the United States have mental health problems, according to a 2006 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Another BJS report that year found that suicide caused 32.3 percent of deaths in local jails.
According to the DC Department of Corrections, two suicides were committed from 2009 to 2012 at the Central Detention Facility.
_Chris Palmer teaches Environmental Filmmaking at American Univer- sity. Born in Hong Kong and raised in London, Palmer came to the United States and joined American's University's staff in 2004.
It is late March in Washington DC, well into the world’s most pop- ular tree blossom festival; and yet winter, like a sozzled old man in a bar, is dragging its feet out the door.
_Professor Farhang Erfani teaches philosophy at American University. Born and raised in Iran, Erfani and his family fled the country during the Iranian Revolution, forced out as exiles.
At 169 meters, the Washington Monument is by far the tallest structure in the District of Columbia. It is the first thing visitors see driving north on I-395 into Washington and it's clearly visible from almost anywhere in the city.
