Wolf, you're right. The man was *unnamed* while the authorities attempted to locate his family before releasing the name. Thanks for pointing that out. As for skid's strange assumption about my lack of knowledge about the Pacific Northwest: it would only take a cursory search of my bio (or google) to figure out that Seattle is, indeed, where I live. I've been a permanent resident for a decade and in that time, I've won 12 regional awards for excellence in reporting from the W. Washington Society of Professional Journalists. I was a Rocket writer, specializing in the area's hip-hop and reggae …
Member Profile
Silja J.A. Talvi
Silja J.A. Talvi, a senior editor at In These Times, is an investigative journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter, Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor.
Ms. Talvi is the recipient of multiple national and regional awards, including 12 awards from the Society of Professional Journalists (Pacific Northwest); a New American Media Award for Immigration-related reporting; as well as five consecutive national awards for magazine reporting from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD).
Her book, Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System was published in November 2007 (Seal Press, an imprint of Perseus.) In March 2008, Talvi’s book received the PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) literary award from the NCCD. She now heads the Women Behind Bars Project, a sponsored project of the Seattle-based Center for Social Justice.
Ms. Talvi’s articles on social issues—with a particular emphasis on criminal justice, ethnicity and gender—have garnered a dozen Society of Professional Journalists Western Washington regional awards. Talvi was honored in 2006 to receive a New American Media award for immigration-related reporting. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, she received five consecutive PASS award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for a wide range of investigative magazine features, including the impact of Three Strikes sentencing on African American men; an undercover story about the American Correctional Association, Taser weaponry; and the interstate transfer of prisoners. All but one of these stories first appeared in ITT.
Born in Helsinki, Finland, and raised in Hollywood, California, Talvi earned her BA with Honors in Ethnic Studies in 1991, from Mills College in Oakland, California. She was then admitted into the first graduate program in Women Studies at San Francisco State University, completing her master’s thesis in 1993 about Israeli and Palestinian women.
Since 1996, Talvi has been a full-time journalist and essayist, reporting from areas as diverse as the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, New Mexico, Los Angeles, the Puget Sound, as well as Western and Eastern portions of Washington State. Internationally, she has reported from Europe, the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico. She currently lives in the Central District of Seattle.
Talvi’s essays, investigations and articles have appeared in the following book anthologies: Prison Profiteers: Who Benefits from Mass Imprisonment (New Press); The W Effect: Bush’s War on Women (The Feminist Press); Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America’s Poor (Routledge); Economics Now (Oxford University Press); Body Outlaws: Young Women Talk About Body Image and Identity (Seal Press); Readings for the 21st Century (Allyn & Bacon/Simon & Schuster Education Group); and It’s So You: Women Write about Personal Expression through Fashion & Style (Seal Press).
Most Recent Articles view all 47
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De-escalating the Drug War
Obama's pick to head ONDCP is better than your average drug czar. more
vol. 33, iss. 04 drugs, obama
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Ending the War on Drugs
Will the Obama administration put justice back in the criminal justice system? more
vol. 33, iss. 03 criminal justice, drugs, obama
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Our Town vs. Exxon
Marine biologist Riki Ott explains how Cordova, Alaska, rebounded 20 years after the oil spill. more
vol. 33, iss. 02 corporations, environment, technology
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All Work, No Play
Vacation time shouldn't be the privilege of a few, but the right of all more
vol. 32, iss. 11 labor, vacation time
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Seattle Battles the Homeless
Underneath the I-5 highway in south Seattle, Isaac Palmer had found a spot to sleep. Hidden away from public… more
vol. 32, iss. 04
Latest Comments view all 11
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Hipster wave? Oy. I was making fun of your microbrewing/indie rock comment. It's just silly to put stuff like that out there, and to presume that I couldn't possibly be a Seattle resident, and you deserved to be called out on that. I'm no more a hipster than I am a hippie, which is to say I'm neither. You're trying to throw a dart at the wrong dartboard. Back up your accusations and ease up on the stereotypes. You can engage in constructive discourse without resorting to those things, and coming across as a passive aggressive Seattleite. (I know, those stereotypes …
Posted to Seattle Battles the Homeless
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There was a misprint here: the OK rates are indeed from 1977 to 2004. Thanks for catching that.
Posted to Women Behind Bars
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FLOZELLE IS FREE! All indications are that she will be released this week. The issues underlying her case are still relevant to thousands of other women in the California system and elsewhere, but this is a truly significant victory, for Woodmore, her family, and for those of us who have argued for her freedom for years. --Silja
Posted to Justice Denied
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Thanks for the kind words about the piece. ITT took this piece very seriously, and it was a pleasure to work with them over the course of a few months on pulling it all together. No, the report wasn't suggesting that, but I get your drift. In general, what we're seeing is that Tasers appear to be being used with increasing *frequency* with the mentally ill, and that's what the report was trying to address. In interviews with people like former Seattle chief of police Norm Stamper, Sheriff Hennessey, and others, professionals in the field kept emphasizing the need for law …
Posted to Stunning Revelations
- Joined January 17, 2003
- Last Visit November 5, 2008
- URL
- Location Seattle, WA
- Occupation Senior Editor
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