Sometimes my anti-prison work has me looking for outlets where I can just laugh. Well when I came across this quote, I laughed out loud.

I do not watch her show. However, I am familiar with the name of Snooki who is a protagonist of the “reality show” Jersey Shore. Apparently Snooki was jailed recently. She does not think that she belongs behind bars because to quote her:

“I’m too pretty to be in jail,” Snooki said. “I’m a good person. I’m not a criminal, and I will never go back there.”

“You can’t even contain me,” she added with a laugh. “When I was in there, I was like, ‘Can I come out? I can’t breathe!’ Not a fun place. I will never go back.”

I am going to let these words speak for themselves without comment even though I am positively DYING to say something…

Last week, I blogged about the issue of prisoner recidivism and re-entry. I shared data about the states with recidivism rates over 50% for male or female prisoners.

As promised, here is the available data about recidivism rates in other states. Please note that states define recidivism differently and measure it according to their own standards. Massachusetts is the only state where data is available that has a higher recidivism rate for female prisoners than for males. What accounts for this anomaly? I don’t have an answer but it would be interesting to do further investigation into this. 

Additionally, three states have particularly low recidivism rates (IA, PA, and WY).  Pennsylvania’s recidivism number does not count parole violators which I think would increase their rate to be sure.  However if I take the numbers at face value, it would be interesting to know what type of re-entry programs exist in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.  We might all have a lot to learn from these states in terms of how to better support former prisoners. This article from the Fond du Lac Reporter offers an example of a local reentry program which seems to have it right. The key is for former prisoners to receive the support they need when they return to their communities and to build strong and positive relationships with good mentors.

No data could be located for the following states: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington

As I have previously blogged, prison is not a country club no matter what how many stories I have to read about Lil’ Wayne’s incarceration.

The latest illustration of the fact that going to prison is no holiday is rapper Mystikal who was released from prison in January 2010 after serving 6 years for sexual battery. I read an interesting article this weekend about his experience of being incarcerated and his musical comeback.

The article offers this description of part of his time behind bars:

He settled into Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, outside Baton Rouge. He picked potatoes and tomatoes, dug holes, worked “every job they had.” He rode out Hurricane Katrina there, as a posse of relatives from New Orleans crashed at his home.

He was eventually transferred to David Wade Correctional Center in north Louisiana, much further from friends and family. One advantage? The prison pig farm produced pork chops for the menu.

He worked his way up the prison hierarchy to the “preferred” jobs. He liked the grass-cutting job because of its “seasonal” nature – in winter, he had time off.

His celebrity afforded no particular advantages or disadvantages. He lived in a dormitory amongst the general population, and had no trouble, he said, aside from minor infractions. “I wasn’t perfect. I tried to get over when I could.”

I am glad that Mystikal did not try to portray his incarceration as though it were 6 years at Club Fed. Below is a radio interview that he conducted as he was being released from prison in January.

This article follows one where T.I. clearly does not glamourize his own experience of being incarcerated. More articles like this please… rather than ones about how Lil’ Wayne is living it up in lock down.

Chris Stain

In the United States, over 2,500 youth (predominantly youth of color) have received life without the possibility of parole sentences. Thousands more are serving lengthy terms or effective equivalents of life without parole. The United States is ALONE in sentencing youth to die in prison. For a brief primer of JLWOP, this short video is helpful.

Partnering with the Illinois Coalition for Fair Sentencing of Children, writer and activist Kevin Coval has edited a powerful chapbook of poetry by adults who were sentenced to life without parole while they were still youth. Part of his preface to this publication reads:

Some of the writers you will read here are guilty of the crimes for which they have been convicted. Some express deep remorse for their actions done, in some instance, more than 20 years ago. Some are responsible for horrible things no one can undo. Some were kids caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Witnesses and accomplices to horror, but not the progenitors of that horror. Some were abused and neglected by parents and living conditions. Some are products of an environment of poverty and gang culture. Some are captives in the draconian war on drugs and the war on bodies of color in a gentrifying urban landscape. Some of the writers here, decades into their sentence continue to claim and work to prove their innocence in the home of Jon Burge and police torture and confessions thru coercion. And some, as has been the case for more than a dozen men exonerated from death row in the state of Illinois since 1977, are indeed innocent. Though, the question this book raises is not one of guilt or innocence. It is a question of our values.

As usual Kevin’s words expressed plainly and beautifully lay out the case for why it is important to read and hear the voices of youth sentenced to life without parole and to ask ourselves if we are truly a civilized country when we allow such injustice. I have selected three poems to feature here today but will continue to share some of the other powerful poems from the book over time. In the meantime, you can LISTEN HERE to a reading of several of the poems in the book. The event was taped through Chicago Amplified, a program of Chicago Public Radio. The room was standing room only and it was an evening to remember. Blogger Rosa captures the power of the event here.

A Prisoner’s Voice
Carl Williams

I wrote this poem 16 years ago but I share it now as I have never shared it before. And I share it now because it was part of my voice and the beginning of the writing that helped to heal me.

The rainbows have faded.
No longer shines the sun.
My days are now so lonely.
My nights, just the same.
I call out to the heavens
screaming out your name.
Please hear my cries.
I’m begging for help.
No one is there.
I close my eyes.
I awake to voices screaming
of the emptiness, inside.

Carl Williams is 33 years old. He grew up on the South side of Chicago and was 17 years old at the time of the crime for which he received life without parole. Carl maintains his innocence and continues to fight for his freedom.

Freedom Is So Far Away
Darnell Foxx

I fell at 15 into a hole of judges and state attorneys.
They had guidelines setup to choke me to death.
They had bogus lawyers surrounding me holding their breath.
I needed some air. They have me life plus 60.
I remain captured in the bottom
of the dungeon. Hope is just a word
because the courts have no heart.
In this coffin with another human
is the true meaning of living dead.
The smell, the sight, the steel, the concrete
3 walls, one floor, one ceiling, a gang of bars.
When bedtime is near, your time weighs heavily
your mental combines with women you use to sex.
The cell feels like a coffin. Although most think heaven
and hell is beyond earth. Some say it’s mental
slavery in action.

You will die here.

Freedom is so far away
you can smell death
wash over your cell.

Darnell was sentenced to life without parole for two murders committed when he was 15. As a child, Darnell dreamt of being the first in his family to finish high school. He is 28 years old, has obtained his GED, and wishes to enroll in college courses. He longs to be with his family and take care of his sisters.

16
Kenneth Brown

Sometimes I wonder about life and why I grew up so fast.
Never knowing the life I had, would end up so bad.
I grew up amongst a family who did not have much
love for one another. I hit the streets thinking
I would find love from others. I dropped out
of school, found myself running the streets. Gangbanging
selling drugs to make ends meet. Deep inside my heart
I knew it wasn’t the life for me, cause I constantly
wondered about the people I hurt, wondered if the Lord
would forgive me. At times I wish to turn back
time. To lead a better life without crime.
I have lost all hope and what it means.
I was never given a second chance at life
to fulfill some of my dreams. Now sitting alone
in this jail cell, thinking about the many things
I haven’t done and haven’t seen. It’s hard
to carry on when you’re doing life without parole
at the age of 16.

Kenneth Brown is 30 years old and grew up on the West side of Chicago until he received a life without parole sentence for two murders committed when he was 16 years old. Since being incarcerated, he has earned his GED and works in the prison kitchen as a cook. He learned how to cook from his mother and grandmother during Thanksgiving and other holiday dinners.

I love working with and on behalf of young people. Over the years, I have founded several organizations dedicated to helping youth to develop their leadership skills. Most recently, I launched an organization that is specifically focused on eradicating youth incarceration.

This weekend I was reading through a new report published by the National Center for Youth Law and the Wyoming Chapter of the ACLU. The report suggests that:

Unlike any other state in the nation, Wyoming commonly prosecutes children as adults, often imposing adult sentences for normal adolescent misbehavior. The majority of children in trouble with the law in Wyoming are being processed through adult courts, where they become saddled with adult criminal convictions. Children as young as 8 are being criminally prosecuted for such minor offenses as stealing a pack of gum or skateboarding in a restricted area.

The following sentence from the report really stuck with me:

It is estimated that 85-90% of children in trouble with the law in Wyoming are currently being processed through adult, not juvenile courts where they become saddled with adult criminal convictions for minor misbehaviors.

Even though it takes a lot to surprise me these days, I was stunned at this number of 90% of youth in trouble with the law being processed through adult court in Wyoming. Living here in Chicago, we have the legacy of Jane Addams and her fellow reformers who established the first juvenile court in 1898. The court was to serve as a “kind and just parent” for youth in trouble with the law. Now zero tolerance policies and laws have infused all aspects of American life (schools, workplaces, penal institutions) and we have forgotten that children are children and should be treated accordingly. Chicago is lucky to have people like Bernadine Dohrn and the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University Law School among many others in this city who are fighting to remind people on a daily basis that children demand different treatment from adults in the legal system. It is truly sad to say that this advocacy is needed now more than ever.

A recent column by Karen Heller underscores this reality. She points out that:

The United States leads the world in incarcerating juveniles for life without the possibility of parole. And Pennsylvania leads all states, by far, in a practice most nations condemn as inhumane.

It is only this May that the U.S. Supreme Court finally “ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) for any charge other than homicide, citing the country’s “evolving standards of decency” and the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.” Rather than ending JLWOP completely, they still left open the possibility for such a sentence in the case of homicide. I believe that this is still inhumane as life without parole for a 15 year old who commits a homicide is tantamount to imposing a sentence of death. You have incapacitated the young person for life.

Ms. Heller makes the case much more eloquently than I can:

What does it say about a society that locks up juveniles and says they have no chance for redemption, rehabilitation, and change? Are prisons places to educate, discipline, and reform inmates – correctional institutions – or are they human warehouses to incarcerate people until they die?

I would suggest that prisons are in fact warehouses and that even if folks cannot get on the bandwagon to abolish incarceration for adults, surely they can agree that incarceration for youth is cruel and unusual punishment. Can’t they?  Our treatment of youth in trouble with the law is all the more tragic because research suggests that delinquent youth even if left alone are likely to outgrow this behavior.

In addition, a recent review of the literature regarding whether juvenile transfer laws serve as a deterrent for youth crime finds that “in terms of specific deterrence — in other words, whether trying and sentencing juvenile offenders as adults decreases the likelihood that they will reoffend — six large-scale studies have found higher recidivism rates among juveniles convicted for violent offenses in criminal court when compared with similar offenders tried in juvenile court.” This finding is unsurprising given what we know about prison — that it only teaches people how to become better prisoners. The bulk of the available evidence that exists about whether transfer laws impact would-be juvenile offenders while less clear-cut suggests that these laws have little or no general deterrent effect on this population either.

Ara Oshagan -- Juvies

One of my hobbies is photography.  Photographs can often be more eloquent on a subject than words.  I found a wonderful series of photographs by Ara Oshagan.  The project is called Juvies and the photographs depict juvenile offenders who are being charged as adults in California.  The poignancy of the image above cannot be overstated.  Read this young woman’s words and get a sense of her desperation.  Notice the misspelled words and understand how the educational system has failed her. How we all have failed her…

HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME – Tupac Shakur

Tell my young black males, blaze up!
Life’s a mess don’t stress, test
I’m givin but be thankful that you’re livin, blessed
Much love to my brothers in the pen
See ya when I free ya if not when they shove me in
Once again it’s an all out scrap
Keep your hands on ya gat, and now ya boys watch ya back
Cause in the alleys out in Cali I’ma tell ya
Mess with the best and the vest couldn’t help ya
Scream, if ya feel me; see it clearly?
You’re too near me –

I don’t think that I will ever run out of material about the lengths that corporations will go to profit off the prison industrial complex.  They are all looking to profit off this wretched and dehumanizing system.  Well today, I read that the Discovery Channel is planning  jailhouse talent shows modeled after American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.  This is apparently not a bad joke.

From the article reporting this travesty:

In what has to be the oddest and potentially inflammatory “American Idol” knock-off reality contest yet, Investigation Discovery just announced two prison talent shows.

At the Television Critics Association’s press tour in Beverly Hills, the Discovery-branded crime network announced it’s developing a singing competition titled “Talent Behind Bars,” and another show called “Dancing Behind Bars.”

The latter is produced by top-shelf reality kingpin Mark Burnett, the former has yet to attach a producing partner.

Whenever I talk about my work with others, I make sure to stress that it focuses on developing community-based alternatives to the traditional criminal legal system.   I add that we do this using a transformative justice approach and lens. Many have responded to me by saying: “that’s not something that I can wrap my mind around.”  This is usually followed by the questions: “What does transformative justice look like?” and  “How would it work?”   Actually I should back up to say that the first question is usually: “What about the violent and bad people?  Surely you are not advocating letting them out of prison!”

I understand the fear that people have of the so-called “unknown.”  People would rather rely on a criminal legal system that they KNOW is ineffective and unjust than to move to an approach that they view as “unproven” and perhaps even Utopian.  It provides them with a sense of safety, however fragile. Hence, the constant and persistent question: “What about the bad people?”

I understand that people want to have some sense of accountability for harm that was done. I often answer questions about the “bad people” by asking individuals whether they feel that every “bad” person is currently incarcerated.  If they say, no, I ask them if it is realistic to incapacitate every “bad” person on the planet.  In fact, what does it even mean to be a “bad” person? Then I ask them to think about what factors determine who ends up behind bars.  This is intended to push people to acknowledge the fact that not every “crime” is punished and that certain groups always seem to be more of a target for punishment than others.  I point out that the majority of people who are incarcerated are non-violent offenders.  I tell them that if they would agree to release all of those people only then am I  willing to entertain their questions about the “bad” people.  This serves as a way not to get bogged down in the endless discussion about whether “bad” people need to go to prison.  Once all of the non-violent prisoners are freed, I am confident that we would be able to make the case that prisons are in existence to mask our failure for addressing the root causes of oppression.  As such, more people would be freed still. We need to start opening the doors of the prisons and this necessitates deploying alternative approaches to addressing violence and crime.

I am prompted to write this post today after reading an article in the Daily Progress about restorative justice. I wanted to write about this topic because it is past time that those of us who are anti-prison activists step up to the plate and create actual community-based alternatives that do not rely on the criminal legal system to solve issues of violence and crime.   We cannot simply rely on analysis of the problem of mass incarceration as important as that work is.  We have to test our theories about using transformative approaches to addressing violence and crime. We have to be willing to take some risks and to also be prepared to fail some times.  More of us have to put our ideas in practice. It takes courage because it is lonely and difficult work but we cannot expect to dismantle the prison industrial complex if we do not develop vehicles for community accountability with respect to violence and crime.  We can start small and that is exactly what we are attempting in our organization.

Many people of good will are looking for concrete examples of restorative and transformative practice in action.   Restorative justice as an approach to addressing violence and crime is only one step on a continuum of community accountability.  That continuum is ultimately pointing our society towards TRANSFORMATIVE justice.

Over the past few years, I have adopted a hobby of collecting stories and vignettes of restorative and transformative justice in action.  To date, the best example of what I mean by transformative justice is a story that I heard a couple of years ago on NPR about a man named Julio Diaz.  The title of the story was “A Victim Treats His Mugger Right.”

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,'” Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?'”

Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.

“You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'”

“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.'”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.

The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ’cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”

The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”

“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo.

If you have an interest in issues of transformative justice, you absolutely have to LISTEN to Julio as he narrates his story. The story has all of the elements of transformative justice: healing, compassion, relationship-building and accountability.

For more stories that address themselves to transformative justice, I recommend the work of Creative Intervention’s Storytelling and Organizing Project.

I have been suggesting that S.B. 1070 is not only racist but is also a play to increase the profits of private prisons. As the Geo Group and Cornell Companies merge to form giant private prison empires, more research is needed to document how much money these companies stand to make by criminalizing immigration status.  As such, I was pleased to find the following article today highlighting a recent study by Grassroots Leadership about how criminalizing the undocumented boosts for-profit-prisons.

From the article:

Bob Libal, a co-author of “Operation Streamline: Drowning Justice and Draining Dollars along the Rio Grande,” presented findings at a panel hosted by the Open Society Institute in July. He noted that since 2005, an estimated $1.2 billion in federal dollars — in Texas alone — have been funneled into warehousing the undocumented in predominantly for-profit private jails and detention centers, while they await trial or serve sentences prior to deportation.

In 2002, according to the report, 2,770 immigrants were sentenced to prison for crossing the border without authorization in two Texas districts along the border. In 2009, that number soared to 44,517. “The expanded criminal add civil immigration detention system has been a huge financial boon to private prison corporations, such as the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and management and Training Corporation (MTC),” the report found.

More documentation and studies on this phenomenon please…