Vengeance is a lazy form of grief…

Everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone, on God if they can’t find anyone else. But in Africa, in Matobo, the Ku believe that the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered, a year of mourning ends with a ritual that we call the Drowning Man Trial. There’s an all-night party beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat. He’s taken out on the water and he’s dropped. He’s bound so that he can’t swim. The family of the dead then has to make a choice. They can let him drown or they can swim out and save him. The Ku believe that if the family lets the killer drown, they’ll have justice but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn’t always just… that very act can take away their sorrow.

These words are from a film called the “Interpreter” starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn.  The film itself is pretty terrible.  However when I saw it a couple of years ago, I was struck by these words uttered by Nicole Kidman’s character  Apparently, a number of people have tried to unearth whether the “drowning man trial” actually has roots in some African cultures or if it is simply a Hollywood invention.  To me, it doesn’t really matter if this concept is based on a “truth” or a “myth.”  There is a lot to be learned from this anecdote about the challenges and promise of transformative justice.  Incidentally, in Malinke culture, we too have a concept of justice similar to the “drowning man trial” but that is for consideration on another day.

What I want to interrogate today is the idea of “vengeance being a lazy form of grief…”  I believe that our criminal legal system in the U.S. is obsessed with the concept of punishment and getting even.  I don’t think that this is a healthy way to  administer “justice.”  As a survivor of violence, I understand the human emotions that drive us to want to make those who harm us “pay” for their transgressions against us.  I also know, for myself, that this impulse ultimately provided no solace for me.

I am driven to find better ways and solutions to ensure community accountability for violence and crime.  I ponder the words above and ask what  does transformative justice mean if we accept the fictional Ku’s premise that “life isn’t always just.”  If that is true, then how should we  think about concept of transformative justice?  Is it more useful for us to focus on the concept of community accountability as opposed to transformative “justice?”  What does it mean for us to talk about the concept of justice in an unjust world?

I have taken to regularly asking myself whether the work that I do,  in the words of Ruthie Gilmore, “extends or shortens the reach” of the prison industrial complex.  Ultimately any attempt to reform the current system of incarceration that actually contributes to extending the reach of prisons  exacerbates an already untenable situation  As such, I struggle with the concept of collaborating with the state through restorative justice programs that serve as “alternatives” to incarceration.  I don’t want to contribute to the widening of the net of social control by increasing the number of community members who fall under the purview of state supervision.  Currently the work of my organization is challenged by these real tensions.

Theorist and co-founder of Incite! Women of Color against Violence, Andi Smith has written that:

“Simply adding RJ (restorative justice) to the present criminal justice system is likely to further strengthen the criminal justice apparatus, particularly in communities of color that are deemed in need of restoration (p.266).”

So where does this leave us?  Vengeance is indeed a lazy form of grief. And yet we need some way to provide community accountability for violence and crime…

Andi Smith suggests that in order to live up to the promise of transformative justice we must “seek to address violence from a political organizing perspective rather than using the criminal justice  or RJ model (p.267).”  She posits that only if we consider political organizing and base building as strategies for ending violence can we achieve transformational justice.  Perhaps this is the place to begin…

Cited: Smith, Andi (2010). “Beyond Restorative Justice: Radical Organizing Against Violence” in Restorative Justice and Violence Against Women. Edited by James Ptacek.

I missed this yesterday because I am so swamped with work. Apparently hundreds of NYC students rallied in support of the Student Safety Act.

According to the NYCLU website:

Hundreds of New York City students and parents today joined local lawmakers and the Student Safety Coalition in front of Tweed Hall to rally support for the Student Safety Act, legislation being considered by the City Council that will bring transparency and accountability to NYPD activity and Department of Education suspension practices in the city’s schools.

This is incredibly encouraging. Public schools in the U.S. have been transformed into high security environments, complete with surveillance technologies, security forces, and zero tolerance policies. I know that I write a lot about this but I don’t think that it can be overstated. As educator and theorist Henry Giroux has persuasively argued, youth are living in a “suspect” society. Angela Davis has suggested that “when children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison.”

So it is encouraging to me to see that young people are resisting their criminalization by institutions like schools.

Quoting once again from the NYCLU website:

With more than 5,200 uniformed officers, the NYPD’s School Safety Division is the nation’s fifth-largest police force – larger than the police forces in Washington D.C., Detroit, Boston, Baltimore, Dallas, or Las Vegas. There are more police in our schools than there are guidance counselors.

NYPD School Safety Officers have the authority to detain, search and arrest children, yet they receive only 14 weeks of training—compared to six months for police officers. All too often, this police presence has led to interventions by law enforcement situations that should be handled by educators.

Take, for example, Denis Rivera, a 5-year-old special education student who was handcuffed for throwing a temper tantrum in his kindergarten class. The NYPD handcuffed and arrested 12-year-old Alexa Gonzalez in school for scribbling on her desk in erasable marker. And Mark Federman, a principal at East Side Community High School, was arrested for trying to prevent the police from humiliating his honor roll student.

The escalation of police activity in the schools has also created a de facto zero tolerance policy in schools serving the city’s poorest neighborhoods. In these schools, which often have permanent metal detectors, students are suspended and even arrested for minor disciplinary infractions.

“The Student Safety Act will help students stay in school and ensures that we have some place to go if we have problems with school safety issues,” said Nazifa Nahbub, a 17-year-old senior at Long Island City High School and a youth leader for DRUM, Desis Rising Up and Moving.

“We need the Student Safety Act passed by the end of 2010 so no more students will be criminalized,” said Praz Barua, a youth leader for DRUM and the Urban Youth Collaborative. “This bill will create the transparency that we desperately need in our schools.”

One of my favorite recent books is Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon. Here he is on NPR back in 2008 talking about the central premise of his work.  Blackmon’s book helped me to truly understand the connections between slavery, prison labor in a historical context.

You can read the story and listen to audio by clicking on this link.

Or I am going to try to embed the audio here again…

One of my main areas of interest with respect to the juvenile legal system involves how girls and young women are treated. For years, I have been an advocate of “gender-responsive” programming within the juvenile legal system. Over the years, I have found myself thinking seriously about what the content of such gender-responsive programming should be. I have offered my own ideas and been involved in crafting programs for girls in trouble with the law. And yet here we are in 2010 and we are still struggling to figure out what would work best in terms of intervening with girls in the system.

In the 11 years between 1998 and 2007, the number of arrests of girls increased at a faster rate (or decreased more slowly) than those of boys for robbery, assault, burglary, drug violations, and driving under the influence. A number of researchers have suggested that this increase in young women coming to the attention of juvenile justice authorities has to do with a change in the way that young women’s behavior is policed. Criminologists like Meda Chesney-Lind have attributed the increase in two phenomena called “upcriming” and “relabeling.” Physical altercations which would have been handled by the principal or parents in the past are now being referred to law enforcement and the courts and are labeled as serious “violent” offenses.

Because young women still only make up a minority of those in the juvenile system, in 2008 they represented 22% of juvenile arrests for example, much of the programs and interventions are still very much boycentric.

I was reading a fascinating article this weekend which really got me thinking about the issues facing young women in trouble with law more immediately. The article titled “Looking in the Rearview Mirror: What Incarcerated Women Think Girls Need From the System” seeks out the opinions of women prisoners (who were involved in the juvenile justice system as girls) to learn about what they believe girls in the juvenile justice need in order to ensure that they do not end up behind bars as adults. This is super interesting because few studies actually focus on the opinions of prisoners to ascertain the effectiveness of programming and criminal legal interventions.

What a novel approach… Perhaps we should actually ask prisoners opinions and seek their guidance when we are developing policies to address crime and delinquency. It seems so common-sense and yet researchers and policy makers rarely rely on the experiences and expertise of current or former prisoners.

Anyway, the female prisoners in this study underscored a number of key things that girls need from the juvenile justice system in order not to graduate into the adult system as they themselves did.

Quoting from the article:

[T]he women argued for highly structured placements that use female staff that are caring and professional, the importance of female role models/female mentors, and to provide girls a voice in the proceedings against them and in the development of their treatment plans.

Also, as has been indicated in the literature, a large proportion of girls have been victimized and faced serious trauma in their lives. Some have faced sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse. Others have faced seriously dysfunctional and chaotic family lives, poor parenting, parental loss (whether by death, incarceration, or abandonment), and neglect. Because of these factors, the women in this study argued persuasively that correctional programming for girls should include parenting classes, independent living skills, and self-esteem building components. These programmatic “prescriptions” also appear in the gender-specific literature for girls. The literature also indicates, as did the women in this study, that families (when appropriate) should participate in the girls’ treatment, with the goal of repairing the family relationship in mind.

Moreover, some women pointed out the need for girls to learn to become self-sufficient, some by vocational training and job placement, and others by finishing their education or going on to college. Thus correctional programming needs to identify educational deficits that can be corrected and current skills that can be strengthened. Other important types of counseling that the women indicated as crucial to help girls get over their traumatized pasts were sexual abuse, substance abuse, grief and loss counseling….Finally, the women noted that healthy relationships are virtually nonexistent in these girls’ lives. They underscored the need for programming to teach girls how to develop and sustain healthy relationships. This is especially true when one considers that the literature has established that relationships are one of the major ways girls develop their sense of identity.

Many of us who work as researchers or “experts” get paid money to come up with information that is accessible and available if we were to pay more attention to people who are actually impacted and affected by systems of oppression. This article is an important reminder of that truth.

Article cited: “Looking in the Rearview Mirror: What Incarcerated Women Think Girls Need From the System” by Crystal A. Garcia and Jodi Lane in Feminist Criminology, 2010 5: 227.

According to Life Means Health:

The Dutch government has announced that it does not have enough prisoners to fill its prisons, and as a result is closing down 8 prisons. Currently, the Netherlands has the capacity for 14,000 prisoners, but only has 12,000 people to fill those jails. The shutting down of these prisons are being attributed to an ever decreasing crime rate in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has a population of 16.6 million and a prison population of roughly 12,000, putting its percentage of prisoners as 0.07%, whereas the UK’s own prison population is nearly 94,000 (!!!) with a population of 62 million, leaving its percentage as 0.15%, just over twice that of the Netherlands.

The United States has a population of 310 million people and at last count we had over 2.3 million people in our prisons and jails.

The article continues by explaining that the Netherlands lenient drug laws are actually contributing to their steep drop in crime as opposed to the laws in the UK and the US which contribute to a growth in the prison population:

[I]t is estimated that as much as 40% could be in prison for small-time drug crimes which are costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year. In stark contrast, the US is finding that it has to actually open MORE prisons each year while we see the Netherlands is actually being forced to close them. With incentives like Proposition 19 gaining significant traction, and other countries outside the States stating that if Proposition 19 is passed drug reform in the country would occur, a repeat of the events happening in the Netherlands could actually happen in similar smaller countries.

The reason for this would be because state-controlled distribution of marijuana at subsidized prices would cut into illegal drug activites, where huge amounts of crime occur all the way from the cartels to the streets. Violent drug dealers and similar criminals would be driven out of business by the safe, cheap, high quality dispensaries and the community would benefit all round from this.For example, taxing and regulating cannabis would generate up to $1.4 billion in revenue per year for California. Similarly, $200 million of taxpayer money will be saved, due to less inmates in local jails. It is also estimated that California will generate $12-18 billion in spinoff industries such as tourism and coffee houses. The figures would be similar to what Amsterdam currently gets! All these savings could be put towards creating jobs, as it’s estimated that if Prop 19 passes, approximately 100,000 jobs will be created. Passing it would also help fight the Mexican drug cartels and stop the 6k death toll that has occurred this year as a direct result of their actions, as it is estimated that 60% of their income comes from marijuana trafficking.

(h/t Lois Aherns The Real Costs of Prisons)

Photographer: Julia Marie Rendleman
Project Title: “The Impact Incarceration Program”

The Impact Incarceration Program at the Dixon Springs Boot Camp in Southern Illinois is a 120-day program where inmates participate in a military-like boot camp instead of serving their judge-mandated sentence, usually between three and seven years. While the facility primarily houses male inmates, there are currently 22 female inmates.

“I think the program can be a real benefit to the women because there are so few of them – they get very personalized attention,” said Officer Teresa Robinson.

The graduation rate for the female inmates is over 95% and the recidivism rate for three years with no new felony convictions is 23.3%, compared to 32.9% at a traditional correctional facility.

This project considers the development of five women as they go through the boot camp program at Dixon Springs. All five women are first-time offenders with sentences under seven years. Forty-five days into the project, one inmate, Catherine Thomas, “quit”, or was kicked out of the program for slapping another female inmate. She will return to Dwight Correctional Facility to serve her full sentence of four years.

“She (Thomas) wasn’t taking it seriously,” said inmate Robin Johnson. “That means you not taking your life serious, and everything’s not a joke.”

Of the remaining four women, three are at Dixon Springs for aggravated assault. These women, in only six weeks, express a gratitude for the program that is hard to explain since the majority of their day is spent doing hard labor under rigorous scrutiny.

“You get more out of this than you ever would at prison. Prison, compared to this is the Hotel Paradise,” said inmate Courtney Andrews.

The final inmate this project follows is 29-year old Marita Sanders, who has a four-year college degree and was incarcerated for embezzling $70,000 from her accounting firm in Chicago. Unlike the other three women, Sanders is, admittedly, not focused on changing but wants to get in and get out in 120 days.

click here to see a slide show of her moving and infuriating photographs.

A group of young people from the Youth Justice Board partnered with the Center for Urban Pedagogy to create a terrific comic/guide to the NY Juvenile Justice System.

I wish that we had a similar resource here in Chicago. It is difficult for young people and their families to understand and navigate the complicated juvenile justice system.

I ordered several copies of the comic and plan to use them with youth as a popular education tool.  It will be a good research project for them to look for the commonalities and differences between the Chicago and NY juvenile justice system.

Here is the comic_book.

I used to think that I would be married to Peter Tosh so deep was my love for him.  God rest his soul.  Here is one of my favorites..
“Cuz I don’t want no peace, I need equal rights and justice.”

This is the third installment of selections from “Until I Am Free: Voices of Youth Sentenced to Life Without Parole” edited by Kevin Coval.  All of the selections offered here are transcribed exactly as they appear in the publication.

Finding My Voice (Who Knew)

by Gary Clark

Getting up one morning no thoughts awaited me.

No thoughts that this might be the last time

I would see my people free.

In the back of a police car heading for the station

We know you didn’t do it, the other guy did

we feel you know something, you were there

just say that, we will let you go.

This became the cops’ favorite rhyme.

I told the truth swear to God. I’m keeping it real.

I was not there.  I was not with dude.

Sitting in the station going through this quiz

where were you at? what did you do?

Those hours seemed like eternity

hours that seemed as long as the life sentence they gave me.

I stood by the truth, the lie detector test, threats, harassment,

intimidation, good cop and bad cop.

Mom’s gone. I’m all alone. I don’t know what to do.

I’m scared, my heart is beating, about to explode

shortness of breath, hands shaking. Cops said

over and over we know you didn’t kill anyone

just say you were there, we will let you go.

I told them the truth. I just wanted to go home.

The officers are saying do this and you can go home.

That’s when I said those words.

The officers fed me the details

to make the lie sound like the truth.

I ask the officers can I go home now?

He said no you are going to jail.

I started this journey so long ago

a shorty of 14 when life really went wrong.

July 19, 1984. 12 people plus two took life from me

without ever knowing me.  They say there is no change in me.

Can they see there is much more to me.

I am somebody’s child, grandchild, a little brother,

a best friend, nephew and favorite cousin.

Can they see peoples’ lives affected when they sentence me?

They took away my family and all hope of what I could be.

Juvenile life without parole is a life of stolen hopes

and stolen dreams.  Who knew when I woke up

July 19, 1984, this would be me.

Gary Clark grew up in Decatur, Illinois and was 14 at the time of the offense for which he received life without parole.  He maintains his innocence and is now 41 years old.  In prison he has earned his GED and held various jobs.  He also reads and likes to study history and religion.

What’s next

by Brandon Craighead

The past is not beautiful.

Searching for what I never had

lacking from Mom and Dad.

It’s tough growing up when no one believes in you.

Knowing they are gonna dismiss your achievements

no matter what you do.

Trying to glimpse my future

What’s next for me. Honestly

I don’t know.

Brandon Craighead grew up in various group homes, mental health facilities and on the streets in East St. Louis, IL.  He was 16 years old when he committed the crime for which he is serving life without parole.  He is now 29 years old.  In prison, he has received his GED, tutored other inmates, and worked various jobs.

Trying Times

By Marshan T. Allen

There are times when waving the white flag and surrendering to my adversary seems like the easiest thing to do.  I’m no pessimist however, every person has a breaking point and sometimes I feel like I’ve gone beyond mine. But I just can’t give up.  I refuse to accept the life captivity that awaits me.  I am a lone soldier fighting for life and liberty.  Without a wingman or air support.   I’m trapped behind enemy lines.  Surrounde by unfriendly faces in a strange and hostile place, no ally in sight.  I’ve tried contacting base but all lines of communication severed.  No one answers my may day calls or comes to rescue.  I’m on my own.  Thus I have two choices: Extricate myself or die! I choose the former, dying here, like this, is not an option? However, I am afflicted with exhaustion. Combat takes its toll on the best of soldiers.  I’m not trained to survive under these conditions.  My adversary has unlimited resources at its disposal.  The odd are against me.  I know I must fight valiantly and relentlessly if I am to prevail.  My mission: total liberation.  I won’t settle for anything less.  No matter how trying these times become, I am determined to fight to the end…

Marshan Allen was sentenced to life without parole as a 15 year old getaway driver in connection with a double murder. His judge said that Marshan was capable of “rehabilitation” and that if he had any choice, he would not give Marshan the natural life sentence mandated by law.  Marshan is 34 years old today, and awaits a new sentencing hearing.  He has received his G.E.D., a paralegal degree and completed a small business management course. He is now taking correspondence courses with the University of Ohio and works in the prison library.

Stood/Miss: The Song’s Request

by Joseph Wingard

I don’t know much about the law.

So, Lord please

Don’t let me be Stood/Miss

You’re telling me my 16 year-old-son

is about to be charged with 1st degree murder. How

Long has he been in your custody? He didn’t

Request to have me there before talking to you?

That’s all it took for you to relieve him

Of his youth and his future

Oh lord, please don’t let me

Stood/Miss

I only get to spend 5 minutes with him?

I should be allowed to spend just as much

Time with him as you people did.  That’s not

Fair to you?  If I sign a confession will you

Allow me to spend more time with him then?

Who is becoming irate? Oh now

I have to go and you’re giving

Me directions to a courthouse!

You get some damn sleep!

I am a grown woman.  But

I will be seeing you bright and

Early tomorrow you

Lord, please don’t let me be

Stood/ Miss.

Joseph Winguard grew up on the South side of Chicago and attended Curie Hih School until he dropped out and succumbed to a lifestyle that led to the robbery and homicide for which he is serving life without parole.  Joseph was 17 at the time and is 36 years old today.  In prison he works, reads ferociously and watched movies. He is also writing a screenplay that he thinks is going to be good.

I got an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from a young college student named Maggie who asked me to share a list of the essential readings for someone who is trying to better understand the prison industrial complex and how it works.

I thought that it was a terrific question and so I got back to her with a list of some books that I would suggest.  This is my essential reading book list in alphabetical order by author.  A warning: these texts are weighted toward sociology since that is my own orientation and training. This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are hundreds of other text that could be included.  In fact, I look forward to hearing from others about their essential reading lists.

I plan to offer a list of articles that I sent to Maggie in a few days. All of the ones offered here are books.

Alexander, Michelle (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Ayers, William (1998). A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court

Davis, Angela (2003). Are Prisons Obsolete?

Davis, Angela (2005). Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture

Gilmore, Ruth Wilson (2007). Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California

Herivel, Tara & Wright, Paul (2002). Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America’s Poor

James, Joy, ed (2005). The New Abolitionists: (Neo) slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings

Law, Victoria (2009). Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Pager, Devah (2009) Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in An Era of Mass Incarceration

Parenti, Christian (2008, new edition). Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis

Perkinson, Robert (2010).  Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire

Sudbury, Julia (2005). Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex

Wacquant, Loic (2009). Prisons of Poverty

Western, Bruce (2006) Punishment and Inequality in America

There are a couple books that I have recently read that I really enjoyed and were really quick reads.  I would like to offer a shout out for them here as well.

Humes, Edward (1997). No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court

Kerman, Piper (2010). Orange is the New Black: My Year in A Women’s Prison

Finally, I am currently making my way through one of the most fascinating books about prisons that I have ever read.  It is called Dress Behind Bars: Prison Clothing as Criminality by Juliet Ash.  I would not say that this is an essential reading book but I would suggest that those who already have a good foundation in understanding the PIC will find it engrossing and well–worth reading.  The book is an examination of state control of prisoner’s bodies.  It examines the origins behind various forms of prison dress styles from 1800 to the present. It unpacks the messages inscribed in these clothes and also underscores how the state seeks to control, humiliate, and exert its power through clothing.  The book also speaks to the way that prisoners themselves try to exert their own forms of resistance through their dress and how prison clothing has affected the broader public.  It is really a fascinating book and so I thought I would put in a plug for it here. I hope to blog more specifically about the book in the coming weeks.