This is a map of surveillance cameras in one part of the Chicago Loop in 2003. I wonder how many more cameras there are today.

(Source & Details about the Project)

Update: A Twitter follower shared this recent article about the “frightening” numbers of cameras in Chicago.

The city has added 500 security cameras under Emanuel and now has a “federated system” of 22,000 cameras citywide, said Gary Schenkel, executive director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

My organization was invited to speak to students (K-7th grade) at Village Leadership Academy about our work. One of our volunteers, Bianca Diaz who is an artist, kindly agreed to speak to the students. She incorporated art in her presentation by asking students to respond to the following question visually: “What do you think it would be like to be in jail or prison?” Bianca uploaded some of the student created art HERE. I’ve included a few examples of their art below. If you are in Chicago on November 9, join us for a conversation about how to explain prison & jail to children with incarcerated loved ones. Details are HERE.

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Prison Poems
by Sam Greenlee

We asked about
a special issue
of Nommo
which would feature
poetry
from prison
and
I wondered about that
since anybody
black
writing poetry
in the USA
is writing
poetry in
prison.

This is my birthday month and people who love me know that I don’t need any gifts. For my birthday, I usually make a pitch to support my favorite organizations and causes. Incidentally, this year I am asking folks to support the Chicago Freedom School, an organization that I co-founded & does incredibly important work.

Anyway, as a birthday gift, a friend sent me a pamphlet about a political prisoner named Wesley Robert Wells.

In 1928, Wesley Wells was arrested at the age of 19 for stealing a suit. He was incarcerated for a time at San Quentin prison. His initial sentence of 1 to 5 years was increased when during a “gang fight” Wells killed another prisoner. He was charged with manslaughter, transferred to Folsom Prison and stayed there until 1941.

He was released from prison and struggled unsuccessfully to make a living. He was re-incarcerated after he was convicted of stealing a car battery. While in prison, Wells had numerous confrontations with guards and fellow prisoners. In 1944, he was convicted of possession of a weapon; his sentence extended to life imprisonment.

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I am still accepting photo submissions for the Picturing a World without Prisons project until October 22nd. So please consider submitting your vision.

Below is a collaborative vision created by me, Sarah Jane Rhee and her 9 year old daughter Cadence.

It was Victor Hugo who said: “He who opens a school door closes a prison.” It is therefore surreal to live in Chicago in 2013 where we just experienced the single largest mass closure of schools in American history. Rahm Emanuel & his hand-picked school board shuttered 49 schools displacing over 30,000 mostly black children. If we believe Hugo, this means that Chicago has opened the door to 50 new prisons.

So when we envision a world without prisons, we think of children reading piles of books for pleasure. We think of them getting lost in imaginary lands dreaming of all of the adventures they’ll have. A world without prisons is one where there is no ceiling placed on children’s imaginations… It’s a world where we close the doors of prisons and open ones to new schools. Preferably schools near water & sand…

Join the discussion and submit your vision by October 22.

Today is Indigenous People’s Day.

This photograph depicts Apache prisoners including Geronimo. I desperately need to become better educated about Native American history. This photograph has me interested in learning more about the plight and fate of Native American prisoners of war in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Below are some details about the photograph.

“The U.S. Army and the Apache tribe (who called themselves N’ne, meaning “the people”) engaged in armed conflict in the U.S. Southwest from 1851 through 1886. On September 4, 1886, the famed Apache leader Geronimo (or Goyahkla) surrendered to U.S. Army forces at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. This photo shows Geronimo and his followers, including women and children, being sent to a U.S. Army fort to be held as prisoners of war. (Source)”

Learn more about the over 500 Apache Prisoners of War that the U.S. government held for over 25 years.

Herman Wallace would have turned 72 years old today. Instead on October 4th, he died in his sleep, his body ravaged by liver cancer. Wallace had just been released from a Louisiana prison three days earlier after having spent over 40 years in solitary confinement in a 6 by 9 cell.

Among his final words, he is reported to have said: “I am free. I am free.” It’s a minor miracle that he was able to die surrounded by friends instead of in a prison hospital. A judge overturned his 1974 conviction for the murder of a guard at Angola prison and ordered his immediate release. Only a couple of days later, while he lay dying in his hospital bed, the state of Louisiana filed charges to re-indict him. There was actually a question as to whether he might be re-arrested. Louisiana was determined that Wallace should die in prison by any means necessary.

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I watched a documentary called “The Perfect Victim” early this morning.

The film focuses on the lives of four women incarcerated in Missouri for killing their husbands. It opens with Shirley Lute talking to an interviewer in 2002. She is 70 years old and has spent 22 years already behind bars. She was sentenced to 50 years to life for allegedly paying her son to murder her husband. We hear Shirley describe the years of abuse that she and her children endured at his hands. “I was the one who was being tortured,” she says at one point, “I missed my entire life.”

When Lute was on trial, battered women’s syndrome was not yet accepted as a legal basis to explain the “learned helplessness” that can lead some victims of repeated abuse to stay in their relationships. [Incidentally battered women’s syndrome is a controversial concept on all sides.] Shirley Lute was also encouraged by her attorneys not to bring up the abuse she suffered at trial because they feared that this would be seen as motive for the murder.

“The Perfect Victim” features the work of the Missouri Battered Women’s Clemency Coalition which took on the cases of 11 domestic violence survivors who were convicted of murdering their partners & given very long sentences.

In 2004, the Coalition secured pardons for two women (including Shirley Lute who wasn’t actually released until 2007). After Lute is released, the documentary follows her. We see the difficulty that Lute has in adjusting to life on the outside. At first, she spends most of her time in her room and asks for permission to do almost everything. She is an institutionalized woman. Eventually, she meets a man who she quickly moves in with and eventually marries.

Another woman in the film is Carlene Borden who was sentenced to 50 years to life for the death of her husband (who was shot by Borden’s boyfriend). She had already left her husband when he found her, threatened her, and then was shot by her boyfriend. She was 14 when she married and the abuse started a couple of years later. Her husband was also abusive to her children. During a particularly poignant moment in the film, Borden says that she has 7 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren who she has “raised in the visiting room” of the prison. The Clemency project tries several times to secure a pardon for Borden. Finally, after having spent 32 years in prison, Carlene is granted parole. The documentary follows her adjustment to life after prison.

The film gets its title from the words of an attorney for the Clemency project who explains that parole boards are “looking for the perfect victim.” He adds that this victim is usually white and must be submissive at all times. When survivors fight back, then they aren’t seen as victims anymore. At one point in the film, this same attorney suggests that counseling and other supports would have served all of these women better than prison. The audience is left to agree with this assessment.

Tanya Mitchell, another survivor & incarcerated woman featured in the film, explains that: “People just don’t understand the fear that you go through with an abuser.” I think that this is fundamentally true. It’s important to understand that the nature of women’s violence is often different from men’s violence. Mark Totten writes that “the literature suggests that women’s use of violence is qualitatively different from that of men: whereas male violence tends to be more frequent, serious, and utilitarian, female violence is more often contextualized in significant factors related to self-defence, anticipation of upcoming physical or sexual assault, and prior victimization by physical and sexual abuse.” Sexism, oppression and a misunderstanding of the roots of women’s violence often lead to disproportionately severe sentences for women who defend themselves or others from violence perpetrated by abusive men. In the stories of Shirley, Carlene, Ruby, and Tanya, we can see the fallacy & tyranny of the concept of a “perfect victim.” Through the documentary, the audience must consider the profound unfairness of a criminal legal system that punishes victims of violence for defending their lives. “The Perfect Victim” will be of interest to anyone concerned about justice and ending violence.

Note: This week is a crucial one in the case of Marissa Alexander who is currently incarcerated for attempting to defend herself from her husband’s abuse. Please take action to help FREE HER. You can find details HERE.

This is a poem that I read years ago in an anthology edited by Langston Hughes titled “New Negro Poets, U.S.A.” published in 1964. I think that it applies to this historical moment. It’s also a reminder that black people have ALWAYS borne the brunt of government surveillance in America.

Award by Ray Durem (1915-1963)

A Gold Watch to the FBI Man who has followed me for 25 years.

Well, old spy
looks like I
led you down some pretty blind alleys,
took you on several trips to Mexico,
fishing in the high Sierras,
jazz at the Philharmonic.
You’ve watched me all your life,
I’ve clothed your wife,
put your two sons through college.
what good has it done?
the sun keeps rising every morning.
ever see me buy an Assistant President?
or close a school?
or lend money to Trujillo?
ever catch me rigging airplane prices?
I bought some after-hours whiskey in L.A.
but the Chief got his pay.
I ain’t killed no Koreans
or fourteen-year-old boys in Mississippi.
neither did I bomb Guatemala,
or lend guns to shoot Algerians.
I admit I took a Negro child
to a white rest room in Texas,
but she was my daughter, only three,
who had to pee.