The past week has just been beyond busy for me. I’ve wanted to participate in several actions that have been taking place across my state of Illinois addressing mass incarceration but have not been able to. However thanks to my friends and to the internet, I have been able to keep up with some of the happenings. It’s not the same as being there by any measure but it allows me to feel connected in some way.

Yesterday, my friends at TAMMS Year Ten organized a powerful and from what I hear poignant direct action to amplify the voices of mothers and family members of men who are currently locked up at TAMMS Supermax prison. This is just part of the many actions that the group has been engaged in for over 10 years now.

The Chicago Tribune covered the Mother’s March:

The group of mothers stood beneath the sun in downtown Chicago on Wednesday, taking turns at a microphone to tell how the state’s controversial super-max prison has changed their sons.

One described her son’s precipitous weight loss since being incarcerated in the facility in Tamms in southern Illinois 21/2 years ago. Another spoke of her son’s slide into depression and hopelessness because of his extreme isolation. And a third detailed a maddening daily routine: In order to stay active, she said her son now spends hours walking in small circles in his windowless concrete cell.

“You did a crime, you need to pay for it,” said Geneva Mullins, whose son was convicted of attempted murder and conspiracy in a murder and is now at the Tamms super-max. “But you wouldn’t treat an animal like this. It is inhumane.”

Read the whole article here. Please also take a moment to visit the TAMMS Year Ten website to find out how you can support efforts to close this torture chamber. We have never been closer to seeing this prison closed. Governor Quinn has recommended its closure. Now it is up to the legislature to make sure that it happens.

My friend Sam took some beautiful photographs at the action and I want to share them with you.

Guarded
(Dropping Daddy Off At Jail)
by Danna Botwick

Good-bye at the gate
We hugged & kissed like families do
He held his youngest daughter,

She wanted to see where he would sleep.

The guard, a black woman
with sunglasses & white uniform,
scooped up his belongings with
long red nails.
It’s just a camp,
no bars, she made light
of our darkness and I hated her
long red nails.

Lucy did not cry
for almost two hours.

When it folded over her,
she was trying to spell
and decided she could not do her work
without him
so she beat the couch
with small angry fists
“I want my daddy, NOW!”
Until she could not breathe,
eyes puffy,
face flushed she raged,

“I wish daddy didn’t do that bad
thing in the first place!”

I paused inside my hurt
and suggested,
“He didn’t know…”

Too smart for me
she smashed her face into a pillow,
“I’ll bet all mothers say that to their children.”

This past week Fareed Zakaria published an article about the U.S.’s failed “War on Drugs.” In it, he writes:

Over the past four decades, the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion fighting the war on drugs. The results? In 2011 a global commission on drug policy issued a report signed by George Shultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan; the ­archconservative Peruvian writer-politician Mario Vargas Llosa; former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker; and former Presidents of Brazil and Mexico Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Ernesto Zedillo. It begins, “The global war on drugs has failed … Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption.” Its main recommendation is to “encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.”

It’s no secret that I am slightly obsessed with Lil’ Wayne and not in a good way. Anyway, a young man who I am working with has picked up on this and it has become his mission in life (it seems) to convince me that Wayne has some socially redeeming qualities. He sent me some lyrics of Wayne’s song titled Misunderstood. Because I have such love and respect for the young man who sent these to me, I thought that I would take the time to highlight some lines from the song that discusses the toll that the war on drugs takes on young men of color. Honestly, these lyrics are undone for me by several others that seem to devolve into a rant about sex offenders. But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

I Was Watching T.V. The Other Day Right
Got This White Guy Up There Talking About Black Guys
Talking About How Young Black Guys Are Targeted
Targeted By Who? America
You See One In Every 100 Americans Are Locked Up
One In Every 9 Black Americans Are Locked Up
And See What The White Guy Was Trying To Stress Was That
The Money We Spend On Sending A Mothaf**ka To Jail
A Young Mothaf**ka To Jail
Would Be Less To Send His Or Her Young Ass To College
See, And Another Thing The White Guy Was Stressing Was That
Our Jails Are Populated With Drug Dealers, You Know Crack/cocaine Stuff Like That
Meaning Due To The Laws We Have On Crack/cocaine And Regular Cocaine
Police Are Only, I Don’t Want To Say Only Right, But Shit
Only Logic By Riding Around In The Hood All Day
And Not In The Suburbs
Because Crack Cocaine Is Mostly Found In The Hood
And You Know The Other Thing Is Mostly Found In You Know Where I’m Going
But Why Bring A Mothaf**ka To Jail If It’s Not Gon Stand Up In Court
Cuz This Drug Aint That Drug, You Know Level 3, Level 4 Drug, Shit Like That
I Guess It’s All A Misunderstanding
I Sit Back And Think, You Know Us Young Mothaf**kas You Know That 1 In 9
We Probably Only Selling The Crack Cocaine Because We In The Hood
And It’s Not Like In The Suburbs, We Don’t Have What You Have
Why? I Really Don’t Wanna Know The Answer
I Guess We Just Misunderstood Hunh
You Know We Don’t Have Room In The Jail Now For The Real Mothaf**kas, The Real Criminals
Sex Offenders, Rapists Serial Killers, S**t Like That
Don’t Get Scared, Don’t Get Scared

If Lil Wayne sees these issues clearly, then one knows for sure that policymakers also do. Time to end the so-called “War on Drugs” which is really a war on communities of color and other marginalized groups.

This youtube video narrated by a teacher named Brian Jones does an excellent job of articulating what I hope more people do. He connects mass incarceration, the endemic fear of the “criminalblackman” that I always talk about, and demands for justice in the Trayvon Martin case. You should watch this and then you should take ACTION in your own life, your own community, and in the country at large. There is much that we need to be doing. Let’s do popular education about mass incarceration in all of our communities and let’s organize and build towards a different vision of “justice” that truly serves all of us.

“As tragic and disgusting as it is, the Trayvon Martin case, is merely a symptom. We’ve yet to address the virus.” – @1SunRising on Twitter.

So I am about to become even more unpopular than I already am but I find that I have to say a few things today…

A couple of years ago many people were very upset when Oscar Grant’s killer Johannes Mehserle received a two-year prison sentence for his crime. At the time, I wrote a piece titled “"We Hate Prisons But That Guy Needs To Be Locked Up". I am certain that the post didn’t gain me many new friends and that’s alright.

Yesterday I listened to a piece of a 911 call made by George Zimmerman, a vigilante who seems to have killed 17 year old Trayvon Martin in cold blood. Let me say upfront how incredibly heart-broken I am for Trayvon’s family and friends. I can’t begin to imagine the depth of their grief and sorrow. I have previously written about the tragedy of this case. Second, let me stipulate that I believe that Zimmerman did not shoot the young man in self-defense.

Having said this, I think that making the main focus of our activism with respect to Trayvon’s killing the prosecution of George Zimmerman is short-sighted. Additionally, it does nothing to address the root causes of racism and oppression which were surely the fuel for this murder. For black people, our history on issues of crime, law, order, and punishment is complex and usually conflicting. In this moment, I question why we as black people who know that there is no “justice” in the legal system are expending the majority of our energy demanding “justice” from said system. How are we going to find “justice” in the prosecution of Zimmerman? The answer is quite simply that we will not. “Prosecute” and “prison” fit on bumper stickers. During a time a genuine grief and pain, these seem to be a balm for the soul. It costs us little to call for these as the solution to injustice.

But I worry that all of the black people who are calling for the prosecution and ultimately the incarceration of Zimmerman are facilitating the carceral state. How can you decry the unjustness of the current legal and prison system while simultaneously calling for the prosecution and imprisonment of more people? Is this not contradictory? If you think that prisons are ineffective and counterproductive, then aren’t they going to be the same for Zimmerman and his ilk too?

Will we have addressed why Zimmerman felt that young Trayvon, who was simply walking to and from the corner store, was “suspicious” through prosecuting and locking him up? If you believe as I do that the “justice” system is irrevocably broken, then how can you rely on it to deliver the “justice” that you may rightly crave? Additionally, what exactly do we mean by “justice” when we invoke it?

In our grief and anger, I think that we are conspiring to cement and bolster a more punitive “law and order” climate in the country. That will not help us as black people in the long run. Why? Because that climate is exactly what has helped to funnel millions of black and brown people into the prison industrial complex. We are inadvertently helping to sow the seeds of our own destruction.

I know that many people who read my words will find them infuriating and that others may question my sanity. However, I only ask that you take a step back to consider the questions that I pose. You might come back at me and ask your own questions. Perhaps one of them is: “Well what do we do with people who kill young black men in cold blood?” My answer to you will be, “I don’t know but the killing of young black men in America has been going on for centuries even though some of the perpetrators have been prosecuted and imprisoned for their crimes.” Young black men are still being killed in cold blood so that must mean that prosecution and prison are not acting as effective deterrents.

These words by Crunktastic over at The Crunk Feminist Collective blog are challenging:

As we appeal to the system, signing petitions calling for the prosecution of George Zimmerman, we hope against hope, that the system will not decide that Blackness alone makes one a probable threat, worthy of execution, just a few hundred feet from one’s home. And yet, that decision has been made thousands of times. Will Trayvon be any different?

My question is “what will be different if Trayvon’s case is in fact prosecuted by our current racist legal system?” Will this now mean that blackness no longer makes “one a probable threat, worthy of execution?” Is it our belief that prosecuting and imprisoning every single person who murders someone else addresses the underlying oppression and racism in our society? Once the Department of Justice gets involved in the case as many are now calling for, what then? Are we done until the next Trayvon? Because be assured that there will unfortunately be many more Trayvon’s going forward since we are not addressing the root causes of racism and oppression but simply relying on a racist system for recourse.

We must consider other models perhaps based on transformative justice instead of our current failed system of punitive and retributive justice. Let’s mandate that Zimmerman must take 1000 hours of political education classes at the Highlander School and that he then has to spend another 20,000 hours working in a school in rural South Carolina with black and brown children. After that, if Trayvon’s family would allow it, let’s expect Zimmerman to speak with them about what he has learned about himself, about Trayvon, and about his heinous crime through these experiences. Zimmerman could then be encouraged to take his story on the road and share it with others across the U.S. Some will suggest that this is not “workable” as an alternative to incarceration. I would ask what “works” about our current “justice” model. For those who think this would mean that Zimmerman gets off “lightly,” I would only ask that you examine your own ideas about punishment and retribution.

I know that it may be too soon to broach this subject but I believe that this is the time that we must challenge ourselves to consider what else might be more effective in addressing the problems of oppression, racism and violence.

I remind everyone that nothing good ever comes from prison and retribution. Nothing.

Update: Jasiri X tells the heartbreaking story of Trayvon in this new video.

Today I saw this item about Rod Blagojevich being assigned his prisoner number:

Blagojevich be known as 4-0-8-9-2-4-2-4 when he reports to a federal prison near Denver next Thursday.

I wondered about the significance of reporting on this matter. Why is this news? Why would anyone care about this? I decided to do a Google search to see if other such articles were published when other well-known people entered prison. I found this item about Martha Stewart:

The Bureau of Prisons has assigned Martha Stewart an inmate register number, 55170-054, and its inmate locator Web site says Stewart is “in transit.”

This got me thinking about the role that assigning serial numbers plays in dehumanizing prisoners. These numbers are presumably assigned to help track prisoners in the system since using names might become confusing if you have 1,000 incarcerated individuals named John Smith. Yet the numbers also must represent the routinization and rationalization of the large bureaucracy that is our prison system. The numbers have plenty of other meanings too. I found this wonderful photograph created by a young person which I think illuminates this discussion.

(H/T Prison Photography)

Siever’s offered the following statement of his work:

‘My ideas were based on conformity, and the suppression of cultures and personal individuality by being a number, wearing a uniform, being trapped in the cages of the social machine. I created my own police height chart and got my classmates to stand in front of it. I also made digital barcodes to symbolise the gathering of information which can be accessed so easily today.’

What a brilliant way to underscore the depersonalization of our modern culture. So powerful. I also think of that barcode as representing the commodification of human beings across our society (and in particular in prison).

Finally, I found a searing and upsetting description of the system of identifying prisoners at Auschwitz. I highly recommend reading this because it offers yet another perspective about how serial numbers are used as a way to dehumanize.

During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners received tattoos only at one location, the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, which consisted of Auschwitz I (Main Camp), Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz and the subcamps). Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number which was sewn to their prison uniforms. Only those prisoners selected for work were issued serial numbers; those prisoners sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered and received no tattoos.

Initially, the SS authorities marked prisoners who were in the infirmary or who were to be executed with their camp serial number across the chest with indelible ink. As prisoners were executed or died in other ways, their clothing bearing the camp serial number was removed. Given the mortality rate at the camp and practice of removing clothing, there was no way to identify the bodies after the clothing was removed. Hence, the SS authorities introduced the practice of tattooing in order to identify the bodies of registered prisoners who had died.

This post is not a particularly cogent one, my apologies. I was struck by the Blagojevich press item and this got my mind rambling…

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”
― Albert Camus

People always ask me how/when I came to be so passionate about ending incarceration. I usually respond that my process of conscientization was a gradual one. It was through a million small and large experiences that I came to prison abolition.

Michelle Alexander, author of the New Jim Crow, often tells a ‘light-bulb’ moment story when she gives talks. She interviewed a young black man who was sharing a story of being harassed and framed by the police. He seemed to be a perfect candidate to join her ACLU class action lawsuit until he shared that he had been arrested in his past. At that point, Alexander tells her audience that she had to send him away because they could not take the chance that his credibility might be impugned as a witness because of his previous criminal record. She usually ends by saying that she has since learned that the majority of young black men in the community that she was working in find themselves caught in the net of the criminal legal system. I haven’t done her anecdote justice so you should listen to her tell it instead (it starts at 10:00).

As I said earlier, I have no eureka moment to share about when I first became aware of the ravages of mass incarceration and the futility of prisons. I was young when I first had to decide whether I would rely on the criminal legal system as the vehicle for seeking accountability for the harm that I had experienced. Instinctively, I recoiled. I had experienced the trial of a good friend’s killer and I wanted no part of that for myself. Since I wasn’t going to pursue criminal legal sanctions, I was left with no other alternatives. All I had at the time were my anger, fear, and self-destructive tendencies.

It was perhaps during that period that I began to yearn for another way — for some alternative to punishment and retribution. I’ve written before about my earliest encounter with the concept of restorative justice through experiencing the reaction of a mother towards the person who had killed her son (my friend). I didn’t become a proponent or practitioner of restorative/transformative justice then but it must have left an imprint.

While I have never been incarcerated, I have spent hours visiting, writing, and connecting with people on the inside. In a strange way, I was lucky to be exposed to the humanity of prisoners through one of my favorite students who did a bad thing that landed him behind bars for several years. I say that I was “lucky” because I already knew who he was before he was locked up. I knew him to be funny, kind, insecure, quick to anger, infuriating, you know… I knew him to be human. He was my initial link to prison and perhaps that allowed me to be able to see all of the others who were imprisoned with him as human beings too. This quote by James Baldwin (one of my favorite writers and thinkers) expresses my own philosophy: “People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.” Our unwillingness to see prisoners as human beings harms us as much as it does them. The understanding that we are all connected makes it so much easier to demonstrate compassion for others and ourselves. That’s been my greatest lesson so far and I could not have learned it without the gift of having met and knowing people who have been deprived of their freedom. And so the realization for me that prisons must be dismantled has come slowly and has washed over me almost without my knowing it. But here I am today – a prison abolitionist. And I have to wonder: what took so long?

Another Shame of the Nation ~ Juvenile Life Without Parole
by nancy a heitzeg

On March 20, 2012, The Supreme Court of the United States will hear Oral Arguments in the cases of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs. Both cases, argued on Eighth Amendment grounds by Equal Justice Initiative, involve 14 year old boys – sentenced to die in prison for their involvement in homicides. Miller had a documented history of abuse, and Jackson, an accessory but not the gunman, was charged in a felony murder case, an Arkansas store robbery gone wrong.

But, as always, much more than the fate of these two rests on this case. At stake is the fate of more than 2500 persons serving Life without Parole for crimes committed while under the age of 18, some, all future redemption denied, when they were as young as 11 years old. 73 of these 2500 were under the age of 14 at the time of the commitment offense.

One might also argue that our status as a “civilized” nation rests, at least in part, on the Court’s judgment here. The U.S. is the only country in the world that practices JLWOP, and remains, with Somalia, one of two nations in the world which has refused to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document which expressly forbids this very practice.

And, as in the 5-4 Roper v. Simmons (2005) and Sullivan v. Florida/Graham v. Florida (2010) which finally finally finally abolished the death penalty and Juvenile Life Without Parole (JLWOP) for non-homicide offenses respectively, the fate of these youth and the moral compass of the nation will rest on the whims of one Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Too much responsibility for Just One Man….

Read more »

It’s been a long time coming but last Wednesday, Governor Quinn announced that he was recommending the closure of two adults prisons (TAMMS and Dwight) and two youth prisons (IYC-Murphysboro and Joliet). Closing the two youth prisons alone is expected to save the state over $17 million dollars in a year.

Last year, Gov. Quinn had already recommended that IYC-Murphysboro be closed. I wrote about the resistance that emerged to his recommendation here. Elected officials and unions successfully postponed the closure of Murphysboro. The unions in this state are well-organized and committed to keeping their members’ jobs. Anti-prison advocates are less organized and we were unsuccessful in countering the arguments advanced in favor of keeping the prison open. We have another chance now. Before I get further into my discussion about the youth prisons, I want to take a moment to say a few words about TAMMS-Supermax prison which is also on the closure list.

TAMMS is and has always been a bad idea. It is a torture chamber that keeps prisoners locked in cells 23 hours a day. My friend Laurie Jo Reynolds, the lead organizer of TAMMS YEAR TEN , put it best in a recent interview when she said that “Illinois fell for a “foolish national trend” in the 1980s and built a “vengeful and wasteful prison” the state didn’t need.” The seeds of TAMMS’s destruction were sown from its inception.

For just a glimpse of the horror that is TAMMS prison, I recommend that you read the Dart Society’s recent investigative report about solitary confinement. I defy you to read these words by Anthony Gay who is locked up at TAMMS and not be moved to action:

“I’ve been trapped for approximately nine years. The trap, like a fly on sticky paper, aggravates and agitates me,” he writes. “America, can you hear me? I love you America, but if you love me, please speak out and stand up against solitary confinement.”

In introducing their photo documentary of TAMMS, the Chicago Tribune described the prison as follows:

Conditions are harsh, and meant to be. For at least 23 hours a day, prisoners sit in solitary confinement in 7-by-12-foot cells. There is no mess hall. Meals are shoved through a chuckhole in cell doors. Contact with the outside world is sharply restricted. For a rare visit from relatives or friends, inmates are strip-searched, chained to a concrete stool and separated from visitors by a thick glass wall. There are no jobs and limited educational opportunities.

These words are tame. They do not capture the true horror of life at TAMMS. This article in the Tribune begins to get at some of it. So I am asking you to in the words of Anthony Gay, “please speak out and stand up against solitary confinement.” You can do that very easily by signing this petition thanking Governor Quinn for his recommendation to close TAMMS. For more background on TAMMS, read this essay by the terrific folks at Solitary Watch.

Finally, I want to say a few words about the experience of being locked in a cell when you are 15 years old. I am currently working with a young man who is now 19. He spent two years between the ages of 15 to 17 locked up at IYC-St. Charles (a youth prison in Illinois). He was traumatized by the experience. It will take years for him to heal. He cannot sleep because he is plagued by nightmares. He is not alone in this. I have worked with many many young people who are broken by the experience of being incarcerated. It is time for us to utilize community-based alternatives to incarceration as the FIRST resort. Prison is “no place for kids.” If you live in Illinois, please take a moment to sign this petition thanking Governor Quinn for his leadership and encouraging him to hold firm on his recommendation to close these facilities. It will only take a moment but you will be making a real difference.

Today is National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners. I am glad that folks around the country are coming together to bring needed attention to the plight of those we lock in cages. We should be in solidarity with prisoners every day.

A pen pal of mine who has been imprisoned for the past 10 years once told me that he saw himself as one of society’s “throw away” people. His words have stayed with me. They have pushed me to write letters to incarcerated people even when I have been at my most exhausted. It seems a small thing: a letter. I have learned however that isolation is one of the most difficult parts of being behind bars. The sense that you have been forgotten can sap you of all hope. We are only human in relation to other humans. Our need to be connected to one another is often overlooked but it is essential. Prisoners remind us of this on a daily basis.

So today, if you are not planning to take part in any of the actions that are being planned as part of the National Occupy Day in Solidarity with Prisoners, I make a humble request. Please consider becoming a pen pal for an incarcerated person. Organizations and projects like the Write to Win Collective (here in Chicago), Black and Pink, and Razor Wire Women provide you with an opportunity to connect with prisoners who would appreciate corresponding with you.

I haven’t been well over the past few days. My energy is low so it would be easy to just pull the covers over my head and stay in bed. Instead I’ll be spending my afternoon in a local arts center making cards and writing letters with young people who have incarcerated relatives. “Showing up” is the best way to express solidarity so that’s what I will be doing. As I am writing my letters today, I will keep Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem in mind:

Letters Come to Prison
by Jimmy Santiago Baca

From the cold hands of guards
Flocks of white doves
Handed to us through the bars,
Our hands like nests hold them
As we unfold the wings
They crash upward through
Layers of ice around our hearts,
Cracking crisply
As we leave our shells
And fly over the waves of fresh words,
Gliding softly on top of the world
Flapping our wings for the lost horizon.

1976, Arizona State Prison-Florence, Florence, Arizona.

Update: A special thanks to my friends who came out this afternoon to help and participate in our card-making event at Rumble Arts Center. I was so moved by the beautiful sentiments expressed in the cards. We heard from a woman who told us that she had been incarcerated seven times and knew how important it was to receive mail while locked up. Here is a photo taken by the amazing Sarah Rhee of some of the terrific cards created by a couple of wonderful girls.