This is a piece written by my friend and former colleague Clay Chalupa. Clay is a gifted counselor and mental health professional. I wanted to reprint this piece here because I am often asked about the value of peace circles. I think that Clay does a wonderful job of illustrating the value of circles in this excerpt of a piece she wrote last February.

Recently I have been working with adjudicated youth on probation who have been given mandated community service hours rather than being placed in juvenile detention.

I am often asked how we utilize restorative work for youth who already have been arrested and are often struggling with staying in school. What role can restorative circles play in helping youth in trouble with the law repair the harm that they have done to the community?

The effectiveness is so apparent when one is given the opportunity to be a part of this programming that it makes it almost hard to explain. The shift often comes quickly—as a sullen youth arrives looking as if he would rather be anywhere but here after a long day at school. “Oh no. Not another class where I am expected to participate and act respectful. How long do we have to be here?”

Then they see the Ceasefire men arrive to join us. “Oh no. Now we are going to be lectured about how if we keep getting into trouble we will end up behind bars in a prison.” “Okay. Give us our orange vest and we will go out and pick up garbage in the park.” No. That is not what we will be doing. We are going to do meaningful community service. But first, we are going to explore and strategize what that means.

The “magic” starts when we take our place in the circle. I explain briefly that we are sitting in the circle because each one of us will have the opportunity to speak as we pass the talking piece around. No one is the EXPERT. We are all part of the whole. We are all sitting equal distance to the center that holds the truth, the answer, the story. If we are not ready to speak, we can pass. Still, to be a part of the circle we will all actively listen.

“That’s it?”

Well…it may not appear to be profound…and yet, in every circle there are myths that are deconstructed, relationships formed, voices being heard. A few examples:

A photo was passed around of a tall black man with locks and his cap falling off to one side. He looked like he was passed out with one hand covering his face and it seemed he might fall out of his chair if started, as he was slumped down with his shoulders sliding off the back of the sofa.

“I’m going to pass this picture around and have everyone look at it and write whatever thoughts you have about this man. Where do you think he lives? Does he have a job?
What kind of food does he eat? Does he own a car? Did he go to school? Would you want to know him?” “Does he look kind?”

Each person spoke when they were passed the talking piece. Comments were abundant with judgement. And not very positive.

“He looks high on ganja. He looks like he might be homeless and broke. The man is not kind–I wouldn’t go near him. He looks lazy.”

After everyone spoke, I explained that the man was an award-winning, highly sought-after musician who travels internationally and extensively. He is someone who values prayer, meditation, and compassion more than his career. He is generous and intelligent. The picture was taken by someone in Paris as he was jet-lagged and was waiting for a concert to begin after a sound check. He was sleeping.

“Oh wow. We shouldn’t be judging people.”

“Well, I think we have to make judgements sometimes—it is part of our human nature and it can keep us safe and help us make decisions. But perhaps, we can remain open in our judgements to learn more about people and not make assumptions from one glance.”

This started one of the best and honest discussions about racial profiling and being labeled as a troublemaker. The youth talked about how they have no place to go to meet with friends as they are often stopped and searched and told they cannot loiter. Still, where can they go on a hot July night at 9 pm without money?

__________________________

In another circle we talked about mandated anger management. It has been enlightening to me that many of these programs talk about anger as if it were an unnatural, depraved emotion that can or should be exorcised from people. I read a quote from Audre Lorde: “ My anger has meant pain to me but it has also meant survival, and before I give it up I’m going to be sure that there is something at least as powerful to replace it on the road to clarity.”

Again, another thought-provoking circle ensued. Anger is human. It can be used as protection, as a motivator, and fuel, as a warning signal that something needs to be changed. “Maybe WE could go to a CAPS meeting and talk to the police and ask them what we are supposed to do when we are unfairly harassed and searched.”

This led to more exploration regarding accountability and how youth who are disconnected from their communities and thought of as “problems”—how can they feel accountable for their actions? How can they care about their community that doesn’t seem to care about them?

These questions and stories came from the youth who only a couple weeks earlier, had walked in saying, “What are going to do? How long do we have to be here?” Now they come into our space and tell me that they know friends at school who want to come to our program.

We cannot address problems and issues if we do not recognize and listen to one another. That is what we are doing here. And together we are going to develop real-life strategies and tool-kits to get through. Together—our community.

I am currently working with a coalition of other groups in Illinois to pass a bill to reform the juvenile expungement process. Juvenile expungement is intended to provide people with juvenile criminal records with a chance to erase them. This is intended to make it more likely that they can qualify for financial aid, that they can apply and be hired for jobs, and that they can qualify for certain professional licenses (like nursing).

As part of our process to pass the bill, we have been meeting with various stakeholders including legislators and law enforcement representatives. For the most part, folks have been supportive of our common-sense reform measures. Our biggest opponent however is the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office which refuses to adopt any sort of reasonable posture in negotiating with our coalition.

After our latest meeting with a group of stakeholders representing the legal system this morning, I am reflecting on the fact that many people are just downright hostile against young people. The assumption seems to be that if they aren’t getting their records expunged; it’s their fault. In the world that some of these people inhabit, fees are not an obstacle to expungement “because they can afford to pay.” Additionally, the system should remain as onerous as possible because they want youth to “jump through hoops” in order to clear their records. When it is pointed out that thousands of young people are arrested each year and their cases aren’t referred to court. The response remains the same. We don’t care if these are mere arrests (some of which are surely false arrests), we just want to make them “take responsibility” for their actions.

Given the reality that almost 30% of youth in the U.S. will be arrested by the age of 23, I can’t help but think that we will be reaching a tipping point soon. When the main people who were being adversely impacted by arrest records were youth of color, there was no urgency to reform the expungement process. However now that many more young white people find themselves caught in the net of increasing police control, I wonder how much more amenable the powers that be will be to expungement reform in the future.

It’s a sad but true fact that only when they see these as “their” kids too will they find a willingness to make the system more fair, just, and cost-effective. You can learn more about our efforts by visiting the UN-MARKED CAMPAIGN BLOG.

From “An Address on Prisons” in Ramparts Magazine (1968):

“When you focus on the adult penitentiaries, you’re looking at the end of the line, trying to see where a process begins. But if you really want to understand and see what’s behind the prison system, you have to look at Juvenile Hall. You have to do down to Juvenile Hall. That’s where I started my career, at about the age of twelve, for some charge. I don’t know what it was, vandalism. I think I ripped off a bicycle, maybe two or three bicycles. Maybe I had a bicycle business. I don’t remember. But it related to bicycles. They took me to Juvenile Hall, and it took me about six months to get out again. While I was there I met a lot of people. I met a lot of real, nice, groovy cats who were very active, very healthy people, who had stolen bicycles and things like that. Then I moved up the ladder from Juvenile Hall to Whittier Reform School for youngsters. I graduated from that one and they jumped me up to the big leagues, to the adult penitentiary system.

I noticed that every time I went back to jail, the same guys who were in Juvenile Hall with me were also there again. They arrived there soon after I got there, or a little before I left. They always seemed to make the scene. In the California prison system, they carry you from Juvenile Hall to the old folks’ colony, down in San Luis Obispo, and wait for you to die. Then they bury you there, if you don’t have anyone outside to claim your body, and most people down there don’t. I noticed these waves, these generations. I had a chance to watch other generations that came behind me, and I talked with them. I’d ask them if they’d been in jail before. You will find graduating classes moving up from Juvenile Hall, all the way up. It occurred to me that this was a social failure, one that cannot be justified by any stretch of the imagination. Not by any stretch of the imagination can the children in the Juvenile Halls be condemned, because they’re innocent, and they’re processed by an environment that they have no control over.

If you look at the adult prisons, you can’t make head or tail out of them. By the time these men get there, they’re in for murder, rape, robbery and all the high crimes. But when you look into their pasts, you find Juvenile Hall. You have to ask yourself, why is there not in this country a program for young people that will interest them? That will actively involve them and will process them to be healthy individuals and lead a healthy life. Until someone answers that question for me, the only attitude I can have towards the prison system, including Juvenile Hall, is tear those walls down and let those people out of there. That’s the only question. How do we tear those walls down and let those people out of there?

People look at the point in the Black Panther Party program that calls for freedom for all black men and women held in federal, state, county, and municipal jails. They find it hard to accept that particular point. They can relate to running the police out of the community, but they say, “Those people in those prisons committed crimes. They’re convicted of crimes. How can you even talk about bringing them out? If you did get them out, would you, in the black community, take them and put them on trial and send them back again?” I don’t know how to deal with that. It’s just no. NO! Let them out and leave them alone! Let them out because they’re hip to all of us out here now. Let them out. Turn them over to the Black Panther Party. Give them to us. We will redeem them from the promises made by the Statue of Liberty that were never fulfilled. We have a program for them that will keep them active — 24 hours a day. And I don’t mean eight big strong men in a big conspicuous truck robbing a jive gas station for $75. When I sit down to conspire to commit a robbery, it’s going to be the Bank of America, or Chase Manhattan Bank, or Brinks.”

If you didn’t know that this was written in 1968, you would think that it was tailor made for the time that we are currently living in. No? The main thing that we are missing in 2012 is our own version of the Black Panther Party (with some improvements).

Regular readers won’t be surprised to know that I think police officers in our schools are a bad idea. In Chicago, where I live, each public high school is assigned two police officers at a cost of $75,000 a year each. This is in addition to security staff that already work in our schools. In Chicago and other cities across the country, the police serve as a gateway to the school-to-prison pipeline. I believe that a lack of data transparency contributes to the invisibility of this pipeline for most parents and community members. As such, I have spent the past couple of months working on a report about school-based arrests in Chicago Public Schools.

Today, I am happy to announce the release of “Policing Chicago Public Schools: A Gateway to the School-to-Prison Pipeline.” The report analyzes data from the Chicago Police Department to show (for the first time in seven years) the type of offenses and the demographics (gender, age and race) of the juveniles arrested on CPS properties in calendar year 2010.

I am proud to have co-authored the report with my friend Frank Edwards.

From the introduction of the report:
Our purpose in writing this report is to ensure that the public is informed about the scope and extent of policing in Chicago Public Schools. We hope that this will galvanize educators, parents, students, policymakers and community members to advocate for a dramatic decrease of CPS’s reliance on law enforcement to address school discipline issues. Instead, we would like to see an increase in the use of restorative justice, which is an effective approach, to respond to student misbehavior in our schools.

In light of a push for budget austerity, limited resources should be re-directed away from policing and into affirming programs and opportunities for students. This, we believe, will improve the overall well-being of all stakeholders in the educational system (most especially students). We also call on our city council to improve data transparency by passing an ordinance requiring CPS and CPD to report quarterly on the numbers of students arrested in the district. Having timely and reliable information will support efforts to hold CPS and CPD accountable. Finally, we believe that student privacy should be protected rather than further eroded. Current reporting practices between schools and law enforcement do not need to be reformed to increase the exchange of student information between these parties.

You can find the report HERE.

Last summer, I decided to curate a photographic exhibition to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprising. The exhibition which included photographs from John Shearer (who kindly sent them to me) and from my own collection of newspaper wire photos was incredibly well received. It culminated with a reading of original prose and poetry written by Attica prisoners and observers as well as a presentation by Michael Deutsch who shared his reflections about defending some of the Attica Brothers.

The experience that most impacted me though was the visit that I facilitated for a group of middle school boys from a local after-school program. As the young men walked around looking at the photographs, I watched their faces closely. Some seemed perplexed, others were clearly fascinated and a few were upset.

After they had seen the pictures, I asked how many of them had ever heard of the Attica Prison uprising. Out of the group of about 16 young men (all Black and Latino), not one hand went up. None had heard about the Attica rebellion. This was not at all surprising to me. Most people haven’t. But it was the response to my next question that really shook me. I asked how many of them knew a friend, relative, or neighbor who had been or was currently “locked up.” Every single hand in the room went up. Every single one. 16 out of 16.

This happened in September of last year and I haven’t written about it before today because I have been trying to process the experience since then. What does it mean when young men of color grow up not knowing the history of Attica but knowing so many people in their lives who were or are incarcerated? How do they make meaning of this experience? What lessons are they learning about how the world works for black and brown people?

After a few months of consideration, I have decided to take on an ambitious project. With the help of my friend Teresa Silva, who is a museum curator and scholar, I plan to organize some sort of an exhibition this year that will narrate a history of black imprisonment in the U.S.

I may have mentioned here in the past that I am a collector of prison-related artifacts. I have been for over 15 years now and have amassed a treasure trove of items relevant to the history of black people’s relationship to the criminal legal system in the U.S.

So with Teresa’s help, I am hoping to offer an opportunity for young black people in Chicago to interrogate themes related to the prison industrial complex: past, present, and future. My intention is to help young people to develop critical thinking about the experience of incarceration in the U.S., to identify its root cause, to consider resistance efforts, and to apply the experience to their own current circumstances.

I heard Rinku Sen recently say that: “Information is not power. Power is power and action makes information a conduit to power.” My challenge in co-curating this exhibition will be to make sure that young people don’t simply walk away with information but with a real desire to take ACTION today to address the epidemic of mass/hyper-incarceration which is ravaging black and brown communities across the U.S.

Stay tuned to hear about our progress in organizing the exhibition which I hope will open in October or November of this year. Much remains to be done, to start with, I need to find a venue for the exhibition. More details will be forthcoming and I welcome your ideas about what you might include in such an exhibition. How would you tell a history of black imprisonment in the U.S. in a way that would be empowering rather than dispiriting? I’d love to hear any thoughts about this.

I am dedicating this project to my young friend who committed suicide this past November.

In the meantime, I wanted to share one piece of my collection of stuff. Below are a set of vintage original mug shots from police records in Pennsylvania in the 1930s through the 1950s.

Also, here is Angela Davis making an important point about the failure of the educational system to teach about history and literature. This is why I have always worked to develop opportunities outside of the classroom to share historical knowledge with the broader public. It has been a motivating factor in my work since I was a teenager:

Occupying Mumia’s Cell
Copyright©2011 by Alice Walker

I Sing of Mumia
brilliant and strong
and of the captivity
that
few black men escape
if they are as free
as he has become.

What a teacher he is for all of us.

Nearly thirty years in solitary
and still,
Himself.

He will die himself.
A black man;
whom many consider to be
a Muslim, though this is not
how he narrows down
the criss-crossing paths of
his soul’s journey.
Perhaps it is simpler
to call him
a lover of truth
who refuses
to be silenced.
Is anything more persecuted
in this land?

No boots will be allowed
of course
so he will not
die with them on;
but there will always be
boots
of the mind and spirit
and of the heart and soul.

His will be black and shining
(or maybe the color of rainbows)
and they will sprout wings.

Mumia
they have decided
finally
not to kill you
hoping no blood will
stain their hands
at the tribunal
of the people;
but to let you continue
to die slowly
creating and singing
your own songs
as you pace
alone, sometimes terrorized,
for decades of long nights
in your small cage
of a cell.

We lament our impotence: that we have failed
to get you out of there.

Your regal mane may have thinned
as our locks too, those flags of our self sovereignty, may even have
disappeared;
waiting out this unjust sentence,
until we, like you, have become old.
Still,
if you will: accept our gratitude
that you stand, even bootless,
on your feet. We see
that few of those around us,
well shod and walking, even owning, the streets
are freed.

Somehow you have been.

Enough to remind us
of freedom’s devout
internal and
ineradicable seed.

What a magnificent Lion
you have been all these
disastrous years
and still are,
indeed.

Read an analysis of these charts by clicking here.

The U.S.A. Court of No Appeal
by George Edward Tait

A magazine jury of twelve rounds
A prosecuting trigger

& forefinger judge

A witness box casket on a tombstone stand

The accused found guilty of melanin

In the first degree

A death verdict in a graveyard court –

Injustice sustained;

Objection overruled.

In light of another tragic shooting of a young black man in Atlanta:

I would like to implore our community members to reinforce the message to our youth that they should NOT run from police under any circumstances. Here are five things for young people (everyone actually) to know to minimize the impact of a police encounter. One of these things is NOT TO RUN. I know that this is difficult given the reality expressed below:

“Young black men don’t trust the police,” said former Atlanta City Councilman Derrick Boazman, representing Waiters’ family. “It’s a normal reaction for them to run when they see the cops.”

Songs like “Run” by Ghostface Killah do not help matters either:

It’s important to educate our youth about street law. It may save their life.

I am grateful to a young man who sent this over to me last month. I have been listening to it often. Below is the video from Akala titled “Fire in the Booth.” It is 8 minutes long but you really should listen to the entire thing. You can thank me later.

Here is the song again but this time with the lyrics on screen: