I just came across an article this morning with the headline “Chris Brown Doesn't Deserve Forgiveness For Beating Rihanna.” Marlow Stern, the author of the article, describes Brown’s physical assault of Rihanna while taking issue with the Grammy Awards’ public celebration and embrace of him. The thesis of the article is that Brown has not been publicly remorseful enough for his vile actions. On the contrary, he appears to be defiant and acting as though he is the aggrieved party. The article also addresses the rumors of Rihanna having rekindled a relationship with Brown. Their alleged reconciliation is explained as fitting the pattern of other high profile examples of relationship violence.

This is not a post about the dynamics of relationship violence. I have spent many years of my life working in domestic and sexual assault organizations so I know a little about these issues. The issues are complicated, fraught with emotion, deeply personal and also public. This is also not a post about “forgiveness” which is deeply personal and should not be demanded from those who are victimized.

Instead, I want to focus on a quote from the article by a victim’s advocate named Michelle Garcia:

“I don’t think Chris Brown has done enough to take responsibility for his actions. What have we seen to see that he truly regrets his behavior or to actively raise awareness about violence against women?”

Those of us who are proponents of restorative or transformative justice wrestle with this question in one form or another every single day. Whenever I speak to someone about the value and promise of restorative or transformative justice, I am confronted with the question: “what if the person causing harm doesn’t want to accept responsibility for his/her actions?” And the truth is that there is no good answer. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to struggle with the question though.

My life is divided by an invisible line – BSA (before sexual assault) and ASA (after sexual assault). I have lived many more years in the ASA period than I had in my BSA period. There was a time in my life when I wasn’t sure if I would be able to write that. People have said this before me and it is true: sexual assault is soul-murdering. It was no different for me. I spent 10 years after my assault mending my soul. It was a process characterized by tentative steps forward and violent steps back.

While my experience hasn’t given me unlimited wisdom, I do know this to be true: so many of us who are survivors seek “accountability” from a system that simply cannot deliver. The criminal legal system mandated that Chris Brown be put on “probation” and that he attend the dreaded and always terrible “anger management” classes. As we have been able to see through his temper tantrums online and in person, Chris Brown doesn’t seem to have his “anger” under control. In fact, those of us who are survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence know that these are not about anger. These actions are about displaying power and asserting control.

So the public is left unsatisfied and seething because they believe that Chris Brown should be contrite. Many want to see “evidence” that he has “changed” or “learned his lesson.” But the current system cannot deliver and that leaves all of us worse off.

I long for some non-hysterical dialogue about how we are going to develop structures in our communities to hold people accountable for the harm that they cause others. I would like some in-depth conversation about how we are going to hold the institutions responsible for state violence accountable in our society. I am desperate for people to focus less on Chris Brown and more on their own role in fostering a culture that makes Brown believe that it is acceptable for him to beat another person. Chris Brown is not an island onto himself. He doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Chris Brown is unfortunately us.

So each of us has a stake in figuring out how we are going to build a system that truly addresses harm and is accountable. If we make sure to keep survivors and marginalized populations at the center of our analysis, I think that there is good chance that the new system that we build will be better than the one we have.

I’m excited to share that Prison Culture is now on Pinterest. Check it out and follow!

If you don’t know much about Pinterest, here’s a basic description from their site:

Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

I am using Pinterest to organize and share various PIC related images. I am also using it to share other miscellaneous interests. One of my pinboards for example is a collection of images about the PIC. You have seen many of these on the blog and others are new. I will continue to add to this collection over time. If you spot any great images, please e-mail them to me at jjinjustice1@gmail.com. I will include them on the pinboard.

Another pinboard that I have started is a collection of black prisoner photographs. I am just at the very beginning of this process but already I am finding it incredibly interesting. I hope that you will follow Prison Culture at Pinterest.

Take a look at the graph below. This is the result of many bad policy decisions but one stands out in particular…

Some months ago, I wrote about the cowardice of Illinois politicians and the corruption of the media in a post about the suspension of the state’s meritorious good time (MGT) program. Sure enough as many (including me) predicted, this disastrous political decision has had the effect of increasing the Illinois prison population by nearly 4,000 at an additional cost of nearly $100 million. I am of course not Nostrodamus. This was a completely foreseeable consequence of a dumb decision made by our Governor.

I attended a meeting about Illinois prison overcrowding on Monday and Malcolm Young once again spoke about the importance of reinstating MGT. He has written a new white paper (PDF) which is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the background on MGT, the political controversy and the consequences of the suspension of the program.

In the coming days, please look out for an opportunity to help push the Governor to instruct the Department of Corrections to reinstate MGT. I will be sharing the template of a letter that you can send to Governor Quinn as well as other ways that you can make your voice heard on this matter if you live in Illinois.

UPDATE: You can urge Governor Quinn to reinstate MGT by e-mailing, calling, sending a letter or signing a petition. Information is HERE.

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.

I think that the re-entry industrial complex is a racket. Yet real people get out of prison and jail every single day and need to navigate hostile waters on the outside. One such person is Tracey Stevens who narrates her story. I think that her words are poignant and should compel us to REALLY focus on providing opportunities for formerly incarcerated people.

NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Other state agencies cover billions in corrections expenses

State taxpayers pay, on average, 14 percent more on prisons than corrections department budgets reflect, according to a report released today by the Vera Institute for Justice. The report, The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers, found that among the 40 states that responded to a survey, the total fiscal year 2010 taxpayer cost of prisons was $38.8 billion, $5.4 billion more than in state corrections budgets for that year. When all costs are considered, the annual average taxpayer cost in these states was $31,166 per inmate.

While it is common knowledge that some prison costs are tracked outside their budgets, The Price of Prisons marks the first time these costs have been quantified for prisons across the states. To calculate the total price of prisons, Vera developed a survey tool that tallied costs outside corrections budgets. The most common of these costs were fringe benefits, underfunded contributions for corrections employees’ pension and retiree health care plans, inmate health care, capital projects, legal costs, and inmate education and training.

“This new tool changes the equation. It paints a far more accurate picture of the costs to taxpayers,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew Center on the States. “State leaders already have been questioning whether corrections spending passes the cost-benefit test, especially for nonviolent offenders.”

The scale of the expenditures outside of corrections departments ranged from less than 1 percent of the total cost of Arizona’s prison budget to as much as 34 percent in Connecticut. For example, the Connecticut Department of Corrections spent $613.3 million for prisons in fiscal year 2010; when all state costs are included, the total taxpayer cost was $929.4 million. The main outside costs were pension contributions ($147.1 million) and employee fringe benefits, including health insurance ($104.2 million). (For more information, see the fact sheets for states that completed the survey at www.vera.org/priceofprisons .)

The study found the following range of prison costs outside states’ corrections budgets in 2010:

20 to 34 percent in six states: Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas;

10 to 19.9 percent in nine states: Arkansas, California, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington, and West Virginia; and

5 to 9.9 percent in nine states and less than 5 percent in 16 states.

“As states continue to deal with serious budget constraints, it’s critical that policy makers, corrections officials, taxpayers, and legislators know exactly what their prisons cost,” says Vera director Michael Jacobson. “Many states are moving toward reserving incarceration for the most dangerous people and using proven strategies to improve public safety at a lower cost.”

To help policy makers manage prison costs, the report identifies a number of measures that states have taken to reduce spending while maintaining public safety. Options include modifying sentencing and release policies, strengthening strategies to reduce recidivism, and boosting operating efficiencies.

The publication is based on a survey conducted in August 2011 by Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections and Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit, in partnership with the Pew Public Safety Performance Project. The report includes detailed methodology that state officials may use to calculate the full taxpayer price of prisons each year.

SOURCE Pew Center on the States
REPORT: http://www.vera.org/download?file=3407/the-price-of-prisons.pdf
Download the report and fact sheets for each participating state at www.vera.org/priceofprisons.

PARTICIPATING STATES: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho. Illinois
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland Michigan, Minnesota ,Missouri ,Montana ,Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma , Pennsylvania Rhode Island Texas, Utah, Vermont ,Virginia, Washington, West Virginia , Wisconsin
Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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.

Very excited to share this latest page from a police violence zine that my friend Rachel Marie-Crane Williams is working on. The zine will be released in the Spring (late April) as part of an overall police violence curriculum project that I am working on.

Here is a quote from Angela Davis that I think captures some truth about people of color and poor people’s historical relationships to the police.

“The announced function of the police, ‘ to protect and serve the people,’ becomes the grotesque caricature of protecting and preserving the interest of our oppressors and serving us nothing but injustice. They are there to intimidate blacks, to persuade us with their violence that we are powerless to alter the conditions of our lives. Arrests are frequently based on whims. . . . .
…They encircle the community with a shield of violence, too often forcing the natural aggression of the black community inwards.”

Source: Davis, Aptheker, and Prisoners, eds., If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance, p.39.

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.