So this week has been terrific and exhausting so far.

I am grateful to my friend Billy Dee for designing a great art exhibition. My friends Eva and Claudia stepped up to help with set up as well. My thanks to all of the artists who contributed to the exhibit and to the amazing volunteers who created the pamphlets that inspired this exhibit and series of events. The exhibition has been incredibly well received and the event well-attended. My deepest gratitude to everyone.

We are screening “Death of Two Sons” this evening at 6 p.m. Feel free to join us. Details are here.

Below are some photographs taken by the most talented Sarah Jane Rhee. Those who can’t make it to see the exhibition in person can now travel through parts of it with Sarah’s wonderful photos.

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Who Failed, What Failed?
by “Brendan”

Society never failed.
They say it was all me.
After all, Isn’t that the reason the court calls me guilty?

It was not my family.
They’re trying to do what is best.
That’s why they turned me in, placed me under arrest.
And it was not the cops that bruised my wrists.
It was the cuffs clamped too tight, even though I did not resist.

And the shirt that was ripped as they threw me around
didn’t matter at all, because I was screwin’ around.
Was my family doing what was best when they smacked me
around because I fled school?

The teachers barely taught, and they never try to
understand. It’s learning communication and support
that turns boys into men.

It’s no one’s fault but my own, and I do understand.
As long as society continues to lie, it is all my fault,
and I hold in the cry.

Source: Illustrations from the Inside: The Beat Within (2007)

From her hospital bed in 1959, Jessie Mae Robinson recounted a story of violence to the police. Mrs. Robinson, owner of the New South Park Record Store, was arrested along with nearly 50 others when the police raided a party at a private home on March 14. The raid was of course conducted without a search warrant.

All of the partygoers were taken to the Englewood police station where Mrs. Robinson said that the eight women who were among those arrested “were subjected to indignities” including physical assault and verbal abuse (i.e. being called racial epithets). Apparently the police officers who raided the party had helped themselves to some beer while there and started drinking when they arrived at the station.

Mrs. Robinson’s injuries from her mistreatment were bad enough that she was hospitalized. She identified a Detective Franck Hackel as her chief tormentor.

In 1999, Tyisha Miller was on her way to a party with her cousin when her car got a flat tire. They pulled into a gas station in downtown Riverside, California. Her cousin went to get help and left Tyisha who had been drinking alone in the car. Miller apparently passed out with the doors locked. She had a handgun on her lap.

A few minutes later, four Riverside police officers (all of them white) who had been called to the scene tried to wake Tyisha to no avail.

They smashed the driver’s side window and chaos ensued. At least one of the cops thought that he saw Tyisha reach for her gun. The officers fired 27 shots into the car and Miller was hit 12 times. She died.

There are countless stories of other women (and gender nonconforming people) who have experienced police violence. Yet, these stories often take a backseat to the police brutality experienced by black and brown men. As the brilliant Andrea Ritchie (2006) has written:

“To date, public debate, grassroots organizing, litigation strategies, civilian oversight, and legislative initiatives addressing police violence and misconduct have been almost exclusively informed by a paradigm centering on the young Black and Latino heterosexual man as the quintessential subject, victim, or survivor of police brutality (p.139).”

Joy James (1996) adds that: “The death of women in police custody by means of law enforcement measures to discipline and punish is an issue rarely raised in feminist explorations of women and violence or masculinist explorations of racism and policing (p.31).” I have certainly been guilty of this. I have written in the past about the fact that my own internalized sexism has often led me to minimize state violence against women and girls.

A few days ago, someone tweeted a video of a young woman being treated unnecessarily roughly by police officers in Brooklyn during a protest over the killing of Kimani Gray. Warning: The video is very disturbing.

As I listened to the young woman’s screams, I thought back to all of the young women I’ve worked with over the years. I remembered countless stories that they shared about being “hassled” by the cops. I remembered how much they worried about their brothers, fathers, boyfriends, and friends getting shot or killed by law enforcement. Yet when the narratives about police violence are written, most often these young women’s voices are missing.

Some young women have been and are speaking up to break the silence around the impact of state violence on their lives. The Young Women’s Empowerment Project (YWEP), for example, has documented encounters with the police through their Bad Encounter Line (BEL) report and zines. The following is a story that appears in BEL Zine #3:

I was walking to the bus when a police officer called out and said, “Hey you come here girl with all of that ass.” I ignored the comment unaware of where it was coming from until he pulled up on the curb to block my path in his undercover cop car. He jumps out and yells ‘didn’t you hear me calling you girl? I replied by simply saying no, my name isn’t aye girl with all that ass.’ He got really mad and slapped me saying that I was very disrespectful and do I know who he is and what he can do to me?…

The story escalates with the police officer sexually assaulting the young woman. She ends up getting arrested and jailed herself when she reports him. There is anecdotal evidence that the War on Drugs has actually increased police harassment and brutality against women. In light of this, I hope that even more women and girls will take YWEP’s lead and share their stories about encounters with the police.

This evening, I am proud to moderate a discussion about the invisibility of police violence against women & girls. We will be discussing the case of Rekia Boyd & others. If you are in town and are interested in these issues, you are invited to join us. Details are here.

Read Angela Caputo’s excellent article about Illinois’s stupid, destructive, racist and failed drug war.

Prison Reform, Decarceration, or Smoke and Mirrors?
by Kay Whitlock and nancy a heitzeg

We are bombarded daily with a blizzard of often competing numbers and stories regarding the state of criminal injustice. Are prison populations declining? Have we really “decreased incarceration” and expanded “diversion”? Have racial disparities in criminal justice decreased? Are they no longer relevant? Have police practices reduced incarceration rates? Are “community” correctional alternatives working? Have we entered a new era of “prison reform”?

Is the push for “reform” attributable to progressive people power? Or is it due to the emergence, several years ago, of Right on Crime the self-described “one-stop source for conservative ideas on criminal justice” – a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation ? (The TPPF is a research institute in Austin, TX “committed to limited government, free markets, private property rights, individual liberty and personal responsibility.”) Or has it emerged from some combination of both?

Often these stories shed more heat than light.

Or to use another metaphor, it is often a matter of Smoke and Mirrors.

Throughout this year, Criminal InJustice has offered critical questions about the reality of both policy claims and the legitimacy of so-called reforms. Please see Con Artists, Profit and Community Corrections and Confidence Men & “Prison Reform”.

What follows is a series of critical questions designed to help us all further navigate what may be, in some measure, a shell game. These topics and more will continue to be addressed in depth here at CI. But for now, a road map and a flashlight are offered below.

If these reforms really are substantive, and implemented in ways that demonstrate integrity – and if they are actually intended to help dismantle a policing/prosecution/detention emphasis in the criminal legal system – then politicians and policy advocates will be able to fully and transparently answer the questions we pose here and that will arise along the way.

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I received a few emails/tweets from readers asking for my thoughts about the conviction of two young men for raping a young woman (Jane Doe) in Steubenville, Ohio. Some wanted to know if I thought that “justice” was served. Others asked a variation of this question that came from a Twitter follower: “How do u respond to Steubenville case? How to remain survivor-centered but show that “rot in prison” is not an answer?” I had resolved not to write about the verdict and sentence but since I feel a responsibility to respond to the emails/tweets, I have decided to share my thoughts here today.

Those who don’t know the background about Jane Doe’s rape in Steubenville should read this excellent article. What she experienced is unacceptable, immoral and wrong. PERIOD. How she has continued to be treated in her community is unconscionable but unfortunately unsurprising. It points to how endemic rape culture is and also to the failure of a primarily criminal legal focused approach to eradicating sexual violence.

Currently, survivors of violence have one option for seeking public accountability for the harm that we experience: the courts. For a number of individual and systemic reasons, many survivors decide not to pursue this option. For example, rape can be hard to prove and as has been the case in Steubenville survivors are often blamed for our victimization. So those who do choose to pursue a legal avenue for accountability are often faced with a broken system that is usually unable to produce the outcomes that we seek. The truth is that the courts fail most survivors. This has led many advocates to suggest reforms that they say would make the courts more responsive to survivors’ needs. When reforms have been made however, they have mostly fallen short.

It’s no wonder then that news of a conviction in the Steubenville rape case was greeted with relief and in some cases optimism. This is perfectly understandable. Few rape cases ever even make it to trial. When they do, convictions are rare. Most people are very invested in the law and the legal system. They desperately want to believe that it can provide “justice.” This verdict feels like some vindication of that hope.

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This is a print by Sarah Atlas that is included in the Black and Blue exhibit. If you are in Chicago, you are invited to stop by for the exhibit opening on March 19. Details are here.

Sometimes people email to ask about my work. I appreciate that anyone is interested. I love young people and I want to see them thrive in the world. My life’s work is to ensure that this happens for the ones who I encounter.

I try very hard through this blog to convey the voices of some of the young people who I am privileged to support and walk alongside. However there is nothing better than when they can speak for themselves. Who are the young people behind the headlines and statistics about juvenile justice and the criminal legal system? Last year, I organized an event where some young people shared their stories of incarceration, struggle, and perseverance. Today, I want to share a few of their stories in their own words. If you have a few minutes, I hope that you will listen to what they have to say…

My friend, Eva Nagao, is multi-talented. The following print “Crook County” will be featured in our upcoming art on policing, violence, and resistance exhibition which opens on March 19. Details about all associated events are here.

1. There are 2.7 million children in the U.S. with an incarcerated parent.

2. We spend a lot of money to incarcerate young people.

3. “The youth incarceration rate in the nation dropped 37 percent from 1995 to 2010. In 1995, 107,637 young people were held in correctional facilities on a single reference day, while in 2010, this number had dropped to 70,792, the lowest in 35 years. The rate of youth in confinement dropped from 381 per 100,000 to 225 per 100,000 over the same period. But the United States still incarcerates a higher percentage of its young people than any other industrialized country — in 2002 the nation’s youth incarceration rate was almost five times that of South Africa, the nation with the next highest rate. Most of the young people incarcerated do not pose a clear public safety threat: almost 40 percent are incarcerated for nonviolent reasons such as status offenses, public order offenses, low-level property offenses, drug possession, or technical probation violations, while only about one quarter are incarcerated for a Violent Crime Index offense (homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, sexual assault). (Source).”

4. According to the ACLU, “In 2011, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) held a record-breaking 429,000 immigrants in over 250 facilities across the country, and currently maintains a daily capacity of 33,400 beds—even though, in the overwhelming majority of cases, detention is not necessary to effect deportations and does not make us any safer.”

5. The numbers of elderly prisoners (65 and over) are increasing in the U.S.

6. Sexual assault and rape is rampant in U.S. jails and prisons.

7. The PIC is very costly. Preliminary data from the Census Bureau’s annual State Government Finance Census indicate states spent $48.5 billion on corrections in 2010, about 6% less than in 2009. Between 1982 and 2001, total state corrections expenditures increased each year, rising from $15.0 billion to $53.5 billion in real dollars.

Special Bonus:

Stop and Frisk is a policing tactic that is used across the U.S. but particularly in New York City. The practice criminalizes mostly young Black and Latino people.