Freedom Reconsidered

For my service learning project for this class I am going to the Books Through Bars located in Philadelphia which is about two hours away from where I live. So far I have went to this program twice with two different family members. I brought along my mother the first time and my brother the second time I went. I talked to them both and gave them information about the class that I was taking and why I was doing volunteer for, which is sending books to people who are in prison.

            Overall the experience was different and fun. I enjoyed the company of the people their both times, everyone that I met was friendly and helpful. The first time I went I was a little lost at first since I didn’t even know how to wrap a book up, but once I got the hang of it was fine. The most interesting part of the nights was looking at the books before wrapping them and seeing what type of book that person wanted. I would always try and think about why they would want that certain genre or type of book. One time I was wrapping a set of books and it was all cook books, I guess that person wanted to learn how to cook. Pretty much all of the books that I saw that were going out for delivery were completely different from the set before that I was wrapping, ranging all the way from cook books which I said earlier to the Lord of the Rings and even American history, it was all very interesting. Hopefully one of the times that I go back I will be able to read the letters and pick out books to the best of my ability according to what the person wants. All in all it’s been a very new experience to me and it’s been very interesting so far.

—Derrick

The story about George Jackson, “From Soledad Brother” was interesting in many ways. One of the interesting things I found ridiculous was just how terrible the guards treated the different men in the prison. They purposely wanted the prisoners to fight each other and sometimes even gave them weapons to do so.

                  Another part of the story that stood out to me was when he was talking about the man on page 162, “There’s a sign “No Smoking.” If you miss the sign, trouble. If you drop the cigarette to comply, trouble. It shows that the guards there are just trying to come after you for any infraction possible, even if it’s big or small. Once they catch you with a small infraction then it only builds from there, and Jackson says that “the rules change with the pigs’ mood, it is really just safer for a man to just stay in his cell.”

                  Jackson refers to this as all a big game, trying to kiss the pigs feet in order to be liked and to be allowed into the general prison population, which is being able to walk around and have minor freedom within the prison at least without being chained or cuffed. He goes into detail and says how Max Row within prison is the worst possible place to be and says that it’s the hardest place to get out of. Some of the people who are sent there are even innocent and then chained and beaten. It’s extremely unfair to the convicts who are basically “framed” and can’t do anything to get out of the situation that they are in. It really boils down to how strong the mental will of the convict is in order to make it out. They need to keep a positive attitude or else it will all go down-hill and the person will eventually lose it, meaning that it will mentally scar them for life. It also seems as if the prison guards themselves are committing crimes just as bad as the convicts did to get in the first place, it doesn’t make sense.

—Derrick

After reading through chapters two and three of The New Jim Crow, I noticed that Michelle Alexander uses statistical data as evidence to back up a lot her discussions and points. One example is in in chapter three, page 103, Michelle brings up that a survey was conducted in 1995 asking what people envision what their ideal drug user would look like to them. Ninety five percent of the people who took part in this survey pictured a black drug user, while only five percent imagined other racial groups. I think that it’s crazy how mostly everyone who took part in that survey pictured an African American as a drug user.

            In chapter 3, Mcklesky vs. Kemp is brought up and in a court case about racial bias death sentencing in Georgia. Warren Mcklesky was a black man who was facing the death sentence for killing a white police officer during an armed robbery. Mcklesky challenged his sentence because he thought Georgia’s death penalty scheme was infected. No doubt what Mcklesky did was completely wrong but his defense made a study of over 2,000 cases, which was known as the Baldus study. The study showed that defendants who killed black victims were charged eleven more times than defendants who killed black victims. When the study was brought to court it was rejected because they said that the evidence wasn’t valid because it didn’t prove unequal treatment. When I first read that I was shocked that the court system barely even gave thought to the whole case and just botched the whole entire study. It seems that  whenever the court is being questioned about racial bias they just try to cover it up/throw is under the rug even when there is blatant evidence showing otherwise.

—Derrick

On March 2^nd, I went to the Atlantic City Rescue Mission to meet with Ron Kollman, who is the Executive Director there. At first I was actually nervous going into the building, because I was by myself and it is located in Atlantic City where many homeless people hang outside of the building. As I was waiting for Mr. Kollman at the front desk, I saw people sleeping out in the hallway and my heart really went out to them that they are stuck living in conditions like that. The Rescue Mission houses not only women and men, but also children which surprised me because for some reason I did not even think about the fact that families could be housed there.

            When Mr. Kollman came down to meet me, we went up to his office where he told me more about himself, such as the various different jobs he has had in his life, and the kind of person he is, which was nice. He was interested to learn more about what we learn in class and how he can help me succeed in my project. Mr. Kollman thought it would be a good idea for me to interview some of the staff members since they constantly interact with the people at the mission who were once incarcerated. He also suggested that I interview some of the women at the mission. I plan to go back to the mission maybe two of three more times so I can gain more knowledge about people’s lives there.

—Dominika

For my service learning project I decided to tap into a key topic I feel I have struggled with during this course: does racism still exist? I feel that this question has such an undefined answer, so I set out to make a goal of not basing the answer on my own opinion, but on a lot of people’s opinions. I typed on a piece of paper two questions. On the top I wrote, “Do you believe that we live in a “colorblind” nation? Why or why not?” On the bottom of the page I wrote, “Have you ever experienced an act of racism?” and put yes and no next to the question for the participant to answer. I went to my mom’s job first and talked to a group of people about the main idea of my project. I asked each person in this group to anonymously answer the questions and return them to my mom’s mailbox when they were done. I feel that having them anonymously answering the questions will lead to much more honest answers.

                  In just a few days I got so many responses. I was extremely surprised to see how enthusiastic people were to share their opinions on this topic. People wrote pages and pages of very well-based opinions, both supporting and going against my own opinions. It is already opening my eyes to new views on certain things and making me think differently about other things. I haven’t gotten even half of the responses back yet and I am already thrilled with the results. I can’t wait to share their views with everyone!

—Emily

On page 194, Alexander states that Young + Black + Male is equated with reasonable suspicion. But Why?

Throughout our lives we are told this, maybe not directly, I mean no one has ever came to me and said that “black men are bad” but it has been portrayed in this way. The media and the police work hand in hand, encouraging each other to keep the “bad black man” stereotype.   Take the six o’clock news for example, while there will be someone telling us that a black man was out on our precious streets raping, murdering, and steeling, there will be a cop arresting another one. Than we as Americans get this idea in our heads to be on the lookout for them because they are un trustable. The fact that we are told this just goes to prove that there is an existing caste system today. This is what was told to the people through the media after the freedom of the slaves, this is why racism exists.

For a long time this stereotype has stricken over my family. They watched these things on the news and even read about prison stats, then thought to themselves “I need to protect my children!” if something dare to happen to daddy’s little girl, it’s almost automatically the black man’s fault.

Where are the white criminals in this equation? Everybody knows that a white man is just as capable to commit these crimes. Because we don’t hear about the white man on the news though, he can surly be trusted.

This can be taken all the way back in time to even when slaves were still around. The white man may have done some nasty things to anyone he wanted to, but the slave was the source of all problems, hands down no questions.

We claim that we are all equal, but the ways of a caste system have been adapted throughout the years will prove us all wrong. The idea of the bad black man is pushed into the heads of some people and it may take an eternity for it to disappear.

-Kathleen

Q: All of the quotes below address the possibility for change for the better in America. Using these quotes, and the rest of the text, write a response focused on your own desires and doubts concerning the change Alexander outlines the need for.

R:  I think that this change is good. People should recognize that there is a problem and that it needs to be fixed. However most Americans will deny that there is an issue with mass incarceration.  That is where I doubt that a change would happen. Once people adopt an opinion they tend to believe it and stick to it and I think that it is very hard for everyone to change that many opinions. This state of mind is no different than how one supports a sports team. No matter if it is a winning season or a losing one they still support their team and it is near impossible to have them switch teams. This change is needed in order to stop mass incarceration and abolish the caste system however changing public is a very difficult approach to do so.

            Separation of classes plays a massive role in the mass incarceration issue. The problem of constantly being arrested is seen as something only minorities face. Until the issue of separation of class becomes real for all classes and races it will be very hard to win the support of those who have turned away from the existence of this problem their whole life. The fact of people seeing certain issues as something only minorities have to handle makes the problem much harder to solve.

            From what I see there has been no real movement to end mass incarceration. People like Alexander have come up with great arguments to stop this problem. However Alexander alone cannot change something that has been going on for over 200 years. She will need the help of her supporters both in and outside of prison and from many different classes and racial backgrounds. Until an army of “color blind” people is created to back her cause I doubt any real progress will be made toward this issue.

            Alexander is correct that change will not come easy. I agree with her that many more people will have to be very committed and devoted to this cause in order to get it off the ground and begin to make some real progress. 

—Kevin S

            So far I have clocked four hours on my service learning project. In these four hours I have read all of the letters I have attained from BTB and sorted them into three categories. These categories are as follows- Good anti-prison arguments, Poor anti-prison arguments, and the last category is Pro-prison arguments/personal stories about prison experience. The first two categories are difficult because I do not want to be judging these convicts based on their ideas, but there is a distinct difference in the strength of their arguments.

            Here are some of the ideas most of these inmates have touched on in their letters. They are answering the question, “If not prison then what?” Most of the letters spoke about more community outreach and focus on the youth in urban areas. It is very important for our youth to be given every tool they can to succeed so they do not wind up going to prison. The main ideas for alternatives to prison are mental health facilities, more community service, less strict laws for non-violent crimes, more opportunities for convicts to get a job when they get out of prison, rehabilitation for drug users, more opportunities to get an education while in prison and the list goes on. I was amazed at the amount of letters that said basically the same thing. Most of these inmates also talk about the poor conditions of the prisons that they are staying in. They complain that racism is a problem along with discrimination based on ones socio-economic status. One thing that was also amazing was that every one of these inmates gave permission to use their name for whatever purpose necessary.

            The next step that I am going to take in completing this project is to start transcribing these letters into word documents. When I do this I will be able to sort them more definitively into the three categories I have chosen, but right now the breakdown of said categories seems to be as follows: 70% good- anti-prison arguments, 25% poor anti-prison arguments, and 5% pro-prison arguments/personal stories about prison experience.

—Nino

Referring to children  of the incarcerated as “Collateral damage” is a good way to describe the hardships and difficulties that children of incarcerated parents experience. It may sound like these children are being depicted in an inhumane manner, but the reality is children are often treated as objects or cases when being processed by the system. Nell Bernstein provides readers with detailed accounts of real children who have had experiences where they are cast aside or overlooked as their parents are taken away. These are children who have done nothing but be born to parents who break the law. Yet, they are still being punished. There is little room for doubt that changes need to be made to the criminal justice system, at least regarding the treatment of children with parents in prison.

                  On page 12, a San Francisco sheriff named Michael Hennessy who was interviewed by the author states, “If children are abused by the criminal justice system, they will have hostility towards law enforcement as adults. If they are treated fairly, and see government as a place to receive assistance as opposed to something that takes away rights, they will be more likely to reach out and respect government as adults.” He makes a good point. What we learn as children does often shape our views as adults. There appears to be a pattern, or a vicious cycle of children associating bad things with police and authority. These children grow up to be the people who do not respect law enforcement. As many would suspect, people who disrespect the law tend to break the law and find themselves in prison. It is evident how they have become damaged individuals as a by-product of their parents’ mistakes. Being sensitive to the needs of children would decrease the amount of collateral damage that results from incarceration.

—Samantha

“What this book is intended to do—the only thing it is intended to do—is to stimulate a much needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States. The fate of millions of people—in fact the future of the black community itself may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society. The fact that more than half of the young black men in any large American city are currently under the control of the criminal justice system (or saddled with criminal records) is not—as many argue—just a symptom of poverty or poor choices, but rather evidence of a new racial caste system at work.”

—Michelle Alexander, page 16, The New Jim Crow

Philadelphia Inquirer article about a new program

Can drug felons be saved? $1.3M
program hopes so
March 21, 2012 | By Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

In the world of crime, Guillermo Soto was hardly a standout: 21 and busted for the first time selling drugs in North Philadelphia.
But Soto did fit the model for what criminologists call “at-risk”: undereducated, unemployed, and, barring intervention, a nonviolent drug offender about to start studying for a “Ph.D. in violence” while serving a mandatory one-year term in a Pennsylvania prison.
Instead, Soto and seven cohorts stood before news cameras Wednesday, introduced by District Attorney Seth Williams as the first class of “the Choice is Yours,” a $1.3 million pilot program backed by grants from the Lenfest and William Penn Foundations.
Williams said the program - TCY for short - will take about 75 people a year who are willing to change their lives, and give them education and job training backed by social services and other support.
It was the second chance for education and career that sold Soto: “I wasn’t really interested in the beginning, but after they told me they would help me get a job, improve myself, I decided to take a chance.”
Soto and the others had just completed the four-week intensive orientation to improve their verbal and math skills, and teach them practical job skills that Williams described as cleaned up, dressing right, and “showing up.”
Two arrived early for the news conference, Williams noted. Soto said the orientation raised his reading skills from ninth-grade level to 12th, and math from
eighth-grade level to 11th. TCY participants will be guided into educational or job-training programs and trade apprenticeships. They will also become mentors to the next incoming TCY class.
If Soto and the others successfully complete what is planned as a one-year program, they will plead no-contest to the charges pending against them and their criminal records will be expunged.
But, turning to face the eight, Williams emphasized that “the choice is yours,” and added that those who are rearrested will be treated like any other criminal defendant.
Williams acknowledged that the program - a 2009 campaign pledge - is politically risky. But if it works like San Francisco’s “Back on Track” program that Williams looked at, Philadelphia would see a significant drop in the number of people rearrested and a reduced crime rate. And that’s not counting millions in taxpayer money that would be saved by not incarcerating hundreds of nonviolent felony drug offenders.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-21/news/31220682_1_rearrested-crime-rate-program