Category: Prison Reform

In the ‘Hole’: On Screen & Off

tonightatdawn August 10, 2015

Text by K. Cecchini/Production Stills and Series Image Courtesy of Think Ten Media Group

After spending a total of 18 months in solitary confinement during multiple prison stays, William Brown – who has been a free man for five years – willingly reentered the ‘hole’ last summer.

This time, though, he went in with cameras.

Brown plays the fictional role of prisoner Marcus Williams in the scripted web series “The wHOLE.” Think Ten Media Group filmed the first episode in the inactive Wapato Jail in Portland, Oregon during August 2014 and released it in March. The 15-minute pilot episode focuses entirely on Brown’s character contendng with solitary confinement.

In order to provoke the intense emotions of being trapped in solitary, Brown said Director Ramon Hamilton asked him to “go to a dark place.” Brown went there; he said he recalled the day he was last released for parole on June 24, 2010 and his aunt told him his good friend had been murdered a couple of weeks prior on June 9 when he was sitting in solitary.

“It really tore” at him when he originally heard the news, Brown said. And when he recounted the story to Hamilton, he said he cried.

For Brown it was healing. For Hamilton, the effect was authentic. Hamilton said from that exercise, Brown improvised something “nobody can write.”

PELICAN BAY

Hamilton, co-founder of Think Ten Media Group with partner Jennifer Fischer, was on tour for their 2012 film “Smuggled” when he heard about the 2013 Pelican Bay Prison hunger strikes in California. He wanted to understand the conditions that the inmates were protesting.

However, Hamilton’s research on prisons quickly led him down a “proverbial rabbit hole,” he said. Therefore he said he and Fischer felt that a single movie could not adequately address the issues. Hamilton said they decided to create a web series and pattern it after HBO’s “The Wire” (2002-8) by dividing it into “parts of the machine” or focusing on different aspects of the prison setting.

William Brown, Lead Actor in “The wHOLE”

IMMERSION

Brown inadvertently started to prepare for his role in “The wHOLE” less than two months after his 18th birthday when he was sent to a federal penitentiary for bank robbery in 1995.

For the next 15 years, Brown was in and out of prison -and the Solitary Housing Unit (SHU).

“You’re in jail, but you’re in jail again,” Brown said about his time in solitary. With only one hour a day outside of the cell to shower and exercise, “You lose your mind; it’s like a 23-hour-hell-hold.”
Brown said, “you got to stay real sharp” because with little other stimulation, the soundtrack of the SHU can get to you. The guards’ keys jingling and prisoners screaming and banging are part of the incessant noise.

Sometimes, Brown said, the library would come around with a book. But once you returned it, he said, “you were left alone.”

William Brown, Lead Actor in “The wHOLE”

To stay sane in the SHU, Brown said he would play songs in his head and mentally write beats. The other thing that kept him lucid he said is “knowing that someone on the other side of that wall loves you.”

His time in the real SHU informed Brown’s performance in “The wHOLE.” As Marcus Williams, Brown contends with social isolation within the space. For example, he improvises ‘playing’ piano at the edge of the bed. But he eventually starts to bang on the walls and the commode in response to the guard ignoring his plea and sounds like a persistent faucet drip and buzzing lights.

“How perverse is it that we put people deeper into prison?” Glenn Martin, founder of the justice advocacy organization JustLeadershipUSA, asked.
Martin reflected on his own experiences in the SHU with Tonight at Dawn; he said, “The first day you start reading every scratch on the wall, and by the second day you start talking to yourself” because you are so isolated.

And by the third day? Martin said you can’t tell the difference between ”which voice is yours and which is the one in your head.”

Martin, who will be a co-producer on the second episode of “The wHOLE,” feels like the series compliments his organization’s model because it “amplifies (the) voices” of people who have been in the criminal justice system.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BARS

From Brown’s perspective, “The guards don’t look at (prison) as rehab, they look at it as ‘fuck you,’” because, to them, “you’re just a number on the door”.

Brown said, it’s “eight (hours) and the gate” for the officers.

Dasha Lisitsina wrote about the experiences of correctional officers for The Guardian. The article, published on May 20, has a telling title; “‘Prison guards can never be weak’: the hidden PTSD crisis in America’s jails”.

In the article, Lisitsina writes about how Correctional Officers handle the stress of their job, “Corrections wisdom dictates that you deal with trauma by not dealing with it at all.” According to Lisitsina’s reporting, “‘Eight and the gate’ is the unofficial motto.”

Lisitsina also wrote about the results of an anonymous 2011 survey of correctional officers conducted by Caterina Spinaris founder of Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, a nonprofit based in Colorado, “Corrections officers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder at more than double the rate of military veterans in the US.”

Reflecting on this study, Hamilton told Tonight at Dawn, “Our prison systems are no good to anyone involved.” He said future episodes of “The wHOLE” will explore perspectives of other people involved in prisons such as the guards.

‘I GET TO BE WILLIAM’

Sometimes, though, there is something positive to be found in prison.

During Brown’s last prison sentence at the California’s Men’s Colony San Luis Obispo, he learned of the Arts in Correction program and approached the prison’s facilitator Deborah Tobola in 2007 about creating music.

At the time, Tobola needed to replace one of the actors and she had Brown read for the role in a play written by inmates, “Yesterday’s New Arrival.”

Brown was not an actor, but Tobola said she insisted that he had significant talent.

Happy he took the role, Brown still works with Tobola who has since resigned from her government job in 2007 and developed “Poetic Justice Project” in 2008 in Santa Maria for formerly incarcerated youth and adults.

If it weren’t for Tobola, Brown said, “I would not be acting, she saw something in me I did not see.” In fact, it was also Tobola that recommended Hamilton audition him for “The wHOLE” in 2014.

And now, thanks to acting and fatherhood, Brown said he is focused on doing the right thing. He said, “I won’t even jaywalk.”
Since his early teens, William Brown has been called by a lot of names: he was nicknamed Day Day on the street in his early teens and in prison he was called by just his last name or his inmate number. But as an actor today, he is called to stage by his full name.

“The difference for me now,” Brown said, “is I get to be William.”

The Most Significant Domestic Threat?

tonightatdawn December 29, 2014

#Halfby2030. Glenn E. Martin’s key vision is to cut the United States incarceration rate by half in 15 years – while reducing the crime rate. To learn about his progress since our interview in June, I followed up with him on the phone last week regarding the vehicle for his objective, JustLeadershipUSA.

Since then, JustLeadershipUSA has continued to promote its ambitious decarceration goal and its perspective on justice for US citizens, “Mass incarceration is the most significant domestic threat to the fabric of our democracy.” The organization believes that our large prison populations are not due to high rates of serious crimes but “…misguided policies such as mandatory minimums, three-strikes laws and reductions in the availability of parole and other early release mechanisms”.

After only a year of development, Mr. Martin and his team have initiated JustLeadershipUSA’s three pronged approach to advocacy; targeted campaigns, leadership training and membership support.

Not Your Mama’s Justice Reform Organization

To garner the power to affect changes, Glenn E. Martin and his team are reinventing how an advocacy organization can work. Indeed, JustLeadershipUSA’s very successful launch event featuring a comedy show is symbolic of their outside the box approach.

One way in which JustLeadershipUSA seeks to support advocacy throughout the nation is training justice reform leaders. In partnership with Susan Sturm of Columbia University’s George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility, the JustLeadership team has already developed the first tool kit for their leadership training program.

Currently, Glenn’s team is vetting 130 candidates; these applicants are already active leaders in different areas of justice reform within their home communities. In order to cultivate a more effective response in their work, the course will guide advocates to develop their voice, power, network and philanthropic support. They will also return to their position with a greater understanding of how decarceration can be implemented.

Moreover, Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow author, endorses the coming success of JustLeadershipUSA as “…the moment in the emerging movement when formerly incarcerated people finally had a chance to be heard, to organize, and to influence policy in major ways — even though many of them still lacked the right to vote.” Not only can folks who simply believe in the organization’s vision purchase an accessible annual membership for 12 bucks, but they can also gift a membership to incarcerated individuals. Why would you want to gift a membership for a convicted person? Glenn has seen that “those closest to the problem” are often “closest to the solution”.

Red State, Blue State

Mr. Martin goes even more against the grain by reaching out to peoples of all backgrounds and perspectives because he understands that our justice system can only be rehabilitated if conservatives and liberals alike prioritize it. To this end, he engages people in a wide range of forums from visiting universities to being a keynote speaker at conferences for police and correctional officers. He even finds common ground with citizens who respond to him with the ‘love America or leave it’ refrain and in the same breath identify areas in which they agree with him.

“Radical Shifts”

All things considered, Mr. Martin is not afraid to create a radical new picture for a more just America. As odd as it may sound, Glenn believes that even getting the most conservative among us to admit that the officers who killed unarmed black men “really screwed up” is more of a failure than a victory. “One of the worst things that can happen in this movement is that people find individual players within this large system that they believe are the problem -the bad apple- instead of saying the whole orchard is rotten”.

To illustrate the need for a “radical shift”, Mr. Martin speaks of police stations in poorer neighborhoods that look like prisons so the “community is not invited into unless they have handcuffs on” and the use implications of using the word, ‘police’ as a verb. Communities want to partner with police for the protection that all peoples hope for rather than be subjects that need to be policed to protect other communities.

#Halfby2030? Perhaps.

*For More Information on Glenn E. Martin and JustLeadershipUSA:

Website: http://www.glennemartin.org, http://www.justleadershipusa.org

Click here to read previous interview.

Twitter: @glennEmartin, @justleadersusa

“I Can’t Breathe.”

tonightatdawn December 21, 2014

Text and Photo by K. Cecchini

Justice cannot breathe in our nation, either, while our African-American brothers -and sisters- disproportionately suffer at the hands of our justice system. Whether the system puts a tag on their toe or cuffs on their hands, African-Americans -and other people of color- are prey to the inherent theme in our public institutions; “if you’re a hammer, everything is a nail.” (Glenn E. Martin)

On NPR’s Morning Edition, Brooklyn Borough president, Eric Adams spoke with host Steve Inskeep regarding the Eric Garner case,

“When we police in America, we leave the station house with this symbolic toolbox we can use based on the circumstances that we respond to. In many communities of color, the only tool we use is the hammer.” The former police officer went on to identify a number of nonlethal tools and tactics the police could have used to work with Eric Garner, “But in communities of color, the officers don’t use those tools of conflict resolution. They quickly go from zero to 100 in police action.”

Mr. Adams expanded on this point later in the interview, he does want police officers to respond to calls of service, however, they need to be as prudent with their approaches in working with citizens of color as they are with Caucasians,

“But when they come, I want them to use the force that’s equal to the crime that is being reported, not for them to come with a one-size-fit-all enforcement in communities of color. And that’s where we’re going wrong, and that is what we have to acknowledge.”

A Sustained Movement

America’s attention is on these issues now, but how do we build a sustainable –and effective– movement?

I spoke with Glen E. Martin about his organization, JustLeadershipUSA, last week and I asked him for his perspective on the mobilization for Michael Brown and Eric Gardner’s respective deaths. Although Glenn feels “motivated and energized” that 50,000 New Yorkers marched to express indignation for these young men and he was honored to march in the front line with Gardner’s family, he is concerned that the movement will not be sustained. In his mind, it is great to get 50,000 liberal New Yorkers in the streets, however, it is “not shocking” to get 50,000 liberal New Yorkers in the street.

To exemplify his uncertainty, Glenn brought up the 99% movement that spread around the globe, and, as if to illustrate his point, neither of us could recall the action’s name while we were on the phone (later, my husband remembered it was called Occupy Wall Street). Most notably, though, is that the rallying cry for our economic systems to undergo dramatic transformations has died out; “let’s be honest,” Glenn said, “Wall Street is back to what Wall Street does”.

So, how do we ensure our Justice System does not just go back to what our Justice System does? Glenn believes that a potent campaign requires a “slow, methodical, bipartisan movement” -rather than a quick, emotional rebuke- akin to the one he and his team are building at JustLeadershipUSA. In the upcoming week, I will share more on my follow up interview with Mr. Martin on the momentum they are gaining with the methodical building of his organization and their work for justice and #Halfby2030.

A Nonviolent Movement

“Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases,”

Reverend Al Sharpton spoke in reaction to the man who sought to put “wings on pigs;” in a warped retaliation for Eric Gardner and Michael Brown, 28 year old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, shot two NYPD officers who he apparently targeted at random for their uniform before turning his gun on himself. As the Reverend, and every advocate for justice believes, misguided folks like Brinsley are not only framing themselves as enemies of the police but also as enemies “…to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown.”

A Living Movement

Meanwhile, I hope we can summon enough breath among all of our citizens to keep a nonviolent discourse alive.

Prison Reform: (Part 5) Freedom Isn’t Free

tonightatdawn August 26, 2014

Text by Kimberly Cecchini

Please support justice reform with JustLeadershipUSA

Read Dr. Bowman’s book, Color Behind Bars

Glenn E. Martin might be selling sunglasses today had he been given 1 of the 40 some jobs he applied for after his release. It was the only interview the college graduate had landed. Why? It’s highly likely because of one little box at the bottom of employment applications; he had to draw a check mark in the “Yes” box indicating that he had indeed been convicted of a crime.

It’s a good thing he had “…prepared (him)self for failure as part of moving towards success”.

Although he was almost hired “on the spot” for the retail position, the boss vetoed his employment when he learned about Glenn’s background despite anti-discrimination laws. In fact thousands of Americans each year try to put their lives back together after prison and it is that 12 pt. box that looms over their prospects.

“Ban the Box” is one of the many projects Mr. Martin has been working on over the past 13 years as a prison reform advocate. His rise is uncharacteristic of most people who have served time, but he is using his own story, and that of other people in the system, to create change throughout the criminal justice system.

In his case, it’s a good thing he never did get that sunglasses gig.

At the time, though, Glenn was just trying to get on his feet and pay back the approximately one hundred thousand dollars he owed for fines, fees, restitution and child support arrears since there are not any real wages to garnish in lockup. Eventually, through an intermediate social services agency, he was connected to a receptionist position at a public interest law firm. Though, at 16 thousand dollars a year, Mr. Martin was not earning enough to live on and pay his debts, the basic job became the very modest start to the trajectory he has been on since it.

Low and behold, the law firm turned out to be a non-profit that services people with HIV, substance abuse issues and criminal records. Each time Glenn picked up the phone at his desk, he was speaking to the mayor, legislators and many people who were in the system and it led him to realize that, “…having a conversation about personal responsibility is such a joke. When you see hundreds of people with the same problem that’s being administered by the same bureaucracy over and over, you realize it’s not the individual, it’s the policy.”

After earning internal promotions within the firm, Mr. Martin became director of the National HIRE (Helping Individuals Reenter Through Employment) Network and successfully helped to create policy in 10 states to limit barriers to employment. Along this journey, Glenn learned about what durable, effective policy looks like and the value of having people who have experienced the system involved in creating policy about the system.

Despite his policy victories, Glenn moved onto a leadership role in The Fortune Society, a direct service organization, so he could reconnect with individuals who were directly impacted by the system. He helped to grow Fortune in a variety ways; he established a formal advocacy arm, became the organization’s spokesperson and led fundraising.

Ultimately, Glenn started to feel the limitations of doing advocacy in a direct service organization and sought the freedom to push for greater upheaval in the system; “If you look back at social justice movements in the US, it’s not until America says we did something wrong that we see paradigm shifts. You look at HIV/AIDS; it’s not until we said that’s not how we treat sick Americans that you see shifts in policy.” The stigma of being under criminal supervision, leads even the “…most staunch advocates to want to bring to the table the most perfect prisoner which feeds right into the rhetoric about who is deserving and who is not – as opposed to talking about the system.”

To effect paradigm shift in justice reform, Glenn founded JustLeadershipUSA as a membership organization to harness the power of people. Membership groups such as AARP are formidable and influence legislators because they are 30 million strong and, therefore, cannot be ignored. Upon its hard launch at the end of the year, Mr. Martin hopes that Americans from all walks of life will join to support its initiatives which include:

–Advocacy: Along with addressing policy issues, Mr. Martin wants to push to cut the prison system in half by 2030; he says its bold, audacious and is ultimately meant to convey a message that we need significant reform. He hopes to achieve this through stemming the tide of folks going into the system and decarceration. He is encouraged as President Obama already set a precedent on the federal level with a clemency initiative. Glenn summarized Attorney General Eric Holder’s support for it; “We have way too many people in prison for way to long for no good law enforcement reason.”

–Leadership: With the Columbia University School of Law and a number of other partners, JustLeadershipUSA will thoroughly train and provide tool kits to assist advocates in starting conversations about and work for decarceration in their states.

–Communication: Expand communication through new mediums and reach out to mainstream America on an emotional level.

Parole: “Everything about it feels as though you are still defining me as a criminal…”

What is the purpose of parole? The basic goal of parole is to ensure offenders transition into a productive, lawful way of life, right?

Unfortunately, the conditions of parole are a quick slip away from handcuffs and put demands on parolees that are not reasonable for adults and 12 year olds would buck against such things as curfews before sundown. The first time that Mr. Martin was given an opportunity to shift policy, he was still on parole and shared,

“When I go to parole and I sit there in the waiting room, everything about the experience is the opposite of what you’re telling me parole is supposed to be doing to change my life…everything about it feels as though you are still defining me as a criminal; you can’t use your cell phone, you can’t bring your kids, when you go up to the glass partition without permission, when you go up to the window there’s a bullet proof glass between you and the front desk person, you don’t want us talking to each other and there’s no reading material, etc., etc., etc.”

When asked what is one thing that can make the experience more productive and dignifying, Glenn requested that computers be installed so that parolees could at least search for jobs while they waited.

Chauncey Parker, who was head of the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services at the time, acted on his suggestion within weeks.

“You Think Prison is Tough, Try Getting a Job After You Get Out”

Arrests create serious baggage which inhibit a person’s ability and right to recover their lives -particularly juveniles – and it puts additional strain on resources when citizens lack opportunities to positively contribute. There are a number of collateral consequences that formerly incarcerated people carry with them for a lifetime.

“Ban the Box” initiatives are one step towards alleviating some of the challenges people face after incarceration. On August 11th, New Jersey joined the growing list of states and municipalities that have or will be eradicating the question of whether or not an applicant has a criminal record. Such legislation provides prospective employees the opportunity to present themselves in an interview before the employer can pose this question.

Even further than that, Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rand Paul of Kentucky have joined forces across the aisle to push the bill REDEEM, Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment.

One of the bill’s measures will allow adults with nonviolent offenses to request for their criminal records to be sealed. If they are granted this, they will be able to lawfully state that they do not exist. Another one of the measures would be to, depending on the child’s age, expunge or automatically seal a juvenile’s nonviolent record. If enacted, REDEEM will benefit both nonviolent adult and juvenile offenders to decrease inhibitions to successful reintegration.

“Until America owns its problem, I’m not going to own the shame of my criminal record.”

It may been a little uncomfortable for him at first when he shared his story publicly and knew that his neighbors would hear it too, but Glenn’s ultimate feeling about his past is that he will not “own the shame” until our nation truly starts to face our bloated criminal system.

Too many folks, though, hold onto their shame and he is glad that sometimes his public presence gives other people the strength to “come out of the shadows”. After one of his television appearances, a well educated middle aged Caucasian woman from Orange County, California, reached out to him to tell him her own story.

Although a large percentage of Americans carry a criminal record and they have ‘paid their debt to society,’ our society inspires shame and inhibits reentry. Dr. Scott Brown speaks about the contradiction that these folks often are not afforded the second opportunity to fully participate in society as would be beneficial for the individual, their family and their community.

“In theory, a person that has served their time in prison is supposed to return to society with a second chance; however, we make it tremendously difficult to achieve the most basic things (e.g. housing, employment, self-determination). If a person was truly restored, we would have a knowledge of their past actions without penalizing them through every step of their reentry. In other words, they would be largely “restored” back into society with a realistic chance at self-sustainability.”

~Dr. Brown

Damned if you do try and damned if you don’t.

Final Words & Numbers

The statistics in our justice system are staggering.

-The U.S. Has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners.

-The U.S. has 2.3 million people in prison today.

-U.S. prisons cost taxpayers 80 billion dollars each year. —Compare that to what is paid for education !!

These are only some of the numbers that paint the picture of the United States JUSTICE system. With these numbers, the word “justice” is being used too loosely.

Too many of us feel too removed from the world of criminal justice, but these numbers are people. Yet no matter where we may live in this nation, whether we know it -or speak it – or not, we all know someone who has been under criminal supervision. They are our neighbors, our children, our cousins, our friends and ourselves.

I’ll leave you with Senator Booker’s words,

“We’ve created an America right now that is manifesting the worst extremes of our culture. We are a nation that believes in fairness and equality and yet we have a prison system right now that is dramatically over-incarcerating poor people and minorities and if you think about it, right now this is what is so chilling to me is right now in America we have more African-Americans under criminal supervision than all of the slaves in the 1850’s…This is something that all Americans should realize, we’re all paying a price for a broken system – millions, billions – to incarcerate people for low level, non-violent crimes instead of focusing our resources to help people succeed and lowering the burden on taxpayers and making our streets safer.”

References

Glenn E. Martin, Founder of JustLeadershipUSA. Personal interview. 26 June 2014.

Dr. Scott W. Bowman, Professor of Criminal Justice. Email interview. 11 June 2014.

“Cory Booker and Rand Paul Join Forces on Prison Reform.” The Brian Lehrer Show. WNYC. New York, New York, 31 July 2014. Web. 3 Aug. 2014.

Winerip, Michael, and Michael Schwirtz. “Rikers: Where Mental Illness Meets Brutality in Jail.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 July 2014. Web. 26 Aug. 2014.

Prison Reform (Part 4): Peering Through the Bars

tonightatdawn August 5, 2014

Text and photo by Kimberly Cecchini

“I mean for a guy who used to pull guns on people in the streets…get into fights at parties, I went to Riker’s and was scared shitless. It’s gladiator school. And the only way to survive is to be a gladiator.” Glenn E. Martin gestures to a stab wound on his neck and towards the other scars on his head and his back to underscore his point.

For those of you not familiar with the infamous jail complex, Riker’s sprawls over an island between the Bronx and Queens boroughs in New York City. The island hosts local inmates, at a cost of $176,000 per person per year, who are awaiting trial, cannot or are not given an opportunity to post bail or are serving shorter sentences.

Speaking about a recent New York Times article on correctional officers at Riker’s during our interview, Glenn is incredulous, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why is anyone surprised?” With the variety of prisoners and the rampant corruption, he refers to the jail as a “powder keg of violence”. The numbers from the Times’ piece back up his words:

-January 2014 through June 2014: “Correction officers used force on inmates 1,927 times…”

-2013: During 11 months, 129 inmates needed treatment beyond the jail’s clinics due to the severity of their injuries in altercations with staff members: 77% of these inmates were identified as mentally ill

-Since 2009, inmate on inmate altercations and assaults on staff has “increased year by year”

Mr. Martin further illustrates the storied corruption at Riker’s with his own time in the jail. It sounds like TV. Glenn asserts that the CO’s “fed off” the violence, going so far as to make space for guys to beat up an inmate that the officers didn’t like. He also said it was easier to get drugs in prison than it was in the inner city neighborhood of his youth, Bed-Stuy. In fact, he never did drugs until he was penned up at Riker’s; “…if I was going to be arrested, it would be for getting money, not drugs.” With nothing to do but dwell on the judge’s offer of 20-40 years, he paid off a guard for marijuana.

After a year in the city jail, the judge offered him a plea, and, like 96% of defendants, Glenn took it and was transferred upstate.

Upstate

Though less restrictive, the upstate prison was ironically much safer. Exemplifying this dichotomy is the fact that inmates were allowed packages with canned goods. The jagged lids that would have quickly been wielded as weapons in Riker’s were rendered innocuous in the state facility. Relations between correctional officers and inmates were significantly less contentious as the CO’s demonstrated more respect than their Riker’s counterparts. Remarkably it was due to a correctional counselor’s prompting that led Glenn to earn his liberal arts degree during his time upstate.

Despite being a vast improvement over the island, there were still issues at the upstate facility, so Mr. Martin joined the inmate liaison board. He differed from many of the previous members as he had a sincere interest in making changes rather than an interest in the loophole some other prisoners leveraged to access drugs. Unfortunately, as many correctional officers are no more educated than the prisoners they supervised, they perceived it as a threat when Glenn stacked the group with college graduates.

One by one the men were put into the “box” (solitary confinement) for a week or two to reinforce their message; stay on the board and stay in the box or quietly work towards your release.

“Insidious.”

Glenn heeded the warning, but it reinforced for him that “…the whole system was oppressive, hypocritical, racist, endurable”. He had expended so much energy in seeking control his whole life and he realized he had none. It was “a slap in the face”.

Parole & the Deuce Club

Keep your head down and your nose clean, right? When Glenn moved to the state prison, he thought he had a year and a half left of his sentence. Not so fast. With an indeterminate sentence his fate was beholden to the parole board. Regardless of an inmate’s institutional record, the parole board often adds time on a sentence if they feel the inmate did not receive enough years in court. This course of action is often at the behest of the governor who appoints them.

Indeed the board rejected Mr. Martin’s parole a few times due to the “nature of the crime” -and the political climate- “The judge gave me 2 1/2 years, but Governor Pataki gave me 6 years, damn it.”

Glenn was certainly not an exception. There’s a group of inmates upstate who are serving 15 to life and have been dubbed the “Deuce Club” because the parole board keeps hitting them with 2 year extensions and they end up doing 26 or so years.

“I think it’s undermining to the judge and everyone who’s in the courtroom.”

The board cites the ‘nature of the crime’ to make their determination, but Glenn argues that the judge was well aware of the ‘nature of the crime’ when he/she assigned the punishment; with an indeterminate sentence, “the judge is saying, ‘don’t screw up and you have a good chance of getting out in 4′”.

Even more, according to Glenn, there is no return on the money taxpayers spend on extended sentences. Studies show that if the parole board released folks with indeterminate sentences sooner rather than later, they would not pose any more danger to the public than if you wait because “people age out of crime.”

The Politics of Prison

So is it the corporate prisons that are exasperating the system? Advocate Carol L. believes that private prison companies drive much of the negativity in the system because they are able to strong arm the legislation with large lobbying groups, “… they spend millions on laws designed to increase incarceration, (that are) tough on crime and (they) have a stake in detention centers. Empty beds do not generate profits. Private prisons are a billion dollar industry profiting off of human bondage.”

On the other hand, Glenn questions the wisdom of focusing on private prisons; he feels the debate is a distraction from the other inherent issues in the system. It’s the economic engine surrounding all prisons that is often the debate; local jobs, the related services and the local businesses-like those that service inmate visitors-that benefit from the industry. In fact it is much like the coal debate; coal has an adverse affect on health and the environment but people are adamant on maintaining its presence in their communities because they cannot envision what will replace it in their local economies.

Regardless of the cause, Carol would agree with Glenn, “I can’t think of any other industry that has such a failure rate” with 2/3 of inmates returning to jail.

“I can’t think of any other industry that has such a failure rate”

Reform Behind the Bars

Carol L. sums it up, “The entire prison environment must be changed and it starts with staff.” Her view as a mother and advocate that prisons are run on punishment rather than rehabilitation echoes Glenn’s own view from his direct experience. One solution to create a more productive, compassionate environment that fosters growth is to look at those who interact daily with the prisoners-the correctional officers. Many CO’s obtain their positions and promotions via such circumstances as family connections and he believes that officers would be more effective if they had degrees in social work or criminal justice. Also, in order to avoid the issues that are developed with the fatigue of being in this line of work, these officers should be limited to a period of 7 years as part of a career track to other jobs in the field.

Additionally, practical life skills should be integrated more into daily routines to prepare inmates for reentry into mainstream society. For instance, inmates should actually have to apply and interview for the jobs they hold during their sentence so they can imbibe all the skills surrounding these experiences. There are a number of other skills that many people need direct instruction in due to limited exposure such as household finances, medical insurance, and child care.

Additionally, folks who have been impacted by the system should be included more frequently in conversations about the system. They, like Mr. Martin, can lead the discussion on what is working and what is not with priceless first hand experience.

Half by 2030

What might be the boldest solution to mitigate the issues in the U.S. prison system?

With his new organization, JustLeadershipUSA, Glenn is promoting a goal to CUT THE PRISON SYSTEM IN HALF BY 2030. Bold? Absolutely. Mr. Martin would be the first to agree that it is bold, and that there are a number of things to be addressed even if we achieve this goal. Still, it would be a great step and he proposes that removing mandatory minimums, eliminating the 3 strike system and instituting merit time would help move the system towards 2030.

In order to effect more promising change, Glenn Martin certainly heralds efforts that includes people who have been involved in the justice system. In addition, with JustLeadershipUSA, he also wants to include all Americans in the conversation because it affects all of us; our tax dollars, our safety and our values as a nation.

After its hard launch in November, JustLeadershipUSA will interact with the public in a multifaceted manner; it’s developing tool kits with Columbia University to train advocates in shaping dialogue on the state and local level. It will also have a greater center of power in its messages and reach because it will operate like AARP–except that is membership pool will not just be those in the system, but it will be open to all Americans to support reform.

Half by 2030? Maybe. It is a bold notion, but we need it for a truly free nation.

References:

Glenn E. Martin, Founder of JustLeadershipUSA. Personal interview. 26 June 2014.

Carol L., Blog founder (Prison Reform Movement). Email interview. May 2014.

Winerip, Michael, and Michael Schwirtz. “Rikers: Where Mental Illness Meets Brutality in Jail.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 July 2014. Web. 01 Aug. 2014.

Prison Reform (Part 3): An Opportunity to Pass Go-Prison Alternatives

tonightatdawn July 24, 2014

Text by Kimberly Cecchini

A mother awaits her son’s transfer from county to state prison. Her son is considered a ‘wobbler’ for having accumulated a few charges due to his drug use. At this point, according to the state of California, the district attorney has the authority to classify the charges as felonies or misdemeanors.

A non-violent drug abuser, he was recently assigned a 32-month sentence for the probate violation of being caught with drugs.

Shockingly, a drug abuser was caught with drugs.

The judge should have just told him to go directly to jail; do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

“Without treatment, what chance do these men and women have? They are merely warehoused-no treatment, no anything viable to help them change.” -Carol, Mother & Advocate

The young man’s mom and the Prison Reform Movement blog’s founder, Carol, questions the wisdom of using jail as a means for dealing with her son and other habitual drug users, “Without treatment, what chance do these men and women have? They are merely warehoused-no treatment, no anything viable to help them change. Most will be back inside within 3 years according to the statistics. What does this tell us? Most importantly, what message are we sending these people? That they are not worthy and are not deserving of a chance.”

Drug Courts

Carol proposes that drug courts instead of criminal courts would be a more effective route to address non-violent drug abusers. Although the research is still somewhat inconclusive and the successes of drug courts rely on a host of factors, the results are generally more positive. The National Institute of Justice researchers, in regard to a 10 year study of a drug court in Portland, Oregon, concluded, “…drug courts may lower recidivism rates (re-arrests) and significantly lower costs”. They found that recidivism was lower five years or more later for 6,500 drug court participants than for individuals with similar drug offenses in that county.

Other Alternatives-to-Incarceration

Although he would not argue that some period of incarceration was not appropriate for his own offense of armed robbery, Glenn E. Martin asserts that more significant punishments do not equate to increased public safety and decreasing recidivism and he speaks about alternative models for addressing crime.

In a Crain’s Chicago Business op-ed responding to a mandatory minimum proposal for gun crimes in The Windy City, Mr. Martin summarizes a Brennan Center for Justice study crediting New York State with “…massive and simultaneous reductions in crime and correction populations — including prison, parole and probation”. The success correlates with a mandate in the 1990’s that limited “…the state’s over-reliance on mass incarceration as a solution to crime”. Glenn specifically refers to New York City’s own successes as related to its “robust infrastructure of community-based prevention, intervention and alternatives-to-incarceration programs” and says that the recent elimination of most mandatory minimums for drug offenses should also boost the city’s success.

Mr. Martin is a proponent of alternatives-to-incarceration programs because he has seen them work. As the former Vice President of Development and Public Affairs of the Fortune Society, Glenn spoke particularly about the Fortune Society’s programs which are tailored to focus on individual needs in areas that range from substance abuse, mental health, education, employment and family.

“They say things like, ‘when I came to Fortune, I met ‘Vilma’ and I remember her saying ‘Welcome home’, and nobody had ever said welcome home to me before’.” -Glenn E. Martin, Advocate & Former Prisoner

Intensive programs, such as at those at Fortune, can truly be transformative for its clients and Glenn says you can often see a complete about-face in the lives of Fortune graduates. The most effective impetus for change can seem subtle and may reflect aspects of their earlier lives that may have impacted their choices. When successful clients are asked what led to them to create lasting change in their lives, “They don’t say it was the urine test that used you used to do back then. They say things like, ‘when I came to Fortune, I met ‘Vilma’ and I remember her saying ‘Welcome home’, and nobody had ever said welcome home to me before ‘.” Much of the Fortune staff can genuinely empathize with the clients’ journey within the justice system, and sometimes it can simply be the human touch that makes the difference.

We are Redeemable

“We tend to be a disposable society.”

-Carol, Mother & Advocate

“We tend to be a disposable society,” Carol laments our tendency to toss things to the side because we can always replace them. “We have to stop thinking that way with humans as most of us are fixable and redeemable.” I know she wishes the state of California would have given her son an opportunity for treatment rather than drawing a ‘Go Directly to Jail’ card for him.

References:

Glenn E. Martin, Founder of JustLeadershipUSA. Personal interview. 26 June 2014.

Carol L., Blog founder (Prison Reform Movement). Email interview. May 2014.

Martin, Glenn E. “Mandatory Minimums for Gun Crimes: A Band-Aid Solution.” Crain’s Chicago Business. N.p., 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 July 2014.

Naidoo, Theshia. “Downside of Drug Courts.” The New York Times. N.p., 10 Mar. 2013. Web. 22 July 2014.

“Do Drug Courts Work? Findings From Drug Court Research.” National Institute of Justice. N.p., 12 May 2008. Web. 22 July 2014.

Prison Reform (Part 2): Looking Upstream

tonightatdawn July 16, 2014

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Glenn E. Martin wants to focus more conversations on “going further upstream,” or “… paying attention to how people get into the system as opposed to reentry – which is like building an emergency room to solve cancer”. Although we will address recidivism later in our prison reform series, Glenn finds it unfortunate that many organizations are “…more concerned about helping the large number of people who have been damaged by the system than going upstream and stopping the bodies from going into the system”.

Glenn E. Martin wants to focus more conversations on “looking upstream,” or “… paying attention to how people are getting into prison as opposed to reentry which is like building an emergency room to solve cancer.”

Mr. Martin is sure to point out that each person, like himself, who finds themselves entangled within our penal system have individual stories and individual responsibilities, but many of these lives have strong common themes that have linked them to handcuffs. We need to look at different points on the continuum to identify these themes and, in effect, where the system as a whole is failing many of our fellow Americans.

But why should all Americans care about a segment of our population? We should all care because the segment is massive; the United States has a fifth of the world’s population and yet our free republic boasts 25% of the world’s prisoners. We should all care because the dirty little secret is so widespread across the states that 65 million of us have criminal records that limit our opportunities. We should all care because this imbalance threatens our freedoms, our security and our values as Americans.

Mr. Martin contends that our priorities are unbalanced; if we can pay $176,000 per year per person at Riker’s Penitentiary, then we have the resources to positively intervene “upstream”. What can we bolster with our resources to stem the tide of new entrants to our prisons? Though there are a wide range of causes, today we will focus on education, socioeconomics, race and juvenile discipline.

Education “The criminal system is a repository for people who fail out of the educational system.” Glenn’s words are harsh but they are simply a reflection of the data; education is one of the primary factors that impacts incarceration rates. According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report in 2003, people within the correctional system have earned a significantly lower educational level than the general adult population in the United States and these discrepancies demonstrate the importance of strengthening our educational systems.

*18% of the general population has NOT earned a high school degree or its equivalent compared to those in the criminal justice system:

-40% of State prison inmates

-27% of Federal inmates

-47% of inmates in local jails

-31% of those serving probation sentences.

Yes, there are exceptions to the concept of prison as a repository for our education system; Piper Kerman, whose memoir is the inspiration for the Piper character in Orange is the New Black, is one arguably the most famed former prisoner now in our pop culture. She she is an outlier to the data as a daughter of upper middle class parents and a graduate of Smith College.

On the other hand, Glenn was fortunate to have earned his high school degree, but he had no model for continuing on with his education. Even his guidance counselor directed him to the military with the inference that college was implausible for him because of his finances. Mr. Martin reflected on the intangibility of higher education; you tell folks that grew up in inner cities that they could have gone to college, “…it’s like saying to someone, ‘you should go to India when you’re dirt poor and living in the hood somewhere,’ it just doesn’t register”.

In fact, it was not until his orientation into the upstate prison that Glenn could envision college as a possibility. A correctional officer, referencing Glenn’s academic performance on his admittance testing, was the first person to tell him he should have gone to college. Glenn credits this as the first thing that turned around his life.

What else does Glenn credit for his personal transformation? Reevaluating his perspective and his role in the world through his undergraduate coursework in prison also led to his evolution. The liberal arts education he never imagined challenged the narrative he grew up with as a half African-American and half Caucasian young man in his community. He says that he was aware of other peoples’ struggles, but it wasn’t until his Sociology professor screened a Holocaust film in which piles of naked bodies were being plowed that it truly resonated with him that other peoples have had their struggles and enslavements, that “there is more that connects us as humans than there is that separates us”.

Race and Socioeconomics Glenn’s enhanced worldview does not ignore the inequities that plague most of the systems within our country and the impact it has on people of color and the impoverished. He cites the system of invisible fences around inner city neighborhoods that are figuratively installed by society and literally reinforced by police officers who tell the residents where they are and are not allowed to go. He also refers to the scourge of violence that people of color inflict on each other because the culture teaches them not to value themselves or anyone who looks like them. With a diminished quality of education, access to the world and sense of self, one can certainly draw conclusions about the disproportionate number of poor and ethnic minorities in our jails.

Dr. Scott Bowman of Texas State University details the relationship of race and socioeconomics as it pertains to incarceration rates, “Unquestionably, race matters as it pertains to the criminal justice system; however, it almost always correlates to socioeconomic status. Comparing wealthy black kids and white kids (and adults) yields almost identical social outcomes, including incarceration rates. When poor black and brown space (both currently holding approximately a 33% poverty rate) are targeted by police in larger numbers, coupled with zero tolerance policing policies and sting operations (suburban police tend not to sting their citizens for drugs, etc.), you are going to inevitably produce minority over-representations for Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans.” Professor Bowman identifies a few solutions to the issue of over-representation; a substantial increase of non-minimum wage positions, increased wealth, “…as well as deconstructing poor minorities and poor minority space as being in need of the type of policing that it has seen for the past 30 (some would argue 60+) years.”

School Discipline and Juvenile Justice: Adolescents are known to be at the height of impulsivity, and, unfortunately, they can make decisions that can adversely affect their future circumstances. How adults in authority and our society as a whole responds to juvenile indiscretions is key. Unfortunately, Glenn feels that we have allowed punishment to be the reigning default throughout our institutions.

“If you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail.”

“If you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail,” Glenn metaphorically spoke of law enforcement in schools on a MSNBC segment, “Rethinking Discipline in the Classroom”. Within this context, a school yard scuffle can transform a trip to the principal’s office into a trip to the precinct. “We have criminalized behavior that wasn’t considered criminal just a few years ago,” Glenn postulated in our interview, “I don’t even know how you mix children and zero tolerance in the same sentence?” He understands the litigation and other pressures that educators are under, but he wants to remind them that every infraction to the code of conduct does not necessitate a student to be removed from class. Instead, Mr. Martin believes that teachers, nurses and counselors are our children’s advocates.

One thing that should be advocated for is a student’s own vision for themselves through exposure to the possibilities outside the closed worlds of their communities. Some inner city students are provided with opportunities to see prospects that are not modeled in their daily lives, but the pervasive mode used to reach these youth is the now clichéd ‘scared-straight’ excursions. Glenn laments the effectiveness of these one day programs, “We take poor black kids to prison to scare them…I would argue that the one day or one week of fear that may come from it, doesn’t compare to the pressure that these kids have to live under in their communities.”

“We take poor black kids to prison to scare them…I would argue that the one day or one week of fear that may come from it, doesn’t compare to the pressure that these kids have to live under in their communities.”

Regardless of how unnerving even juvenile detention can be, an early introduction to the justice system can be detrimental. Dr. Bowman speaks about reforms for juvenile justice, “In order to reduce juvenile offender risk — no different than adult risk — there needs to be effective, realistic reentry policies that provide offenders with opportunities as sustainable employment. This is especially true for juvenile offenders, as they are still in formative, developmental stages as initial offenders.” Given their impressionability, he believes that minor offenders should be allowed non-punitive second chances. Zero-tolerance law enforcement should be mitigated and the age to try juveniles as adults for smaller mistakes, such as drug offenses, should be pushed.

Engaging Citizens Whatever issues contribute to our swelling incarceration rates, its time to move further upstream and redirect the currents for all of our youth. Glenn E. Martin wants to engage Americans of all backgrounds to discuss how to reduce our prison population by looking at the issues from all angles. He is developing JustLeadershipUSA as an active forum in its multifaceted mission for reform, “Together we can redefine justice”.

“Together we can redefine justice.”

*For More Information on Glenn E. Martin and JustLeadershipUSA:

Website: http://www.glennemartin.org, http://www.justleadershipusa.org

Twitter: @glennEmartin, @justleadersusa

***

*Look for Dr. Bowman’s book in late August: Color behind Bars [2 volumes]: Racism in the U.S. Prison System (Racism in American Institutions)

References:

Glenn E. Martin, Founder of JustLeadershipUSA. Personal interview. 26 June 2014.

Dr. Scott W. Bowman, Professor of Criminal Justice. Email interview. 11 June 2014.

Harlow, Caroline Wolf. Education and Correctional Populations. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003. Web.

“Rethinking Discipline in the Classroom.” Craig Melvin. MSNBC. 1 Nov. 2014. Television.