Despite landmark progress, the country is failing its most vulnerable citizens.

Speaking recently at a University of Notre Dame Institute for Social Concerns event, Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, said that this pervasive narrative declaring “some children aren’t children” must end.

This perspective is crucial as we confront the ongoing challenges within U.S. systems.

Recently in Milwaukee, Wi., the case of a now 12-year-old boy charged with murdering his mother, remains in adult court, as a judge will decide later if he will be moved into the juvenile system.

In Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves has reported he is charging 16 and 17-year-olds as adults in carjacking cases. Two 16-year-olds in Washington state were charged as adults and sentenced to prison for murder last year.

My journey in youth advocacy began as a survivor of the school-to-prison pipeline. For over a decade, focusing on advocating for Black, brown, and Indigenous youth, I have witnessed the transformative power of supporting young people, especially those from marginalized communities. As the Founder and Executive Director of The Hive I lead efforts to provide healing and support for the young people we serve while also attending to my own recovery.

In my home state of Virginia—a place often seen as a microcosm of the South—systemic racism presents formidable challenges. Yet, in 2017, I was part of a movement that successfully closed one of the state’s last two youth prisons, a victory highlighting the potential for change when communities come together.

Although youth incarceration impacts the entire culture, it disproportionately harms Black youth the most. The Sentencing Project states, “As of 2021, Black youth were 4.7 times as likely to be placed (i.e., detained or committed) in juvenile facilities as their white peers.”  This has been the case for more than a decade.

The child welfare and juvenile justice systems produce long-lasting impacts on individuals and families. The U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention recently explored the relationship between maltreatment in the child welfare system as a contributor to involvement in the juvenile justice system. Yet, few programs target young people with dual system involvement.

A 2023 report from The Sentencing Project showed that, “Incarceration harms young people’s physical and mental health, impedes their educational and career success, and often exposes them to abuse.”

Yet, we still lead the world in youth incarceration.

The healing journey is ongoing for everyone involved—not just the individual but their entire family, community, culture, and country. The goal is to create a society that understands and nurtures our youth rather than criminalizes them.

The challenges are vast—from ending exclusionary school discipline to building an effective community-based continuum of support—but they are not insurmountable.

It is urgent to form collective action from community members, policymakers, educators, administrators, leaders, survivors, and advocates. Investing in preventative measures and supportive resources that address the root causes of youth involvement in the justice system is crucial.

By establishing tangible investments in the diverse needs of young people, it is possible to help break the cycle of trauma and empower young people to make positive choices.

That process begins with listening to the voices of youth and those who have lived these experiences. Change begins with empathy and understanding. By fostering partnerships among community organizations, schools, and families, a network of support can be created that ensures every young person feels valued and seen.

It is necessary to build a future where every young person has the opportunity to thrive, free from the shackles of systemic injustice.

The time for change is now, and American youth deserve nothing less than unwavering commitment to their futures. It is critical to stand together and advocate for the healing, care, and justice they need to flourish.

Juvenile court judicial appointment decisions are made based on personal and/or political affiliations, without consideration of experience or knowledge. Most superior court judges lack adequate training in juvenile issues, and as such are not equipped with the knowledge to appropriately match children with the needed services. Although juvenile court judges are required to hear matters in superior court, superior court judges have no such corresponding requirement. Similarly, superior court judges don’t take yearly continuing judicial courses in juvenile matters, though the converse is true. This creates a scheme rife with problems.

I served as a juvenile court judge for 14 and a half years, with an additional 10 years in private practice and prosecutorial juvenile court experience. The flaw in Georgia’s child welfare and juvenile justice system is the inapposite belief among unlearned superior court judges, that juvenile court judges serve at their pleasure, and for their pleasure. This misguided belief leaves children out of the equation. Superior court judges expect juvenile court judges to manage and work superior court caseloads, to come when they call, make campaign contributions, and generally do whatever the superior court judge conjures up. Georgia’s juvenile court judges are relegated to the positions of mere political puppets, and campaign contributors.

Juvenile court judges should not be expected to perform superior court caseloads or face unwarranted removal. Many see juvenile court work as insignificant and unimportant, being a mere place holder until the child ascends to adult court— which leads to a reliance on juvenile court judges to perform superior court duties at the expense of juvenile court work.

Judicial discretion and the best interest of the child take a backseat. But, when a child commits a heinous crime, or is the victim of one, people wonder why? And how could it happen? Because the system is broken and needs an overhaul. The inability of the juvenile court judge to focus on juvenile justice detracts from the ability to develop and institute programs and solutions to address matters plaguing children, youth, and families. The answer then, is to revamp the system. Many jurisdictions have gotten it right.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, juvenile courts are divisions of district court and judges are elected for eight-year terms. District Court judges are divided into divisions: civil, criminal, or juvenile. Each division is equal. This model is replicated in many jurisdictions across the country in various forms. In Colorado, district court judges are appointed by the governor from a list of candidates recommended by a judicial nominating committee.  Judges rotate across divisions; no judge has authority over any other judge. Similarly, in California, trial judges are elected by popular nonpartisan vote, this includes juvenile court judges, who are equal in rank to every other state court level judge. These models allow juvenile court judges to focus on the work of juvenile justice, develop less harmful treatment strategies, and employ workable solutions with adequate oversight, like the novel approach to youth detention in California.

Children are of little importance in Georgia’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Superior court judges roll the dice with children because children cannot vote and pose no threat to them remaining in office. Priority is given to campaign donors and lobbyists because donors and lobbyists advance their personal—and oftentimes financial— interest.

While it may be less costly and less time-consuming for juvenile court judges to be selected by a superior court bench, it would be more beneficial to those impacted by the juvenile justice system for juvenile court judges to be selected by the electorate. This model would allow juvenile court jurists to focus on the important work of the field.

In an effort to level the playing field, a legislative rewrite is needed. A rewrite that contemplates the children, and their needs and best interests. There is no place for favoritism in child welfare and juvenile justice. To create a system of competence for the children and families served by Georgia’s juvenile courts, Juvenile Court should be an independent division of court, elected by the citizens in term elections. This would best achieve the goal of advancing child welfare. This scheme would allow those with proper qualifications, skill, and acumen to develop strategies to address issues affecting child welfare and juvenile justice. It would allow those with knowledge, skill, and experience the opportunity to achieve successful outcomes for children and families, without the threat of removal for failure to meet the expectations, whims, or political obligations, of any particular superior court judge. It would allow juvenile court judges the opportunity to focus on the work of their chosen field, and it would allow progress to occur.

The current Georgia system makes children victims of the political games played by politicians and superior court judges, in arenas to which children aren’t admitted, and in which they have no voice. It’s time to level the playing field. It’s time to change the game of politics of child welfare and juvenile justice. Stop victimizing Georgia children!

The lies of Congressman George Santos have inspired multiple new law reform proposals. However, lying to this extent can have a far-reaching impact even beyond politics. Many predators use elaborate deception in an effort to obtain sex. These falsehoods under the guise of romance prevent individuals from knowing the “true identity” of their sexual partners. In such circumstances, sexual consent cannot truly be given, as consent provided to a “false identity” is really no consent at all. Sexual relations through such means of coercion can have devastating impacts on a person’s emotional well-being – even to the extent of being a catalyst for suicide. The current law reform proposals surrounding Santos should be extended well beyond the boundaries of political campaigns and elections, to include situations such as rape by identity fraud.

Some may argue that lying should not constitute rape, and yet, this argument only helps to more easily enable romance scams and sexual predators. Consider for instance the case of Daniel Boro. According to multiple victims, Boro claimed falsely to be a “Dr. Stevens” and led his victims to believe they had fatal diseases that could be cured via intercourse with a donor – Boro himself. This deception led to the creation of a California law making it a felony to obtain sex via the use of such false information. Yet this law should be extended to other states, as choosing to remain complacent will only allow for further sexual predation and victimization.

The emotional damage that is caused by such sexual predators can be truly devastating for victims. Nelson Counne, for example, was convicted for three counts of grand larceny and is currently facing charges for swindling more than $1.8 million from women whom he is thought to have targeted sexually via a confounding web of lies. According to one of his victims, he had falsely claimed to be an art dealer, to be a Vietnam vet with a Purple Heart, and that he had cancer – ultimately coercing his victim to engage with him romantically while giving him $5,000.

This romance scam was so emotionally and financially distressing that his first victim believes Counne “should be jailed for all of his life,” saying that “he rapes women of their money, of their dignity.” According to prosecutors, Counne used false aliases such as Nelson Roth and Justin Roth in his plot to ensnare multiple women romantically. The problem here is that Counne should not only be charged with stealing. He should also be charged with sexual violations via identity fraud. Romantic consent was provided to false identities – Nelson and Justin Roth rather than to Counne himself.

I can also personally attest to the intense trauma caused by identity fraud rape. As a young college student, I was convinced that I would never engage in pre-marital sex. I wanted to save myself for my husband. But I ended up meeting a man who wanted otherwise, who would stop at no end to conjure up a tale to rob me of my virginity. After telling him that I wanted to wait to have sex until marriage, he began to take off my pants one day while I was asleep. He immediately stopped when I awoke as I proclaimed, “You are removing my pants!” And in response, he said, “You are lying!”

As I persisted throughout the relationship to maintain sexual abstinence, he began to tell me a complicated, long story about how it would be impossible and unsafe for us to marry. He said that he was not truly the identity displayed on his driver’s license and that he was hiding from anti-Semitic persons who wanted to kill him. Convinced that it would be unsafe to marry him publicly, I agreed to marry him privately instead through a prayer before God, and I had sex with him believing that he was the false alias he claimed.

After learning that he had claimed this false alias only to coerce me into sex, I reported his lies and his story about his driver’s license to the police, stating that I was raped. However—because the police did not recognize my circumstances as rape—my “rapist” was never brought to court or punished. Yet the emotional trauma that I experienced was enough to make me contemplate suicide for several years and to panic uncontrollably when triggered.

Consent given to a false identity is no consent at all. Multiple cultures and countries have already begun to recognize the need for broader definitions of rape that encompass certain aspects of deception. For instance, Israel has already convicted individuals of rape by deception, and in the Indian Bollywood film “Hate Story,” the protagonist proclaims that businessman Siddharth is a rapist after tricking her into sex and leading her to believe that he loved her, when in reality he was only having sex to purposefully hurt her.

The US should follow this lead and broaden its legislature to cover sexual deception via identity fraud in all states, and the US police should be more well-trained to recognize this form of rape. Refusing to enact such change helps to enable the continuance of such sexual predation and will only result in more victimization, the impacts of which could potentially be lessened through the creation of laws to protect sexual assault victims of identity fraud.

Black children, as young as preschool, are still expelled two times more and suspended almost three times more than their white peers. To be sure, since the groundbreaking Yale study in 2005 revealed the staggering expulsion rates for Black preschoolers, anti-disciplinary legislation for young children has been enacted in several states and preschool educator access to mental health consultation services has increased.

But all preschoolers aren’t actually winning.

Studies examining the effects of preschool mental health supports often center on non-Black children in non-public preschool classrooms. This is problematic because the majority of suspensions and expulsions are occurring in public preschools and are targeting Black children. Undeniably, there may be racist arguments suggesting that Black children are suspended and expelled more frequently because they are more violent, or disobedient, or defiant. These statements are not only false, but they lack compassion and fail to acknowledge the persistent marginalization experienced by Black children.

Plus, it implies that children are the problem—but really, the adults are.  And solutions require changes in adult behavior, as well as policies.

First, school administrators need to implement anti-racist hiring practices and professional development because the expulsion of Black preschoolers is likely influenced by implicit (and sometimes explicit) biases. For example, young Black boys and girls commonly experience adultification, or being viewed as much older than they are, which results in harsher treatment.  Furthermore, there must be honest conversations regarding accountability.  Schools need to audit preschool disciplinary data and identify instances when adults are making harmful decisions for Black preschool children. Instead of removing the child, let’s work on removing the biases toward Black children. To be sure, there are thousands of extraordinary educators who actively engage in anti-racist practices and those educators are needed in preschool classrooms.

Second, we need policies that provide mental health services to educators in public preschool classrooms with Black children. While legislation is helpful, laws without the appropriate fiscal resources needed for school-based mental health personnel will likely result in the same negative outcomes for Black children. School psychologists are one example of school-based mental health professionals who could and should provide early childhood mental health consultation services.

School psychologists receive extensive training in development and understand the social-emotional needs of children. For example, most preschoolers will likely demonstrate some tantrum behavior. As a matter of fact, “meltdowns” should be expected. School psychologists have the expertise to work with educators on effective ways to respond to these developmentally appropriate outbursts.  School psychologists are also well-equipped to work collaboratively with teachers as well as families, which is critical given the importance of family-school partnerships and the unique knowledge families hold about their child. And finally, school psychologists are already present in schools, however, many are not called upon until the situation has become dire and everyone involved—teacher, parents, and child– are exasperated.

Public educators are often under enormous pressure to attain outrageous goals with minimal resources and very little pay.  But the well-being of Black preschool children can no longer be ignored.  Public preschool classrooms must serve as safe spaces for Black children, and harming Black preschool children should never be allowed, under any circumstances.  And let’s face it, expelling and suspending 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children is very harmful.

]]> https://visiblemagazine.com/why-black-preschoolers-are-still-being-expelled-at-staggering-rates/feed/ 2 7893 https://visiblemagazine.com/its-christmas-and-my-son-is-dying-in-stateville-correctional-center/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-christmas-and-my-son-is-dying-in-stateville-correctional-center https://visiblemagazine.com/its-christmas-and-my-son-is-dying-in-stateville-correctional-center/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2021 21:07:19 +0000 https://visiblemagazine.com/?p=6557  Johnny is in dire need of a kidney transplant. His precarious health is now in greater danger than ever with the Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19 spreading. Even if Omicron proves less lethal for most people, the highly transmissible variant could imperil Johnny as prisons across the country have had great difficulty protecting those in their care.

While we would love to establish Johnny’s innocence in a court of law, right now the focus is on clemency due to his health conditions. Yet Gov. J.B. Pritzker denied his most recent petition.

The inhumane conditions in Stateville are certainly killing Johnny who at age 39 has been given three to five years to live. And it could well be considerably less. He has kidney failure and is on dialysis. I had to plead with the regional director of the Illinois Department of Corrections to get Johnny on the list for fistula surgery. Without the surgery, Johnny would not have been able to receive dialysis and would have been gone by now. With kidney failure, the dialysis will only sustain him temporarily. He will only survive with a kidney transplant.

At one point, Johnny had 12 percent kidney function back. Now it is down to two percent. The dialysis he receives is essential to his well being and his very ability to stay alive. After dialysis, Johnny sometimes sleeps for 18 or 19 hours and occasionally goes into a coma, passes out, and gets injured when he falls. He is not always rushed to the hospital when needed.

When he had pneumonia, he was kept in the prison’s infirmary. I was scared to death for him. As his condition worsened, he was finally rushed to the hospital. At that time, I didn’t even know where he was.

 Now I’m battling with Stateville as they continue to refuse providing me with crucial information about his blood tyoe that would help in our struggle to find him a kidney donor.

I thank God for his cellmates who have called for medical assistance when he needs it. Mostly, he’s now in a wheelchair though he can walk short distances when needed.

My son Johnny is bloated and occasionally requires emergency insulin injections. He has suffered a heart attack, has neuropathy and hypertension. His many conditions can make urinating difficult.

My struggle for Johnny’s clemency is part of a larger struggle across the state of Illinois. The design of prisons is unsafe for anyone. Policy reinforces this danger. Incarcerated people are more likely to contract serious diseases.

Health experts say that as prisons become more and more overcrowded, the lack of health protections and care for inmates is ignored. Organizations like Decarcerate Illinois have been advocating for quality healthcare and for immediately reduce Illinois’ record high prison population. For inmates with illnesses like Johnny’s, the profound harm they face is but one of the many ways prisons deny the humanity of incarcerated people.

For all the medical difficulties he’s endured in recent years, the worst of it is what Johnny reported to the warden, that, in 2017, he was assaulted by a nurse while in diabetic shock. Another nurse, also present during the incident, told him, “I hope you die.” Until now, his report has been met with virtual silence.

Alan Mills, Executive Director of the People’s Law Office, called attention to the unjust health care system in prison when he sued the Illinois Department of Corrections. In the lawsuit, he says, “Prisoners are provided care which is so inadequate that serious illnesses are left untreated, people are forced to live in pain for months with easily treatable conditions, and in some cases have suffered permanent damage, had legs amputated, and even died as a result.”

Johnny is a threat to no one, with exemplary prison behavior, and certainly the governor can see that documented in the medical reports on my son’s declining health.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are among the hardest times. There is an empty seat where Johnny should be. A plate is always put out for him. For all these years, since Johnny’s conviction in 2013, we have been a traumatized family – routinely sick, devastated and grieving.

After being caught up for so many years in the violence of the prison industrial complex, I am actively involved in activist groups fighting to end the injustices of this system.

Many mothers and families I have met know that our loved ones are not the same people – mentally or physically – who went into those difficult and dangerous living conditions. They are much like me, traumatized, and that pain constantly threatens to take us down.

I am lucky that Johnny helps me keep my faith and hope alive, telling me that God is with him. We have to believe that he will come home before it is too late.

Thinking of my son living at the edge of death in prison is my worst nightmare. Vigilance is required to keep him alive and I worry that he is not a priority in our overcrowded and understaffed prison facilities. I can’t bear the thought of one day getting the call that he’s gone.

The governor’s power to pardon and commute sentences is absolute and he can do it at any time, for any reason.

No one should die in prison.

My hope and my demand is that Governor Pritzker can see to it that doesn’t happen in Johnny’s case by revisiting his petition and commuting his sentence NOW.

In fact, as explained by USA TODAY, the Brady rules that emerged from a 1963 Supreme Court decision require prosecutors to “tell anyone accused of a crime about all evidence that might help their defense at trial.”

Consequently, if a police officer is known to have lied during prior court testimony that must be disclosed. Likewise, police officers who have engaged in torture to extract confessions should have that history disclosed. 

Damningly, as USA TODAY reports, no Brady list is kept in Chicago. Instead, the office of the Cook County State’s Attorney “sends individual memos to its prosecutors when it learns a police officer was convicted of a crime or was found by a judge to have lied under oath, telling them to avoid using the cops if possible or to notify defense attorneys.”

The newspaper adds that “the system leaves individual prosecutors in the sprawling jurisdiction with America’s second-largest police force on their own to track officers with credibility issues.” 

Prosecutors should review all the cases that involve police officers who participated in torture, coercion and the fabrication or withholding of evidence — all forms of Brady violations – to determine whether their official misconduct undercut criminal proceedings. If so, these convictions should be immediately overturned.

The New York Times recently exposed how police who lie are rarely held accountable. They are immune from lawsuits, even for grave abuses. 

The city of Chicago where my son was tortured by police officers, has long failed to keep track of testimony from crooked cops.  All cities can do better.  Earlier this summer, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill prohibiting investigators from deceiving or lying to minors during police interrogations. I believe this stance should be expanded to include everyone.

My own son, Nick, though over 18 at the time, fell under the fury of the unscrupulous investigative work and testimony of Detectives Kenneth Boudreau, John Halloran and James O’Brien. All three trained under Burge. We didn’t know any of this at trial. Perhaps even then there were records that would have indicated their proclivity to lie on the stand that would have saved my son years of prison torment.

To close a case, these officers went after someone. People were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nick, though, was actually at home! 

Police beat you. They threatened you. If you didn’t cooperate that sort of wrongdoing was commonplace. 

Nick will never get those 14 and a half years back. His job prospects will always be jeopardized by his prison record.

First they threatened his family, insisting they would take away his child — coercing a false confession — and then they lied about him in court. As Mark Joseph Stern has noted in his work on testilying, “Prosecutors still have an incentive not to question officers’ ‘blue lies.'”

But failure to disclose a history of lies means that prosecutors are acting in violation of the Brady decision. Such officers should be prevented from working as police officers. At the very least, they should be prohibited from taking the stand as credible witnesses.

Officers violate their oath of office not once, but twice. First they violate their oath when they mistreat individuals under their control. Then they compound it by lying under oath during trial. Prosecutors will ask if the officer laid a hand on someone and they’ll say no, even though there are hospital bills and reports of abuse indicating otherwise.

Seeing these injustices, I have become increasingly involved in activist movements like the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture. I have been building relationships with other mothers within the collective Mothers of the Kidnapped (MOK) (a collective within MAMAS). The traumatic and enraging stories I hear from my mother-comrades in MOK remind me that the criminal justice system was never meant to work. It was only meant to cage and punish Black and brown people for the benefit of judges, prosecutors, cops, all those in power, and white supremacy. 

The organizing we do together, and my hope that one day, all of our sons will find freedom and justice, inspires me to keep up the fight. 

When Gov. Pritzker commuted the sentence of Elijah Gerald Reed earlier this year, I celebrated when he was at home with his mother and family for Easter. 

I know that for decades his mother, Armanda Shackelford, pushed for his release and Elijah refused a plea deal because he insisted he would not make a liar out of his mother who had asserted his innocence for many long years. He risked the COVID-19 pandemic in prison because he refused to admit guilt over a crime he didn’t commit.

That takes courage and principle when the whole system is stacked against you.

But in Chicago’s horribly flawed and racially unjust legal system, Elijah’s commutation remains the exception. 

Corrupt detectives decades ago deprived many young men of the lives they could have lived. Now in middle age, many are still waiting to be fully in control of their futures. These Chicago Police Department abuses could be stopped if Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx would do what she is in office to do– work through the false convictions that preceded her.

Members from our collective of mothers, including one father, met with her staff online a few months ago. Yet Foxx’s staff members don’t seem to see the urgency, telling us at one point to “be patient.” 

But enough is enough. Patience is not a virtue after decades of forced confessions and imprisonment. We don’t have a large lobby working for us, but we do have a just cause in the face of a police department that is known to have been out of control for decades. 

It’s long past time to address and fully stop long-standing police abuses in our community and across the country. The Brady rules should be enforced. If we can’t keep torture cops off the stand then at least juries should know all about the track records of those police officers who have lied, beaten and tortured their way to convictions.

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Though the two subjects- incarceration and gentrification- may at first seem unrelated, the leveling of crime rates in general suggests that the reason for an increase in incarceration lies outside of the obvious answer of increased crime rates. A broader look at the issues within our society, namely the housing market and dispersion of particular demographics should be considered when analyzing the U.S. incarceration system. The history of migration patterns, economic disparities, and the optics of politics shrouding housing policies are all contributing factors that further link gentrification and incarceration to one another.

It can be argued that incarceration and gentrification are two different facets of society and though they may overlap, the two subjects still operate as separate entities. Both disproportionately affect a particular demographic, but the process by which gentrification occurs is different from that of mass incarceration. Gentrification deals with a specific neighborhood wherein investors and realtors don’t allocate resources towards the neighborhood until the location and attributes of said neighborhood slowly begins to fit the schema of a different demographic’s ideal (namely a white ideal).

Attributes may include its proximity to white collar jobs, a particular aesthetic, access to unique entertainment sources, or simply a lower rent price when compared to where they move from. Incarceration, in oversimplified terms, is a facet of the penal system. Punishment and housing patterns are two completely different things according to this perspective. However, the two can be said to be closely related in many ways in more nuanced perspectives.  

The history of migration patterns in the U.S. must be considered wholly when thinking about the phenomenon of gentrification as we know it now. America is a racist country that operates under a racist system, and that system influences nearly every facet of our everyday lives. “White flight has contributed to the concentration of poverty in specific areas because low-income residents are limited in mobility.”(Morenoff & Sampson, 1997)

In recent years, the desire of the middle-class to live in the suburbs has shifted to wanting to live in the downtown zones where minorities are concentrated. Historically, the poorer bracket would live in the center of the city, whereas the wealthy would live on the outer edges. (Freeman, 2006) But as this higher income demographic moves in, the increasing home and rental prices disproportionately and inevitably displace former residents. 

Due to the economic disparities between the demographics, the way in which black and brown people gather and live are completely different. Due to the institution of chattel slavery and the residual effects, African Americans have less economic mobility than their higher income counterparts. This is again because America was built upon a racist system, but this lack of mobility means that African Americans tend to live in concentrated urban areas where crime is consequently higher. This phenomenon can largely be blamed on housing policies and gentrification.

The disinvestment- a key characteristic of gentrification- of these densely populated neighborhoods relates to other contributing factors of incarceration as well. This “market withdrawal” (Wacquant 2001) from these neighborhoods leads to a more militarized conduction of education (which relates to the school to prison pipeline), the deindustrialization, and over-policing of these neighborhoods. These effects further contribute to the lack of economic mobility of minorities.

Even with the overwhelming evidence of at least some correlation between incarceration and gentrification and the deliberate ways in which this system is imposed on minority communities, the political contribution to gentrification is alarming. Under the guise of bettering a community, local (and federal) governments and developmental professionals continue to push residential segregation despite understanding the effects it has on the imposed communities. One big example of this is redlining. Again, the optics may suggest that the tactic is being used to make the community a better place, but in practice it is just another form of systematic oppression.

Redlining, the process of drawing discriminatory boundaries in which people are allowed to receive (home owner) loans, is done entirely for the sake of financial gain (Terry, 2017). Another path that minorities could take to increase their chances of economic mobility is taken away, thus yet again creating a cycle of crime and incarceration. Other politically driven practices such as gerrymandering, stop and frisk mandates, and the ‘War on Drugs’ contribute to this relationship between gentrification and incarceration as well. 

Though the refutation of the relationship between the two phenomena would reflect an idealized world, its denial also erases the existence of a deliberate disenfranchisement of minorities. Gentrification and incarceration are related in many ways. Taking into account the history of  migration patterns, the economic disparities between particular demographics, and the politics of housing policies, it is reasonable to say that gentrification and incarceration are closely related. Not only are they related, but both actively put minorities into an undesirable position, and this disparity must be eradicated completely.

Freeman, L. (2006). There goes the hood: Views of gentrification from the ground
up. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
“Gentrification Explained.” Gentrification Explained | Urban Displacement
Project, www.urbandisplacement.org/gentrification-explained.
Gross, Terry. “A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated
America.” NPR, NPR, 3 May 2017,
www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-seg
regated-america.
Kellogg, Casey. “There Goes the Neighborhood: Exposing the Relationship
Between Gentrification and Incarceration .” Https://Scholarworks.sjsu.edu/, vol. 3, 2015,
scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=themis.
Morenoff, J. D. & Sampson, R. J. (1997). Violent crime and the special dynamics
of neighborhood transition: Chicago, 1970-1990. Social Forces 76(1), 31-64.

Now President Biden has the unique task of making good on promises that may appear to be “soft” on crime.  It would be easy to put criminal justice reform on the back burner in the case of COVID, the economy and climate change. It would be easy to view criminal justice reform as a debt that could be paid in due course to a particular interest group– African Americans and Latinx communities– as President Trump did in describing the First Step Act. But this would be misguided given that there are Black and Brown people in this country.

And it would be especially easy for a new President — despite post-election promises to represent those who voted for him as well as those who did not–  to forget the millions of disenfranchised formerly and currently incarcerated individuals who need help reintegrating into society with education, jobs and healthcare services.  President Elect Biden must make this a critical element of his criminal justice reform.

The pandemic, job losses, small business closures and healthcare costs will mean that many American families and businesses will need federal assistance and some may wonder why helping the formerly incarcerated is important given the scarcity of resources.  Criminal justice reform that delivers second chances and enables reintegration must be among the priorities of the transition agenda because we have committed a wrong that must be made right. It is a moral urgency based on a problem that we have helped to cause.

It is now commonly known that despite modest progress in recent years, the United States boasts one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.  Although the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population, it has 25% of the world’s prison population.  Consistent with the spirit of American reformation and reinvention, this is a problem that is slowly getting better. Although the incarceration rate is lower now than it was at its high point in 2009, even at the current pace of decline, it would still take 75 years to cut the prison population by half.  We can’t wait that long to solve a problem we helped to create.

Make no mistake.  We are complicit.  And few know this better than Joe Biden who authored the 1994 Crime Bill signed by Bill Clinton.  That law along with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 signed by Ronald Reagan were the key pieces of legislation leading to the mass incarceration problem.

Over the last 10 years our nation has begun to acknowledge our own bi-partisan complicity in the U.S. incarceration rate — as well as recognize the fallacy of our reliance on “tough on crime” rhetoric. Long-overdue reforms like the readjustment of sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine, the expanded use of clemency and pardons by the executive branch to reduce the prison and supervised populations, and more recently, the First Step Act are implicit confessions that we have jailed too many people for far too many years for too little reason. State efforts to lower incarceration rates and reduce prison populations are an acknowledgment as well that locking people up is a costly salve but not a permanent solution.

Our society is slowly coming to grips with the importance of smarter sentencing and anti-crime policies.  But we must also reckon with the millions of people and their family members whose lives are forever changed by our zeal for imprisonment.

And we should  not be lulled into mistakenly equating punitiveness with lower crime rates, as we have been in the past.  Even as the crime rate declined over the last 30 years, the incarceration rate continued to climb steadily. Higher incarceration rates cannot be credited with a reduced crime rate.  Nor has a reduction in imprisonment led to an increase in crime. The rhetoric of tough on crime policies to ensure public safety has fallen flat.

While most persons convicted of crimes have made grave mistakes and must take responsibility for their actions, our over-reaching sentencing regime has been our mistake and we too must take responsibility.  The opportunity for true reintegration into society is a debt we owe to former offenders.

Society has more to gain than to lose by reintegrating formerly incarcerated individuals. There are countervailing public safety concerns on both sides of the issue.  Reducing recidivism would do more for public safety than increasing sentences.  Recidivism rates are very difficult to ascertain because recidivism is measured differently in various states and in the federal government. But the two most prominent studies conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that approximately 47% released prisoners are arrested and convicted of another crime within 3 years of release.  That number could be reduced significantly if formerly incarcerated people received rehabilitative support in the form of  treatment, housing, training and employment. A meta-analysis of recidivism showed that doubling down on punitive approaches like boot camps, strict supervision and the threat of reincarceration do not work to reduce recidivism while rehabilitation does.

The Biden-Harris administration should be held to their campaign promise to “offer second chances” as part of a plan “to create a more just society, and make our communities safer.” The stakes are high– for those of us who face the challenges of rejoining a society that sought to discard us and those of us charged with rebuilding a better society with the contributions and talents of all of us.

Unlike a home, a real jail has restrictions on access to soap and bathrooms, a ban on hand sanitizer, and a constant flow of staff and detainees entering and exiting the facility.

In a jail, you would be unable to maintain social distancing and would not be permitted adequate masks, gloves, or cleaning supplies to keep yourself safe from COVID-19. And you would be subject to these unsafe conditions even though you had not been convicted of a crime.

Nationally, two thirds of people in jail are simply being held as they await trial, most because they lack funds to post bail. Many states and counties have addressed this inequity head on.

California state jails expedited the release of over 3,500 inmates from state jail. Los Angeles County jails released an additional 1,700 inmates, ensuring that those released were not registered sex offenders, or serving time for a violent crime or domestic violence. California released inmates with fewer than two months left in their sentences and is working closely with parole officers and community partners to provide social services upon release.

Court orders in New Orleans called for the immediate release of all people held pretrial for misdemeanor offenses. A Massachusetts state court ruled that those held on bail have a “rebuttable presumption of release.”

District Attorneys in San Francisco and Boulder are taking steps to release people held pretrial, or who have nearly completed their sentences, and are charged with nonviolent offenses. Orange County in Florida released 300 people held pretrial.

This piecemeal approach is commendable, but releases remain at a much slower pace than the virus is spreading.  Releasing all people being held pretrial would be a relatively quick, easy, and low-risk way to reduce the public health crisis and restore some justice to a broken money bail system.

Allowing the virus to spread behind bars will result in more sick people in the general public – thousands more, according to one recent epidemiological model.

The magnitude of the crisis grows daily. In New York, the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision recently reported a total of 783 cases among staff and 210 among prisoners, with a statewide population of 43,000 prisoners. Reports show 70% of prisoners test positive, higher than the 50 percent rate of positive results in New York City.

At the end of April, Cook County Jail in Illinois had nearly 1,000 confirmed cases. Harris County Jail in Texas had over 500. Nearly all of the biggest clusters of cases in the United States are in jails or prisons.

At the end of April, 626 inmates in Dallas had tested positive for COVID-19, only two weeks earlier, the number of positive cases was 31. That’s a five-fold increase in two weeks. Dallas County released 1,000 inmates in April to slow the spread of the virus.

Prisoners around the world are protesting, going on hunger strikes, and rioting.

In Washington state, more than 100 inmates took part in a demonstration earlier this month after several prisoners tested positive for the virus.  The men refused to comply with orders, set off fire extinguishers, and were eventually subdued with pepper spray and sting balls.

The potential for contagion is nightmarish. Eighty percent of inmates and nearly half the staff at the Marion Correction Institution in Ohio had tested positive for COVID-19 as of last week.

New York earlier this month announced plans to release elderly prisoners across the state. At the time of the announcement, New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision reported 793 staff and 190 inmates with confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Later the same department reported 894 staff members and 263 inmates have confirmed cases as of April 23. This is 70 new cases in inmates and 101 new cases in staff members in just one week.

In March, several federal prisons experienced an outbreak of COVID-19. Wardens suspended attorney visits and regular visitation. In late March, Attorney General William Barr instructed the Bureau of Prisons to prioritize the transfer of inmates to home confinement based on factors such as their risk for contracting the virus, their age, security level, and danger posed to the community. The agency also updated its isolation and quarantine procedures.

But precaution and planning did not slow the spread of the virus in federal prisons.

Just one week from the earlier memo, Barr sent an additional memo expanding the inmates eligible for release and putting instructions in bold and caps lock. He directed federal wardens to immediately maximize appropriate transfers to home confinement of all appropriate inmates, where COVID-19 is materially affecting operations.

In early April, 138 federal inmates and 59 Bureau of Prisons staff tested positive for COVID-19. At the end of last month, 1,500 inmates and 357 staff tested positive.  Nearly 70% of tests given to federal prisoners result in positive diagnosis.

These official counts of confirmed positive tests are likely severely underestimating the actual cases – even so, they show that confirmed cases are more than doubling each week.

Montgomery County in Southern Pennsylvania administered testing to every single inmate. Nearly 20% of the county jail population tested positive, although prior to testing officials suspected only 6cases. Of the 177 positive test results, 171 people showed no symptoms at the time the test was given.  These results are similar to the mass testing that the US Navy conducted on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Mass testing across found state jails in Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia showed similar results: 96 percent of the inmates who tested positive were asymptomatic.

Due a test shortages, many jails have tested only those who show symptoms. Prison systems, already in crisis, are vastly underestimating the crisis to come.

While the Bureau of Prisons has released to home confinement over 1,800 inmates convicted of a federal crime since the Attorney General’s first memo, we have a much simpler ask: release those convicted of no crime.

Inside jails, COVID-19 spreads swiftly. Inmates are particularly vulnerable because of close crowding and unsanitary conditions. Outbreaks in jails result in a flood of inmates at local hospitals and tax first responders already under strain.

By quarantining themselves at home, innocent people awaiting trial can protect the health and safety of themselves and their families, correctional staff, courtroom personnel, and their communities.

Contracting COVID-19 is a risk that no person should have to bear merely because they are behind bars or working in a jail. Threat of a deadly virus further incentivizes people to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit in exchange for time served, one of many unjust results of the current bail system.

With jury trials suspended and courtrooms slowed, the right to due process, equal protection, and a speedy trial are in jeopardy. The great majority of defendants released from jail return for their trial date. The quicker a person is released pending trial, the greater the likelihood that they will return for their court appearances.

If released on their own recognizance, they are able to report to their jobs, care for their families, and avoid spending unnecessary days and nights in jail at the taxpayer’s expense.

Supervised release is far less costly than incarceration. In a pandemic, the cost is measured not just in taxpayer dollars saved per day, but in the lives saved by flattening the curve.

Being released on personal recognizance doesn’t equal being released from accountability; people released on their own recognizance are subject to restrictive conditions. They are often required to check in with correctional officers, maintain employment, and wear electronic monitors. They are given strict travel restrictions and home arrest orders. Judges can conduct individualized risk assessments.

Public safety remains paramount. In response to a pandemic explosion across jails and prisons in Texas, officials are using every tool in the toolbox to keep from introducing new individuals into jails.

Officers are avoiding arrests of individuals who commit low level offenses such as graffiti or marijuana possession. Sheriffs are implementing “cite and release,” treating minor offenses like a traffic ticket, leaving the offender to return home with a court date.

Some officials are encouraging compassionate release and suspending warrants to allow low risk defendants to stay out of unsafe jails.  These measures are a step in the right direction, but curbing this pandemic calls for bold strokes. Inmates awaiting trial should be released.

The only purpose of bail is to ensure that defendants return to court, not to punish them. In recent years, the debate over bail reform has taken on a fever pitch even as the population of inmates awaiting trial has doubled and tripled.

In light of recent outbreaks in correctional facilities, counties can implement long awaited reform immediately to empty the jails and save lives.

COVID-19 has put a heavy thumb on the scales of justice.

They prey on our culture,
Want the braids and the beats.
But don’t want the struggle,
because they gotta eat.

Our bodies defiled,
our histories erased.
All hail Christopher Columbus,
And put an interstate over our graves.

You say that you know,
Because you got black friends.
But that’s not the half, the whole,
Beginning nor end.

You see, you break up our families,
There is no permanence in our homes.
Can’t even eat ice cream,
On a night home alone.

Our slain children become hashtags,
Mothers outliving their kids.
Holding down the whole house,
While niggas servin’ bids.

Our black lives don’t matter
So you back the blue.
But what that color means for me,
Is not the same for you.

Y’all set this shit up,
Red lines and Jim Crow,
It may not be in the textbooks,
But we damn sure know.

We asked for justice, fuck peace.
Forty acres and a mule?
Property turned people,
Y’all made your own rules.

While we built this country,
You built your family wealth.
On the backs of black heroes,
And left us nothing else.

Greenwood, Hayti
There are so many others.
You stole communities from us
No inheritance for my brothers.

But history has shown
That resilience is in our blood
When it rains it always pours
But we dance in the mud.

We make magic with our pain,
And breed beauty with black love.
Holding on to the faintest hope,
That “the talk” will be enough.

Thank god for the Internet,
Maybe more people will see.
I can’t take off my skin,
I just want to be me.

We just want the chance to build,
From pasts layered with trauma.
Or we’ll pass down the hurt,
Through broken daddies and mamas.

Put the politics to the side,
We just wanna be whole.
To Botham and Atatiana,
We honor your souls.