Decarcerating America

by Ernest Drucker

  These are all long-termers who made it home in spite of the policies, rules, and regulations, and they are now contributing to their communities and to the struggle to end mass incarceration. But many do not make it and spend endless years growing older in prison. One was John MacKenzie, sentenced to twenty-five to life. A respected and beloved long-termer, he made many contributions, including the creation of a program to help others face the suffering their acts had caused others. At age seventy, after forty years in prison and having been denied parole ten times, he learned that the parole board had again denied his release, despite a judge having held the parole board in contempt for continuing to do so. Upon learning the news, he went to his cell and hung himself. John MacKenzie had written in an essay: “If society wishes to rehabilitate as well as punish wrongdoers through imprisonment, society—through its lawmakers—must bear the responsibility of tempering justice with mercy. Giving a man legitimate hope is a laudable goal. Giving him false hope is utterly inhuman.”36

  Legitimate hope is a powerful force for transformation. Seeing those hopes extinguished generates cynicism and despair among an entire population in prison. Refusing to accept the rehabilitation of long-termers also robs society of the unique contributions they can make, and devastates their families.

  Long-termers are not a tiny segment of the prison population. Over half of those incarcerated in state prisons have been sentenced for a violent crime. One of every seven people in prison in the United States is now serving a life sentence or a virtual life sentence of more than fifty years. About a third have been sentenced to life without parole. Nearly half of lifers are African Americans, and one out of six is Latino.37 The United States is far out of step with other countries in its use of life without parole and in the length of time parole-eligible lifers continue to be imprisoned.38

  Some people say, “We have to go step by step. Let’s first get out those who have committed non-violent crimes. It’s a tactical question. Later we will get to those convicted of violent crimes.” But there is a consequence to separating incarcerated men and women into the “good ones” and the “bad ones.” This deepens the dehumanization of a large proportion of the prison population and continues to devalue or ignore the potential for human transformation. It ignores the reality that many in prison convicted of violent crimes have themselves suffered from violence. The dichotomy that divides “victims” from “perpetrators” misses the connection in individuals’ lives. It does not actually relate to protecting public safety, nor does it adequately address transforming a bloated and failing system of mass incarceration.

  When harm is done, when people are hurt or killed, there is often grief, rage, and endless loss, and accountability is critical. During the past decades, some “victims” or “survivors” of violent crimes have created organizations that advocate incarcerating long-termers for as long as possible. However, a growing number of victims or survivors are saying that the lengthy punishments do not meet their needs. They are asking what a system of accountability would look like if it didn’t rely solely on punitive, lengthy sentences.39 They are part of the larger conversation that is questioning the role of lengthy incarceration and asking how much punishment is enough. Restorative justice projects, some before incarceration and others inside prisons, are one way of addressing this issue.40 And individual accountability is only one part of the picture. Social responsibility is needed to address the impact of harm resulting from the social conditions and structure.

  The memory of a few, exceptional, sensationalized cases in which people released after conviction for violent offenses committed a new act of violence has frozen politicians and others in fear. The reality is that people released following murder convictions have the lowest rate of return, both for technical violations while under supervision and for new offenses. In New York State, the recidivism rate for long-termers convicted of murder is 15.5 percent, with only 2.1 percent for new offenses and 13.4 percent for parole violations. And for people over fifty-six, the recidivism rate is 6.6 percent, with a 1.3 percent rate for new offenses. This low rate of recidivism is in comparison to a rate of around 40 percent for the general population of people released from prison.41 Denial of parole for these long-termers is not based upon any objective criterion related to public safety and recidivism.

  The focus on perpetual punishment of long-termers is tied to the “tough on crime” policies that emphasize the retributive goal of corrections. Parole boards continually look backward, extending sentences because of the “nature of the crime”—something for which the judge already gave a minimum sentence—instead of looking forward to whether or not there is a risk to public safety. It is well documented that the maturing of young adults leads to a sharp reduction in involvement in crime by their late thirties; holding people in prison beyond fifteen or twenty years produces diminishing returns for public safety. In particular, such parole policies ignore the existence of risk and needs assessments that can contribute to evaluations of people as a basis for a decision for release. Fear among politicians focusing on reelection, fear among the public, and ignorance of the facts, fueled by racism, continue to dehumanize and punish long-termers.

  If we want to reduce mass incarceration and change the conditions that create it, prison reform has to include in policy change those convicted of violent crime. Moreover, we can’t afford to ignore the experience of people in prison for long terms. Collectively, they have more experience and knowledge than anyone—inside or out—about what sends people to jail, what happens to them there, how they endure and transform themselves, and what needs to change, both inside and out of prison.

  Did you see no potential in me? You noted my high IQ, how “articulate” I was, how “mature.” I’d run away from home because I refused to let my mother keep hurting me. You put me in a home for bad kids; my roommate wasn’t even sane. I left there, too, so you put me in a group home. You call that help? No matter who I tried to tell, no one got it. So then you sentenced me, said no hope for rehabilitation, said I’m as good as dead. Just like my mother: kicks, flights of stairs, words that made me flinch. Well, you were both wrong. I have a life. I have a beautiful daughter, a college education. I teach parenting skills. I made a difference in people’s lives. You never gave me a chance, so I made my own. My poverty, skin color, background, past—who at age 17 can’t change, won’t grow? You robbed me of my youth, of my belief in justice. But from the graveyard, the barbed wire and the cinderblock, I’m resurrected. I’m somebody.

  —Roslyn D. Smith, arrested at seventeen, sentenced to fifty to life, and now in her thirty-eighth year in prison42

  More than seventy million people in our society have a criminal record; in the stories of these people is a reflection of our society. In these stories, being a person of color or from a community with few resources reveals a society that does not value those lives, does not put resources into their communities, and is unwilling to understand that drug use, violence in the community, and underground economic systems that constitute survival are all part of a society that excludes them. The narratives of each of their lives add up to the story of a society that needs to change. The narratives start by putting a human face on the people involved, by humanizing each one, so that many can identify with them. Collectively the stories add up to reveal what changes are needed. From there, the force of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated voices becomes one of demanding change, of pointing toward solutions. The voices have always been there, but now they are getting louder; now they can be heard. Let’s listen.43

  Notes

  1. The title of this chapter is inspired by Bryan Stevenson’s first piece of advice to people wanting to do something about mass incarceration: “Get close.”

  2. The mantra “All of us or none” is from the organization All of Us or None; “Those closest to the ground are closest to the solution” is from JustLeadershipUSA; and “Nothing about us without us” is from the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerl
y Incarcerated Women and Girls.

  3. “Americans with Criminal Records,” Sentencing Project, November 2015, www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Americans-with-Criminal-Records-Poverty-and-Opportunity-Profile.pdf.

  4. H. Zinn and A. Arnove, Voices of a People’s History of the United States (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004), 498.

  5. The Pelican Bay settlement included limits on the length of time a person could spend in solitary confinement; an end to placing gang members in solitary confinement based solely on their gang affiliation; and an agreement to place in solitary confinement only people found guilty of serious prison infractions such as escape, violence, narcotics involvement, and weapon possession.

  6. A. Speri, “The Largest Prison Strike in U.S. History Enters Its Second Week,” The Intercept, September 16, 2016. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution declares that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” F. Forbes, Invisible Men: A Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration (New York: Skyhorse, 2016).

  7. M. Schlanger, “Inmate Litigation: Results of a National Survey,” LJN Exchange (Colorado: National Institute of Corrections, 2003), 3–12, https://www.law.umich.edu/facultyhome/margoschlanger/Documents/Publications/Inmate_Litigation_Results_National_Survey.pdf.

  8. E. Ann Carson, “Prisoners in 2014,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, Department of Justice, NCJ 248955, September 2015.

  9. New York State Department of Health, AIDS Institute, AIDS in Prison Fact Sheet [newsletter], April 1994, edited by Miki Conn, 3.

  10. ACE, Breaking the Walls of Silence: AIDS and Women in a New York State Maximum Security Prison (New York: Overlook Press, 1998).

  11. “Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation to Prohibit Shackling of Pregnant Inmates During Transportation,” press release, Office of the Governor, New York State, December 22, 2015.

  12. F. X. Clines, “Ex-Inmates Urge Return to Areas of Crime to Help,” New York Times, December 23, 1992.

  13. See the website of the Justice Mapping center, www.justicemapping.org

  14. K. Houppert, Chasing Gideon: The Elusive Quest for Poor People’s Justice (New York: The New Press, 2013).

  15. T. Robins, “‘I Was Terrified’: Inmates Say They Paid a Brutal Price for a Guard’s Injury,” New York Times, November 15, 2016; Michael Winerip and Michael Schwirtz, “Five New York Prison Guards Charged in ’13 Beating of Inmate,” New York Times, September 21, 2016.

  16. Reality is captured in poems, stories, and film. Examples include Bell Gale Chevigny, ed., Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing (New York: Arcade, 1999); H. Bruce Franklin, ed., Prison Writing in 20th-Century America (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), and Rikers Island: An American Jail, a documentary film by Bill Moyers.

  17. R. Subramanian and A. Shames, “Sentencing and Prison Practices in Germany and the Netherlands: Implications for the United States,” Vera Institute of Justice, Center on Sentencing and Corrections, 2013; J. Benko, “The Radical Humaneness of Norway’s Halden Prison,” New York Times, March 26, 2015.

  18. National Institute of Justice, “Recidivism,” last modified June 17, 2014, www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/welcome.aspx.

  19. F. Taylor, “How Activists Won Reparations for the Survivors of Chicago Police Department Torture: A History of the Movement to Make Chicago Pay for the Crimes of Former Police Commander Jon Burge,” In These Times, June 26, 2015.

  20. Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, http://centerfornuleadership.org.

  21. Center for NuLeadership, “The Language Letter Campaign,” https://www.nuleadership.org/language-letter-campaign.

  22. “Labels Like ‘Felon’ Are an Unfair Life Sentence,” editorial, New York Times, May 7, 2016.

  23. Hudson Link website: www.hudsonlink.org.

  24. Department of Justice, “Prisoners and Prisoner Re-entry,” www.justice.gov/archive/fbci/progmenu_reentry.html.

  25. Education from the Inside Out Coalition website: www.eiocoalition.org/#home.

  26. Ban the Box campaign website: http://bantheboxcampaign.org.

  27. JustLeadershipUSA website: www.justleadershipusa.org.

  28. “About Us,” Voice of the Experienced website: www.vote-nola.org/about-us.html.

  29. National Council website: http://thecouncil.us.

  30. The Women’s Building website: http://womensbuildingnyc.org.

  31. S. Burton and C. Lynn, Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women (New York: The New Press, 2017).

  32. L. Kazemian and J. Travis, “Forgotten Prisoners: Imperative for Inclusion of Long Termers and Lifers in Research and Policy,” Criminology and Public Policy 14, no. 2 (2015): 355–95.

  33. Political prisoners are often long-termers, and they play a particular role around education and organizing. Political prisoners are often defined as those people who were arrested for self-conscious political activity directed at transforming society. Examples from different decades include people from the black liberation movement, the Puerto Rican nationalist movement, the Native American movement, the white anti-imperialist movement, the anti–Vietnam War movement, the Catholic left, and the environmental movement.

  34. Ibid.

  35. RAPP website: rappcampaign.org.

  36. J. Wegman, “False Hope and a Needless Death Behind Bars,” New York Times, September 6, 2016.

  37. A. Nellis, “Still Life: America’s Increasing Use of Life and Long-Term Sentences,” The Sentencing Project, 2017, 5.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Some of these organizations and projects include Californians for Safety and Justice, and Common Justice (www.vera.org/centers/common-justice). See D. Sered, “Accounting for Violence: How to Increase Safety and Break Our Failed Reliance on Mass Incarceration,” Vera Institute, February 2017.

  40. Bridges to Life: www.bridgestolife.org. Coming to Terms: The Longtermers Responsibility Project: www.osborneny.org/programs.cfm?programID=19. Insight Prison Project: www.insightprisonproject.org. Common Justice: www.vera.org/centers/common-justice.

  41. New York State Corrections and Community Supervision, 2011 Inmate Releases: Three Year Post Release Follow-up.

  42. K. Boudin and R. D. Smith, “Alive Behind the Labels: Women in Prison,” in Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women’s Anthology for a New Millennium, ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 244–45.

  43. S. Sturm and H. Tae, “Leading with Conviction: The Transformative Role of Formerly Incarcerated Leaders in Reducing Mass Incarceration,” JLUSA, Center for Institutional and Social Change, Columbia Law School, 2017.

  13

  Dealing with Drug Use After Prison

  Harm Reduction Therapy

  JEANNIE LITTLE, JENIFER TALLEY, SCOTT KELLOGG, MAURICE BYRD, AND SHEILA VAKHARIA

  Steve is a thirty-year-old mixed-race gay man born and raised in the South. He is the youngest of four children; his parents split up when he was in elementary school. Steve grew up primarily with his mother but occasionally stayed with his father. Both parents smoked pot and drank alcohol, sometimes heavily. His mother was alternately affectionate and neglectful. His father was emotionally and physically abusive when he drank. By the age of nine, Steve was drinking and smoking pot regularly, and by fourteen he was experimenting with pills. He spent short periods in juvenile detention. He sold pot to support his drug habit. At fourteen he was shot in the back and became partially paralyzed. After a year of rehab he began running away from home and stealing for a living.

  Over the next several years, Steve developed a dependence on alcohol and opiates. By nineteen he was shooting heroin daily, drinking large amounts of alcohol, and often using cocaine and speed. Violence became a part of his daily life—he was either involved with or witnessed fights and stabbings. He was often arrested and spent weeks or months in county
jails. Eventually he was arrested on a drug charge and sent to state prison in Texas where he was raped. Once released and on parole, he moved to San Francisco—which violated the conditions of his parole—and joined a community of young people living in and around the downtown area of the city. It was in this community that he affirmed his identity as a gay man. When Steve met the staff of the Harm Reduction Therapy Center, he had been homeless for almost ten years. He was suffering severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress and depression, and he was in a great deal of pain related to his physical injuries. He was physically dependent on heroin and alcohol, and was a regular speed user. Steve was often violent. He had barely survived another recent shooting, and always seemed to be in the thick of trouble. The lifestyle that he had developed was an effort to escape and/or medicate his reality. To achieve a less trouble-ridden life, Steve desperately needed sensitive trauma-informed treatment with the opportunity to set small, achievable goals and take gradual steps.