A. Scott Washington, J.D. | Hip Hop Justice | December 2010
A factor that cannot be ignored when discussing urban violence is over reliance on incarceration in this country. To ignore the causal connection between contemporary criminal justice policy and the rise in youthful urban violence is turning a blind-eye to factors that are rotting the foundation of contemporary urban society.
There are nearly 2.4 million persons incarcerated in state or federal prisons in this country. Half of those persons are African Americans. Obviously, identifiable behavior patterns are associated with African Americans being disproportionately incarcerated. On the other hand, the intersection of public policy and poverty has collided with the forces of history, race, economic theory and human vulnerability to create a social pathology like none seen before in this country. As a result, “prison culture” is now firmly embedded in inner city America.
Following 35 years of tough on crime policy, the affect of generational incarceration and recidivism has created an environment ripe for this new subculture within the inner city. This subculture is fueled by the extremely violent and brutal customs and values that were born within the concrete walls of this country’s correctional institutions.
Prison culture, which is now abundantly present in the inner city, is directly connected to the extreme and pervasive violence we are experiencing in the African American community. These conditions grow exponentially, parallel to the prison population in this country. This phenomenon is cyclical and, as the statistics suggest, actually increase violent criminal activity in both the inner city and suburban communities. Therefore, community safety is significantly compromised by the tough on crime mentality associated with contemporary criminal justice policy; particularly, this country’s drug control efforts that have become the fundamental premise of our national crime policy.
Our children have become the collateral damage of contemporary American criminal justice policy. For many inner city residents and African American children in particular, criminal justice policy and poverty have contributed to a blurring of cultural, as well as social values. During the welfare reform era we spoke about children raising children. What prison culture has resulted in today is children raising themselves. A significant proportion of our inner city youth today are the children of prisoners that inhabit this nation’s prisons. When these children reach adolescence they are typically raising themselves in the bowels of contemporary urban America.
What criminal justice policy and poverty have perpetuated in this country is the social disenfranchisement of African American children. The forces of public policy, poverty, and human vulnerability have conspired to create this new and peculiar universe within the inner city. The apparent evolving nature of this new inner city subculture and its intersection with poverty and social pathology has created an environment ripe for youthful urban violence to flourish.
The questions that must be raised here are: 1) what are we going to do with the massive numbers of unskilled, undereducated, and often, recalcitrant felons that will be returning to our communities over the next several decades (98% of the 2.4 million prisoners in this country will be released)? 2) When will policy be implemented to deal with the flaws and inadequacies in current drug control policy? 3) When are our lawmakers going to present concrete solutions for problems that cannot be conquered by locking up millions of Americans?
A. Scott Washington, J.D. is a formerly incarcerated person who has earned a Bachelors Degree in Urban Studies with an emphasis on contemporary urban problems and a Juris Doctor Degree from the University Of Dayton School Of Law. Also, he is Assistant Professor of Criminal and Social Justice at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois. A. Scott Washington also co-hosts a radio program entitled, “Hip Hop Justice Radio” which airs Tuesdays & Wednesdays from 6-8 PM CT on Party 934 and 94.9 FM, Hudson Valley New York.
Showing posts with label Tipping Point. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tipping Point. Show all posts
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Jailing fathers increases problems in Indigenous communities
Richard Fletcher | The Conversation | 13 October 2011
There are hopeful signs from a number of sources that the “get tough on crime” approach is working, with politicians promising the era of more prisons and longer sentences has had its day. Movements such as Justice Reinvestment – redirecting money earmarked for prisons to address disadvantage in communities…
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Richard Fletcher receives funding from government and non government organizations. His research team developed the Brothers Inside program.
Measures are needed to reduce the number of fathers going into jail as well as the number not coming back. Casey Serin
There are hopeful signs from a number of sources that the “get tough on crime” approach is working, with politicians promising the era of more prisons and longer sentences has had its day.
Movements such as Justice Reinvestment – redirecting money earmarked for prisons to address disadvantage in communities prisoners come from – is one manifestation of a more rational and humane approach to crime.
For Aboriginal communities, where imprisonment has reached epidemic proportions, this shift is long overdue.
And the research community has a responsibility to make the costs more transparent, not just to the taxpayer but to Aboriginal communities, prisoners and prisoner families as well.
Deaths remove fathers completely
We were reminded of one aspect of these costs when marking 20 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
In the time since that report highlighted the unacceptable, and often brutal, deaths of Aboriginal men in custody, 269 more Indigenous men have died in similar circumstances.
Most of the Aboriginal men who die in custody are fathers, as are most of those who remain in custody. And in Indigenous communities, both fathers and men who are not fathers have important roles to play children’s growth and well-being.
So, when Aboriginal men are removed from the community, the social and family relationships that might steer young people away from crime break down and the nurturing these men might provide is lost.
There are hopeful signs from a number of sources that the “get tough on crime” approach is working, with politicians promising the era of more prisons and longer sentences has had its day. Movements such as Justice Reinvestment – redirecting money earmarked for prisons to address disadvantage in communities…
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Richard Fletcher receives funding from government and non government organizations. His research team developed the Brothers Inside program.
Measures are needed to reduce the number of fathers going into jail as well as the number not coming back. Casey Serin
There are hopeful signs from a number of sources that the “get tough on crime” approach is working, with politicians promising the era of more prisons and longer sentences has had its day.
Movements such as Justice Reinvestment – redirecting money earmarked for prisons to address disadvantage in communities prisoners come from – is one manifestation of a more rational and humane approach to crime.
For Aboriginal communities, where imprisonment has reached epidemic proportions, this shift is long overdue.
And the research community has a responsibility to make the costs more transparent, not just to the taxpayer but to Aboriginal communities, prisoners and prisoner families as well.
Deaths remove fathers completely
We were reminded of one aspect of these costs when marking 20 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
In the time since that report highlighted the unacceptable, and often brutal, deaths of Aboriginal men in custody, 269 more Indigenous men have died in similar circumstances.
Most of the Aboriginal men who die in custody are fathers, as are most of those who remain in custody. And in Indigenous communities, both fathers and men who are not fathers have important roles to play children’s growth and well-being.
So, when Aboriginal men are removed from the community, the social and family relationships that might steer young people away from crime break down and the nurturing these men might provide is lost.
Interrupting Violence With The Message 'Don't Shoot'
NPR Fresh Air | November 1, 2011
Listen to the Interview [31 min 14 sec]
Don't Shoot One Man, A Street Fellowship, And The End of Violence in Inner-City America
by David M. Kennedy
In 1985, David M. Kennedy visited Nickerson Gardens, a public housing complex in south-central Los Angeles. It was the beginning of the crack epidemic, and Nickerson Gardens was located in what was then one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America.
"It was like watching time-lapse photography of the end of the world," he says. "There were drug crews on the corner, there were crack monsters and heroin addicts wandering around. ... It was fantastically, almost-impossibly-to-take-in awful."
Kennedy, a self-taught criminologist, had a visceral reaction to Nickerson Gardens. In his memoir Don't Shoot, he writes that he thought: "This is not OK. People should not have to live like this. This is wrong. Somebody needs to do something."
Kennedy has devoted his career to reducing gang and drug-related inner-city violence. He started going to drug markets all over the United States, met with police officials and attorney generals, and developed a program — first piloted in Boston — that dramatically reduced youth homicide rates by as much as 66 percent. That program, nicknamed the "Boston Miracle," has been implemented in more than 70 cities nationwide.
Today, Kennedy directs the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, but he still regularly goes out into the field. The drug world he works in now, he says, is a little better than the one in which he worked in 1985 — but not by much.
"Still, it's almost inconceivably awful in almost all of its dimensions," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "And no one likes to say this stuff out loud, because it's impolitic, but the facts are the facts. You get this kind of drug activity and violence only in historically distressed, minority neighborhoods. And it is far worse in poor, distressed African-American neighborhoods."
Those neighborhoods are also more likely to be deadly for African-American men — and they're getting worse, says Kennedy, citing grim statistics: Between 2000 and 2007, the gun homicide rate for black men between the ages of 14-17 increased by 40 percent. The rate for men over the age of 25 increased by 27 percent. In some neighborhoods, 1 in 200 black men are murdered every year.
"This is where the worst open-air drug markets are all concentrated," he says. "And quite naturally, law enforcement pays an awful lot of attention to those neighborhoods. ... And the shorthand that you get from cops when you look at these communities is that they look at you and say, 'There is no community left.' "
But there are plenty of law-abiding residents in these neighborhoods that have been overtaken by drugs, says Kennedy. They outnumber the gang members and drug dealers by significant percentages.
Listen to the Interview [31 min 14 sec]
Don't Shoot One Man, A Street Fellowship, And The End of Violence in Inner-City America
by David M. Kennedy
In 1985, David M. Kennedy visited Nickerson Gardens, a public housing complex in south-central Los Angeles. It was the beginning of the crack epidemic, and Nickerson Gardens was located in what was then one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America.
"It was like watching time-lapse photography of the end of the world," he says. "There were drug crews on the corner, there were crack monsters and heroin addicts wandering around. ... It was fantastically, almost-impossibly-to-take-in awful."
Kennedy, a self-taught criminologist, had a visceral reaction to Nickerson Gardens. In his memoir Don't Shoot, he writes that he thought: "This is not OK. People should not have to live like this. This is wrong. Somebody needs to do something."
Kennedy has devoted his career to reducing gang and drug-related inner-city violence. He started going to drug markets all over the United States, met with police officials and attorney generals, and developed a program — first piloted in Boston — that dramatically reduced youth homicide rates by as much as 66 percent. That program, nicknamed the "Boston Miracle," has been implemented in more than 70 cities nationwide.
Today, Kennedy directs the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, but he still regularly goes out into the field. The drug world he works in now, he says, is a little better than the one in which he worked in 1985 — but not by much.
"Still, it's almost inconceivably awful in almost all of its dimensions," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "And no one likes to say this stuff out loud, because it's impolitic, but the facts are the facts. You get this kind of drug activity and violence only in historically distressed, minority neighborhoods. And it is far worse in poor, distressed African-American neighborhoods."
Those neighborhoods are also more likely to be deadly for African-American men — and they're getting worse, says Kennedy, citing grim statistics: Between 2000 and 2007, the gun homicide rate for black men between the ages of 14-17 increased by 40 percent. The rate for men over the age of 25 increased by 27 percent. In some neighborhoods, 1 in 200 black men are murdered every year.
"This is where the worst open-air drug markets are all concentrated," he says. "And quite naturally, law enforcement pays an awful lot of attention to those neighborhoods. ... And the shorthand that you get from cops when you look at these communities is that they look at you and say, 'There is no community left.' "
But there are plenty of law-abiding residents in these neighborhoods that have been overtaken by drugs, says Kennedy. They outnumber the gang members and drug dealers by significant percentages.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Breaking the prison cycle
Mike Steketee | The Australian | 15 October 2011
IN Canberra, a hung parliament has given a Labor Party too scared to take action on climate change before the last election the courage of its convictions.
In NSW, a very different parliament in which the government has a lopsided majority may have a similar effect on law and order policy. An opposition as weakened as that in NSW may not be ideal for democracy but it does allow the government to focus more on policy than populism. And in no area has the auction for votes been more unseemly or come at a greater cost to sensible policy.
As NSW shadow attorney-general, Greg Smith called a halt to the law and order auction. While strongly conservative, he saw during his previous life as a crown prosecutor the failings of the lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach - namely that, despite costing a packet, it does little to reduce crime and in some circumstances increases it. One pointer to that is the 43 per cent of prisoners who are back in jail within two years in NSW, compared with 34 per cent in Victoria, where there has been less emphasis on the punitive approach and there have been more resources for rehabilitation and other services for prisoners before and after they are released.
Now he is Attorney-General, Smith is saying much the same things and is starting to act on them. In parliament in May he claimed the previous government regarded the prison population reaching 10,000 as a badge of honour. "I thought it was a disgrace," he said. "This government does not believe success on law and order issues can alone be judged by how many people are locked up. We believe in policies that break the cycle of re-offending. Every prisoner should have an opportunity for rehabilitation and that is in the interests of the whole community."
Smith has commissioned a review of the bail act, particularly because of concern that too many juveniles are remanded in custody and are introduced to what he calls "the university of crime". He has asked the NSW Law Reform Commission to look at sentencing legislation to, among other things, give courts greater discretion. He has announced extra funding for education programs in prison, drug and alcohol rehabilitation services and a second drug court with detoxification facilities, drug testing and treatment.
It is early days and it remains to be seen where these measures lead and whether the O'Farrell government succumbs to a "soft on crime" campaign. Nor is the law and order traffic all one way: the government has legislated for mandatory life sentences for killing police officers.
But this is an issue which has come to defy political pigeon-holing. Bob Carr in NSW took the same attitude as Tony Blair in Britain: that a populist, punitive approach to law and order would protect his political flanks from right-wing attack. Pity about the merits of the policy. Now the coalition government in Britain is changing tack, as has the O'Farrell government. Yet its Liberal-National counterpart in Victoria is headed at least partly in the opposite direction, with moves for mandatory minimum sentences for some juvenile offences, despite the evidence of Victoria's superior performance with its emphasis on alternatives to prison.
The change in thinking was perhaps best captured by another conservative politician, New Zealand's deputy prime minister Bill English, who in May described prisons as "a fiscal and moral failure". No Kiwi, he confidently asserted, wanted to see more large-scale prison building.
IN Canberra, a hung parliament has given a Labor Party too scared to take action on climate change before the last election the courage of its convictions.
In NSW, a very different parliament in which the government has a lopsided majority may have a similar effect on law and order policy. An opposition as weakened as that in NSW may not be ideal for democracy but it does allow the government to focus more on policy than populism. And in no area has the auction for votes been more unseemly or come at a greater cost to sensible policy.
As NSW shadow attorney-general, Greg Smith called a halt to the law and order auction. While strongly conservative, he saw during his previous life as a crown prosecutor the failings of the lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach - namely that, despite costing a packet, it does little to reduce crime and in some circumstances increases it. One pointer to that is the 43 per cent of prisoners who are back in jail within two years in NSW, compared with 34 per cent in Victoria, where there has been less emphasis on the punitive approach and there have been more resources for rehabilitation and other services for prisoners before and after they are released.
Now he is Attorney-General, Smith is saying much the same things and is starting to act on them. In parliament in May he claimed the previous government regarded the prison population reaching 10,000 as a badge of honour. "I thought it was a disgrace," he said. "This government does not believe success on law and order issues can alone be judged by how many people are locked up. We believe in policies that break the cycle of re-offending. Every prisoner should have an opportunity for rehabilitation and that is in the interests of the whole community."
Smith has commissioned a review of the bail act, particularly because of concern that too many juveniles are remanded in custody and are introduced to what he calls "the university of crime". He has asked the NSW Law Reform Commission to look at sentencing legislation to, among other things, give courts greater discretion. He has announced extra funding for education programs in prison, drug and alcohol rehabilitation services and a second drug court with detoxification facilities, drug testing and treatment.
It is early days and it remains to be seen where these measures lead and whether the O'Farrell government succumbs to a "soft on crime" campaign. Nor is the law and order traffic all one way: the government has legislated for mandatory life sentences for killing police officers.
But this is an issue which has come to defy political pigeon-holing. Bob Carr in NSW took the same attitude as Tony Blair in Britain: that a populist, punitive approach to law and order would protect his political flanks from right-wing attack. Pity about the merits of the policy. Now the coalition government in Britain is changing tack, as has the O'Farrell government. Yet its Liberal-National counterpart in Victoria is headed at least partly in the opposite direction, with moves for mandatory minimum sentences for some juvenile offences, despite the evidence of Victoria's superior performance with its emphasis on alternatives to prison.
The change in thinking was perhaps best captured by another conservative politician, New Zealand's deputy prime minister Bill English, who in May described prisons as "a fiscal and moral failure". No Kiwi, he confidently asserted, wanted to see more large-scale prison building.
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