Euphoria laid bare the pitfalls of the criminalizing addiction

Drug addiction is sweeping the nation, star of Euphoria, Zendaya portrays the importance of forgiveness and treatment for people struggling with substance abuse.

By Emily Sullivan

Emily started working for The Des in 2021, as a junior in Public Relations and Marketing Communications at Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts; alongside a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies

One of the most heart racing moments of Euphoria’s latest season was Rue’s escape from the police. She was deep in the throes of withdrawal from her addiction and nearing rock bottom again. It was a painful scene to watch, she’s puking and running and barely escapes the officers after breaking into a house to try and steal money to pay for drugs.

It’s the perfect example of how addiction so often leads to criminal activities, and it’s not until it does that people receive help. And that help is often in the form of arrest and jail and incarceration which just throws a life into more chaos and often prevents a person from finding help. While the justice system most often criminalizes drug users, addiction is more a mental and public health concern.

“In 2018, there were 1,654,282 drug arrests in the U.S., the vast majority of which (86%) were for drug possession or use rather than for sale or manufacturing,” according to a March 24, 2020 report from the Prison Policy Institute. Drug arrests are often for nonviolent crimes like usage and possession that do not directly harm others or the public.

"It’s the perfect example of how addiction so often leads to criminal activities, and it’s not until it does that people receive help. And that help is often in the form of arrest and jail and incarceration which just throws a life into more chaos and often prevents a person from finding help."

We see Rue and her minor run-in with the law after robbing a house where she gets caught by the house owners and then gets chased out of the house. She comes across a police car that notices she is not doing well. When she immediately dashes away, she spends the rest of the night dodging the cops. Rue’s perception of the situation is that she would have gotten in trouble had she talked to the police. The police are unapproachable in situations like Rue because where she really needs help, she would have been punished.

Katie Zuber, Patricia Strach, and Elizabeth Pérez-Chiqués from the Rockefeller Government Institute wrote a piece that addresses the “tough on crime approach” adopted by some policy makers.

In a Vox article from April 2018, German Lopez wrote “At the federal level, policymakers have been widely criticized for reinstating harsh mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders… imposing a ten-year minimum sentence on first offenders who make, sell, or transport illicit opioids and authorizing law enforcement to charge drug dealers with homicide has been considered in states like Arizona and New York, respectively.”

These policies contribute to why the police are unapproachable when dealing with drug abusers who really just need help.

The Prison Policy Institute reported that in 2018, there were 450,000 people incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses on any day. The majority were in state facilities or local and private prisons.

Rue’s close calls with the police bring to light the intersection of the criminal justice system and addiction.

Zendaya’s parting words after episode five inspire the attitude she wants people to have towards Rue.

“It’s my hope for people watching that they still see her as a person worthy of their love… I think that if people can go with her through that, and get to the end, and still have hope for her future, and watch her make changes and steps to heal and humanize her through her sobriety journey and her addiction, then maybe they can extend that to people in real life.”

People with drug addictions need treatment, support and most importantly forgiveness and compassion. They are human beings. Incarcerating them does not treat the core problem.

Emily Sullivan

The theme of forgiveness is cemented in the last episode of the season. Rue learns the importance of forgiving herself. She recognizes that she is a human being who has gone through difficult life circumstances (her father died from cancer). Rue also realizes the importance of forgiveness towards others. She forgives her friend Elliot for uncovering her relapse, she forgives her girlfriend Jules for their relationship problems.

Rue also uses compassion to apologize to those she has affected in her addiction journey. She apologizes to her mother, one of her more important relationships. She apologizes to her best friend Lexi for not being present in her life.

It is through Rue’s forgiveness, compassion and most importantly, humanity, that she begins to recognize her worth and has the courage to turn the corner in her addiction. If she had been arrested and sent to jail after robbing the house it would have blocked her from going through these processes.

People with drug addictions need treatment, support and most importantly forgiveness and compassion. They are human beings. Incarcerating them does not treat the core problem.

Eaten up by the system

An interview with the journalist behind the new podcast “Through the Cracks” on how racism and the justice system impacted a 8-year-old D.C. Black girl’s disappearance in 2014. She’s never been found.

LJ Dawson

Founder of The Des and freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C.

Through The Cracks is a longform podcast released this year that burrows into the 2014 disappearance of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd, a Black girl from Washington, D.C. It was 18 days before authorities declared Relisha missing. She’s never been found. The Des caught up with the host and woman behind the show, Jonquilyn Hill, about how the justice system failed Relisha, the criminalization of Black motherhood and how the relationship between D.C. law enforcement and the District’s Black community impacted the search for the missing girl. (interview has been lightly edited for clarity)

How did Relisha’s story hook you?

So I lived in DC when Relisha was missing. I moved here in 2009 to go to Howard and I ended up staying after graduation. And I remember seeing her story all of the time. And then months had passed, years had passed, and I was on the red line train, and I saw her missing poster in the window of the Einstein Bagels in Union Station. And that just was a moment that it’s like, wow, this girl is still missing. And over time, I’ve always had an interest in true crime stories. And then the fact that Relisha is this little Black girl, and the fact that when things happen to us, we don’t get as much attention. Locally, I think people knew her name, but D.C. can be very transient. When people move here, they don’t necessarily know the story so I think that’s kind of what drew me to the story.

Jonquilyn Hill – Host of Through the Cracks

What was the most difficult part for you reporting, reporting this podcast?

Man, there were days where it was really emotionally draining. I remember the first day, I got an interview with Melissa, who’s Relisha’s grandmother, and Antonio, who’s her stepfather. And we didn’t know if we weren’t going to be able to talk with them again. So it was just like, it was kind of a marathon. I talked to Antonio first, had lunch, and then talked with Melissa. And I remember, just by the end of the day, just feeling so emotionally exhausted. And part of me is like, ok, if I feel that way, just hearing about it, what about the people who live it, and I think that’s valid. But I also realized that like, wow, this is stuff that impacts me, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I would never want to become numb to this. But there were times where I would just like, man, or it would be really hard because, it can be so sad that you wonder, do people have a chance?

“Are we even giving people a fair shot at making the lives for themselves that they want to? And I questioned that over and over again. And I think that was the hardest part. Just like generations upon generations of trauma. And how do you rebuild and bounce back from that? If that is all if that is all you’re given?”

There was a lot of doing the best with what you have in this story. And that wasn’t enough. But then why does a certain person have only what they have?

Exactly, exactly. I think that was the biggest part: people doing the best with what they have, but it can be hard when you have a lot less than other people do.

So there are a lot of systems that are going on and Relisha’s story, but how does specifically the justice system fit into her story and what happened?

I think that there are so many different ways. I think something that we didn’t get to flesh out in the podcast, because you have like this limited amount of time is the fact that her mother was very hesitant to talk to the police. And that’s something that she’s been critiqued about – the fact that she changed her story multiple times. But I think if this story happened now versus 2014, there would be a discussion about, well, why would she maybe be hesitant to talk to police? I think there’s also a conversation about Kahlil Tatum, the Janitor she was last seen in the care with. He had a criminal record. It was against the policy at the time to hire him because he had a record. But there’s a conversation to be had about people who have been formerly incarcerated having access to jobs. And it’s possible that maybe if that was a conversation being had, if there had been more openness about that. People would have interrogated Kahlil Tatum more.

“Like asking, well, what type of crime did he go to jail for? Just being able to check in and openly communicate, rather than it being something that he and people like him have to hide and that could have made all the difference. “

You mentioned Relisha’s mom being really hesitant to talk to the police. Do you think there was a fear for her of not only are they not going to find my daughter, but they could criminalize me because of her disappearance?

Oh, I think that 1,000% was part of it. I mean technically, she was not supposed to leave her kids in the care of Tatum. I remember hearing stories that they would meet off campus of the shelter to make the exchange to leave Relisha in his care. And so I think there was a fear of consequences regarding that. I think the way that we police Black motherhood is definitely a factor. So not only is it, “Oh, my daughter’s missing, but like I could get in trouble for my daughter missing.”

Even if it didn’t happen legally, there definitely has been social consequences for her. I think also we talk about the different institutions, and a lot of the time jail and prisons are the institutions we talk about, but we also have to look at foster care and Child Protective Services and things like that. Relisha’s mother grew up in the foster care system, she bounced around to a lot of facilities. She was in a mental health facility for a period of time as a child.

And so it wouldn’t surprise me if things like that were in the back of her head. Like, “Oh, they could take my kids away, and [that] is what could happen to them. Or, “I could go to jail.” We see Black mothers getting arrested for letting their kids play in a park unattended while they’re at work because they can’t afford child care. So something like this would definitely have consequences. And I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to think that she was aware of those consequences. And that was top of mind for her.

How did the justice system in particular fail Relisha?

I feel like there are so many ways because the thing is every system failed Relisha. And I think we have to look at the fact that when it comes to Black people and Black families, in particular, almost every system is treated like the criminal justice system. Families are policed. I think whether it’s with Tatum and the aftermath, and both the lack of background checks, but also it not being an open discussion about who can work where. I think the way her family reacted was definitely in response to our criminal justice system and this fear of going to jail, this fear of being locked up.

There was a grand jury for Relisha’s mother, and they ended up not bringing charges. It was for obstruction of justice, they didn’t find the charges. But that in and of itself is pretty traumatic. And of course, we don’t know what was said in that it’s sealed because that’s the nature of a grand jury. But there are just all these points that you can see where even if it’s not the criminal justice system outright, it’s fear of the criminal justice system that we built. And I think that that’s something that wasn’t talked about the first time around in 2014.

But now we’re having all these conversations about the prison industrial complex and who gets arrested and community relationships with police. If there was a better relationship, maybe people would have come forward sooner saying “hey, something’s going on with this family.” But there’s this, this fear and I think it colors the way people interact with law enforcement and institutions at large.

How do you feel like Relisha slipping through the cracks as a young Black girl is representative of just in general, how young Black girls just are not protected and acknowledged at large in America?

It’s so indicative, I think everything from the fact that no one realized anything was wrong until it’s too late. To the fact that locally her story got a lot of attention, but nationally it’s not as well known as other stories.

One thing that I’ve said before is that when it comes to Black girls, they’re not given the same space to either make mistakes or be protected.

And there are all these gaps that exist. And it’s this thought that we’ve created these safety nets that catch people when there are these gaps. And I think Relisha’s story is indicative of the fact that doesn’t always happen. And it doesn’t always happen for Black Girls. Black girls aren’t often not given a safe place to land. And I think we have to really be honest with ourselves about that, if we want to change that.

When the justice system does acknowledge young Black girls it’s often to criminalize them. So expanded how the story reflects that larger fact of the over criminalization of young Black women as well?

It’s something that’s always top of mind. If we knew where Relisha is and she were just a regular teenager going to school in DC, what would her life look like? How would she be treated? Are we only kind to her because there’s sort of this hagiography around her, how would we be treating her if she were just a regular teenager, going to school, hanging out with friends, doing what teenagers do? And it’s something that’s always at the top of my mind, whether it’s the fact that Black girls are seen as older when they’re younger. And the fact that leads to not only criminalization, but over sexualization of young Black girls.

It means that Black girls are forced to grow up a lot faster in a lot of different ways because of how the world treats us. And I think that’s clear in Relisha’s story. And I think it’s also clear in her mother’s story. The fact that she came from such a difficult background, and maybe if you look different people will be more kind and more understanding. But because of the way society treats Black women because they tend to be over criminalized that’s not the case with her.

Journalists are infamous for hating nuance and ignoring nuance, but you don’t do that in this podcast, which I think is really powerful. So what are some of the biggest nuances that you really want listeners to come away with a greater understanding of?

When I think it’s a nuance, I think the biggest ones are of course her mother and also her grandmother, just like motherhood as a theme in this podcast in general. I think anyone with a mom can attest to the fact that it can be a relationship that can be both difficult and rewarding, and that no one knows how to do it. And a lot of the times our moms are playing it by ear and they’re human, but that the things that they do can have real consequences nonetheless. I also think of Kahlil Tatum and his wife in particular. One interview that I’m really proud of is that I got to speak to Alexis Kelly who is Andrea Kelly’s daughter. Andrea Kelly was Kahlil Tatum’s wife [who he allegedly murdered].

People had a lot to say about her as well. This thing of like, how could [she] not know? What talking with her daughter made me realize is that love can be really difficult, and you don’t always know the person that you love as well as you think you do. And that can have major consequences, but it’s also a reality. I think also is the nuance in how we deal with homelessness. It’s the thing of, OK well, do we treat homelessness once it’s here? Or do we try to prevent it in the first place? What is a two pronged approach to that look like? So I think that nuance was something that we always came back to. We were always saying, okay, but like, what isn’t being told? I think that’s part of the beauty of a long form podcast. You get the space to for the nuance versus when I’m not doing this, I’m working on an hour on a two hour long radio program, and it can go really quickly it’s live, but when it’s recorded, when it’s long form, when you have more space, you’re able to get things more nuanced.

God forbid, this was to happen, but do you see that the systems have not changed or the attitude of DC has not changed where something like Relisha’s case could happen again in 2021?

I feel like a lot of things have changed. But at the same time they haven’t. So homelessness has gone down? Yes. But the cost of living is still going up. If you look at the types of housing being built in DC, a good chunk of it is one or two bedroom places, it’s not places for families. Families need more space than that. And that’s not what’s being built in the city. I also think that something like this could happen, but it would look different. Because something not exactly like Relisha’s case but similar happened prior. There was the Banita Jacks’ case where a woman who was struggling with mental health issues, kills her children. It took months for it to be realized, and it was when a social worker was like, Oh, these kids haven’t been at school. And I think the pandemic makes that more difficult. It makes things like attendance harder. It makes it harder for people to catch on. And then I think, you know, hopefully, the pandemic will be winding down soon, there’s an eviction moratorium. Eventually, that’s going to end and that’s going to put a lot of families out. And we have to be honest with ourselves about all that.

When you look at the justice system, in relation to Relisha’s case, do you see that there is room for improvement? Or reform? Or do you just see that it’s a system that needs to be completely rebuilt?

You know, I don’t know. I think that’s something that I think about a lot. Not only in Relisha’s story, but in general. I feel like I’m in a place where I’m still doing a lot of reading, I’m still doing a lot of research. And I can only hope that, you know, people who are much smarter than me can come to a solution. Hopefully, with the help of the kind of storytelling that I do on Through the Cracks, that highlighting these stories will make not only policymakers, but regular people realize that something needs to happen. I don’t know what that something is.

““But something has got to change if we want to protect little Black girls like Relisha.”

Check out clothing and screen prints from The Forgive Everyone Collective

Our Latest

DISPATCHES

Failings of youth incarceration

The Sentencing Project held a webinar to discuss the problems of youth incarceration In the face of increased pretrial detention in The District of Columbia,

September 8, 2023

More Voices of Justice To Come

DISPATCHES

From headphones to the streets: a revolutionary goes back to Hip Hop’s roots to end all incarceration

an interview with ATL abolitionist and hip hop artist Nikos You couldn’t find Nikos, an Atlanta based artist and self-titled revolutionary, in the studio making music

November 30, 2022

DISPATCHES

When school slides into prison easier than graduation

Sheriffs showed up to a 12-year-old Black boy’s home after a toy gun appeared on his webcam for school. What happened next? (an election aftermath

November 30, 2022

DISPATCHES

D.C. Nonprofit launches housing program for returning citizens

Who Speaks for Me? launches hosing pilot in D.C. for five female and LGBTQ+ returning citizens.

November 8, 2022

IN DEPTH

Crime spike threatens to politically squash prosecutors’ efforts to reform

Liberal leaning and reform minded prosecutors must combat conservative “hard on crime” rhetoric to survive politically. An oped from Allison Pierre, an expert on using data to help DAs prove reform works.

November 7, 2022

More Voices of Justice To Come

Covid-19 rips through West Virginia women’s prison as federal agency takes heat

three women died in January, revealing cracks in the agencies pandemic response

By LJ Dawson

Founder of The Des and freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C.

Rory Adams did not know that Christmas in a small rural hospital in West Virginia would be the last time he saw his wife alive. She’d entered prison in early January 2021 to serve a 42-month sentence for failure to collect payroll taxes. She was supposed to return to North Carolina, their two adult children, and their quilting business this summer.

But when he saw her, she was heavily sedated. A ventilator was helping her breathe as she struggled with covid-19. Rebecca “Maria” Adams, 59, died 18 days after Christmas in the same hospital bed.

The pandemic has proved especially deadly behind bars. Inmates are more than twice as likely to die of covid as the general population. And the deaths continue to pile up.

Adams was the second of three women incarcerated at Alderson Federal Prison Camp to die of covid in less than a week in January. The prison that holds fewer than 700 inmates had 50 cases as of Feb. 8. When U.S. case numbers surged in December because of the omicron variant, an understaffed and still underprepared federal prison system was once again swamped by covid cases.

The deaths of these three women imprisoned in West Virginia reflect a federal prison system plagued by chronic problems exacerbated by the pandemic, including understaffing, inadequate medical care, and few compassionate releases. The most recent statistics from the Federal Bureau of Prisons report 284 inmates and seven staff members have died nationwide because of covid since March 28, 2020. Medical and legal experts say those numbers are likely an undercount, but the federal prison system lacks independent oversight.

"The pandemic has proved especially deadly behind bars. Inmates are more than twice as likely to die of covid as the general population. And the deaths continue to pile up."

Tweet

Alderson, where Adams was incarcerated, was one of the first federal prisons to have a covid outbreak in December in this latest national surge. But as of the first week of February, 16 federal facilities had over 100 cases. More than 5,500 federal inmates and over 2,000 BOP staffers had tested positive for covid, according to BOP data. At one prison in Yazoo City, Mississippi, over 500 inmates — almost half the prison — tested positive in late January. Including the three women from Alderson, 12 federal inmates died while sick with covid in January.

The Bureau of Prisons has come under fire in the past few months after investigations by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project alleged widespread corruption and called the agency a “hotbed of abuse.” In January, before all three Alderson inmates died, the head of the BOP, Michael Carvajal, announced his resignation, although he remains in charge until a successor takes the helm.

The criticism of the agency continued in congressional testimony in January after the deaths at Alderson. Legal and medical experts specializing in the federal system, as well as members of Congress, accused the BOP of hiding covid deaths and cases, repeatedly failing to provide adequate health care, and failing to properly implement the compassionate release program meant to move at-risk inmates to home confinement. Five recently released inmates, two incarcerated inmates, and six family members of women incarcerated at Alderson, confirmed these allegations to KHN.

The Alderson inmates and their families reported denial of medical care, a lack of covid testing, retaliation for speaking out about conditions, understaffing, and a prison overrun by covid. Absences by prison staff members sickened by the virus led to cold meals, dirty clothes, and a denial of items like sanitary napkins and clean water from the commissary.

In an email, BOP spokesperson Benjamin O’Cone said the agency does not comment on what he called “anecdotal allegations.” He said the BOP follows covid guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

O’Cone pointed to the BOP’s online dashboard about covid statistics when asked how many inmates have died since Dec. 1 and how many had tested positive for covid before death. A day after KHN emailed the BOP about the deaths of the three inmates from Alderson, two appeared on the dashboard and news releases were published. The women had been dead for almost a week.

"A day after KHN emailed the BOP about the deaths of the three inmates from Alderson, two appeared on the dashboard and news releases were published. The women had been dead for almost a week."

Tweet

All three women — Adams, Juanita Haynes, and Bree Eberbaugh — had sought compassionate releases because of preexisting medical conditions that made them more susceptible to dying from covid, including Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, obesity, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Nationwide, over 23,000 people were released from the federal system from March 2020 to October 2021, but more than 157,000 people are still imprisoned. After early pandemic releases, the prison population in the U.S. is climbing back to pre-pandemic levels. Some of the early drop was due to inmate deaths, which rose 46% from 2019 to 2020, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

For people like Adams, compassionate release never came. The BOP reports that only two women have been granted compassionate release from Alderson since the outbreak began in December. One was Haynes, who was granted release while intubated. She died four days later, in the hospital.

“They will literally be released so they don’t die in chains,” Alison Guernsey, clinical associate professor of law at the University of Iowa, said in congressional testimony in January. She called BOP facilities “death traps,” referring to the BOP’s “inability or reticence to control the spread of covid-19 behind bars by engaging in aggressive evidence-based public-health measures.”

Guernsey testified that the BOP death data is “suspect” because of delayed reporting, the exclusion of deaths in prisons run by private contractors, and those released just in time to “die free.” Haynes’ death, for example, is not counted in BOP data even though she got sick with covid while incarcerated because she was freed through compassionate release right before she died in January, months after her first applications were denied.

Guernsey questions the BOP’s covid infection numbers because the agency does not report the number of tests administered, just the number of positive tests. “The BOP can hide whether low infection rate is due to low covid cases or inadequate testing,” she said. All these factors mean the numbers of deaths and cases are likely “substantially” greater than reported, Guernsey said.

“They will literally be released so they don’t die in chains."

Alison Guernsey, clinical associate professor of law at the University of Iowa Tweet

The impact of incorrect data trickles down to the denial of compassionate release requests. One factor that judges consider is the level of covid cases and risk within that prison. Eberbaugh, the third inmate from Alderson to die in January, applied in March 2020 for compassionate release from her 54-month sentence, citing preexisting medical conditions.

In August 2020, a court denied Eberbaugh’s motion, in part citing the lack of covid cases in the prison. A few days later, she responded in a handwritten letter, appealing for legal counsel from the public defender’s office. “Your honor, it is only a matter of time before it reaches here and I am in fear of my life,” she wrote.

The court denied that appeal in April 2021. Within nine months, she had died of covid.

‘so in your face you can’t ignore it’

an interview with Pam Bailey about empowering D.C. inmates in the federal system as a voting bloc and voice for change through helping them tell their stories

By Laine Napoli

Laine Napoli was The Des’ Social Media and Marketing Intern for Fall 2021. Laine is from southern New Jersey and is studying multi-platform journalism and women, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Maryland.

The Des: Why did you found More Than Our Crimes?

Bailey: It all started actually when I was doing some volunteer work and answering letters from D.C. men in prison. And one of the letters I responded to was from Robert Burton, who has been in prison since two months past his 16th birthday. He went in on felony murder, which means he didn’t actually shoot, He was just in the car. He is still in prison now, 26 years later.

And what I recognized in his letter was a very strong, articulate, thoughtful voice, and we partnered together. I’m a storyteller by profession, I’m a writer for a national international nonprofit by day, my paid job.

This was back before this last election. There was a real opportunity because you had people from both parties talking about criminal justice reform, which is really good. But the thing that was missing was everybody was always quick to to limit the conversation to non-violent crimes. In other words, they seemed really interested in reducing mass incarceration, but the reality is you can’t actually significantly reduce mass incarceration if you do not include people who once committed violent crimes. Because they’re, I think it’s like two thirds of the people in the prison population. So you can’t ignore that.

Number two, there’s really sort of a false distinction, because even people who were labeled as committing violent crimes can change. They can be rehabilitated, they can become different people, they can be productive members of society and it’s ridiculous to exclude them and think that they deserve to be in prison the rest of their lives with the key thrown away.

So the initial purpose of teaming up together was to use storytelling about Rob and the other people that he started introducing me to, to try to really show the humanity behind the labels.

A secondary part of it is focusing on DC people because that’s who I was getting to know. But DC people have an extra set of problems I think other people don’t:

DC doesn’t have its own prisons, so they’re sending them to the federal system which means they’re all over the country. And it’s like, out of sight out of mind. I mean, it’s this sort of that way for really anybody in prison, but it’s particularly true for the DC people because the federal system doesn’t get much attention. Number one, because most people are in state prisons and most of the focus is on state prisons. And two, the federal system is so hard to change because it’s Congress.

We started a blog, we have the website, but the blog is where we mostly publish. We just got a grant. The people in prison there don’t vote. We thought this is a perfect opportunity to really use this network that Rob and I grew: we have about 200 people now, the DC guys. What we’ve done is we want to get them to vote.

So with the grant, what we’re doing now is we send a newsletter in to all the guys on our list to really keep them in tune with all the issues. So they understand that there’s actually issues that affect them, or will affect them, they should care about. So when midterms come up, they’re going to want to vote.

The Des: What is your greatest achievement in criminal justice reform so far?

Bailey: I think that we’re pretty new and I guess what I’ve been most pleased about is the fact that we do have a blog on Medium and we have a growing mailing list and growing people who actually reading these stories and opinions of people behind bars.

It’s very hard when you’re new. The thing about this, this space in DC in a way is on the one hand, it’s great that we have a whole bunch of organizations and people who are involved in this issue in some way. But the challenging part is it’s sort of territorial. It’s pretty hard to get established. And so, it’s gratifying to finally start getting established enough that people are noticing you. The niches that we represent is people who are still in prison, not the DC jail, but still in the BOP system. We give them a chance to have a voice and also to be as informed.

That’s the biggest piece of feedback I’ve been getting to our newsletter is no one’s been telling them any of this. They pick up what they can, I have them subscribe to The [Washington] Post, it’s always like, like four or five days late, but there’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s not covered there. So they don’t know.

And so I think in terms of achievements, I’m just happy that we’re getting established enough and being recognized.

The Des: What do you think is the most pressing issue in the Washington D.C. criminal justice system?

Bailey: I think DC blames a lot on the fact that it’s a not state yet.. And BOP would absolutely let DC people come home if they would just bite the bullet and do the right thing. And there’s still a lot of planning. They have a plan to replace the jail and expand it and bring everybody home by 2030, that’s a really long time. DC is a weird mix of really progressive fantastic things and then dragging its feet on others.

I think another thing DC really needs to improve on is it gets a lot of praise for its services for returning citizens, but as I get to know the guys in prison what I’ve noticed is a real lack of coordination among tons of different services. They’re not coordinated at all. And these poor guys have to run all over. They’re just out, they’re confused, they don’t know technology, and they’re forced to run all these different places. It’s crazy, why they don’t have a centralized case management system, I don’t know.

But the other thing is housing. You got 500 people who are eligible for second look. I’m not sure what percent to actually get approved, but let’s say the majority of them are. I would say I guess a third to a half maybe, either don’t have family to come to, or they have family but they’re not appropriate. The thing is there’s no housing. They need housing. I don’t understand why the city has done nothing to prepare for that. It’s the worst problem. It’s bigger than the employment issue. I had one of my friends go to one of those shelters. There were stabbings once a week. The first day he was there, he went to take a shower and his belongings were stolen. This is not stable.

The Des: What is your organization doing to solve this problem?

Bailey: If we can develop these guys into a real voting block, who actually vote, we may be able to hold some of the city officials’ feet to the fire that way and say, look you talk the game, but you gotta do it guys. I’ve been in so many forums where they talk about the housing problem. It’s just too much talk talk talk, we almost need to take a page from the old AIDS days, Act Up days, in this be in their face. We cannot be invisible.

There’s been a real lack of voices of people who are incarcerated. And maybe by getting more and more op-eds and whatever, that voice can’t be ignored anymore. And I’m hoping that that will be one more lever, one more pressure point that will force some change. Maybe there should be a whole campaign of returning citizens. It’s that kind of thinking back to the old days: The Act Up Group. They started with the policy talk and said, okay, we admit, enough talk, we need to make it so in your face that you can’t ignore us.

The Des: What is your advice for the average citizen, who has little or no experience with activism, but wants to get involved?

Bailey: I think it’s really important to do this work if you don’t have some direct connections so you understand the complexity of all the factors, the dynamics that go into [some one insides] trajectory. But also you start hearing what they want and think is important, which may not be the same as what you think. Number one, would be to get involved with an organization that allows you some direct contact then do some deep listening and hear things in their voice instead of just reading about them.

Sometimes I think we narrow ourselves down to just talking to the choir all the time, we’re always talking to fellow activists, fellow advocates, it’s like an echo chamber. We all are violently in agreement with each other and find audiences like around the Christmas table. One of the best ways to help change things is to try to get out of your echo chamber and talk to people.

Our Latest

DISPATCHES

1700+ incidents of sexual victimization within juvenile justice facilities reported over six-year period

According to the BJS report, over 1,700 incidents of sexual abuse/misconduct have occurred in juvenile justice facilities from 2013 to 2018. Youth-on-youth abuse comprises the majority of these incidents.

June 29, 2023

More Voices of Justice To Come

NUMBERS

Still locked out of the ballot box

An estimated 4.6 million Americans are still unable to vote due to felony records despite reforms. This includes more than one in 10 Black adults in eight states – Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia.

October 26, 2022

DISPATCHES

Bail industry gets away with murder, costing defendants and citizens alike

An investigation was published indicating that six NYC bail bond companies were using fake trade names in order to continue operations without being shut down by state officials for large amounts of debt. The ability of agencies to continue to profit off of the bail system despite state laws that allow officials to suspend agencies owing large sums of money is the sixth loophole emphasized by the report.

October 25, 2022

NUMBERS

Mass incarceration punishes kids too

The arrest of a parent can be traumatic and severe for children whose parents are incarcerated, causing emotional, physical, educational and financial well-being difficulties. According to a new study, kids of incarcerated parents are likely to become incarcerated themselves.

October 25, 2022

NUMBERS

Racial disparity on incarcerated people declined 40% since 2000

A new report reveals that while Black adults are still imprisoned at a significantly higher rate than white adults, the racial disparity both in state imprisonment and in arrest rates has fallen between 2000 and 2020.

October 20, 2022

More Voices of Justice To Come

Christmas inside: a lifer’s look into how the holiday behind bars has changed

Over a million people in America will celebrate Christmas inside, we hear from one man in Pennsylvania

By Karim Diggs

Karim has been incarcerated for 45 years in Pennsylvania prisons. He is an acclaimed legal prison scholar who has helped many prisoners find freedom in case appeals. He wrote about #BLM in August, and covid in May.

As a young man entering prison in 1976, my holidays were the most miserable while in the Philadelphia County Prison. While in Holmesburg Prison, I cried at night while laying in bed feeling like I was the loneliest man on earth thinking about how much my wife, family and friends were living without me. My thoughts surrounded the pain and suffering my wife had to endure.

We always had joyful loving times together and our newborn son was born Dec. 17, 1975. Holidays were my time to send cards and gifts to all the family. Once arrested, I continued sending cards to everyone with a note. There are really great artists in prison, and they are hired to make special cards and music boxes with candy inside.

Sending cards every holiday would keep me happy and a part of the happiness associated with thanksgiving and Christmas, would also be receiving a lot of cards and even gifts. In the 1970s and 1980s we were allowed to have our families order and send clothing and certain gifts from stores. It was good for families to maintain some form of normal contacts that maintained some form of humanity. One compelling way I was able to have some sanity were the holiday events in the prison. Groups would come and perform. Also we had in house singing groups and that was part of the system of allowing prisoners to have some sense of being part of a community. Making phone calls, writing letters and dreaming about another day all played a part in my good health and sanity.

Additionally the meals were made in traditional holiday food and well cooked. At that period, the food was not processed and artificial. The institution used to give us holiday bags of goodies and a quart of Eggnog, but times changed.

The numerous colleges and teachers from the institution would bring holiday treats to the classes and have small holiday parties, and share poems, tell stories and sing.

These small acts of kindness and community gatherings were useful in maintaining peace and hope in prisons. It was not strictly about control but mental health. Humans function better when they feel connected to the national society. Holidays connect all of us, including prisoners.

The system has changed. We know longer have community groups bringing us their talent and fellowship.

Depression is at the highest I ever seen in my decades in prison. Covid only enhanced the mental strains and illnesses associated with depression and loneliness. The prison population is getting older each day, and more men are dying, getting more sick and existing without hope. Broken dreams and a broken heart contribute to disease and early death. For me, seasonal holidays remain a part of my joy and hopes. I think of my blessings and above all the joy of communicating with audiences and people such as you all.

With Warm Holiday thoughts,

Karim Diggs

Our Latest

DISPATCHES

Mayor Bowser’s Crime Bill Would Increase Youth Pretrial Detention Despite New Evidence of Effective Alternatives

A new report found that alternative-to-incarceration programs are more effective than detention for youth who have committed serious offenses. Critics of Mayor Bowser’s new crime bill say that it would harm youth and that it is unnecessary, as there are already effective alternatives to incarceration.

June 28, 2023

More Voices of Justice To Come

DISPATCHES

left to die

new report finds ten of thousands of people over fifty who are sentenced to life without parole face increasingly grim conditions

October 5, 2022

Drugs

Magic mushrooms could treat patients with alcohol use disorder

Psychedelic mushrooms and psychotherapy treatment could help treat patients who suffer from alcohol use disorder, according to a new study.

September 28, 2022

DISPATCHES

New report finds rise in arrests didn’t slow an explosion of meth use and overdose deaths across America

Despite a rise in arrests for possession of meth, both the use of meth and subsequent overdose deaths skyrocketed from 2015-2019, according to a new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

August 16, 2022

IN DEPTH

Overdose Deaths Behind Bars Rise as Drug Crisis Swells

Even if Alabama’s prisons and jails are especially overrun by drugs, death, and violence, their problems are not unique in the U.S. Within three weeks this spring, incarcerated people died of overdoses in Illinois, Oklahoma, New York, and the District of Columbia.

August 7, 2022

More Voices of Justice To Come

Do 51-Year life sentences make sense for juveniles?

Gauna went to prison at 18 for a murder he committed at 17. How a 51-year-life sentence practically turned into a death sentence

By Tony Vick

Tony Vick, 60, has served 25 years on a Life With Parole sentence in Tennessee.

It took the jury only thirty minutes on that Wednesday afternoon to decide that Alejandro Gauna, 17 years old at the time of the crime, was guilty of 1st degree murder. The choice before them after that was only two-fold: A Life Sentence with the Possibility of Parole or Life Without Parole. This decision proved not to be as easy as the first – a hung jury. Therefore, the judge was left to pass a sentence of Life with the Possibility of Parole. So on May 8, 2008, Tipton County Judge Joseph Walker turned young Alejandro over to the Tennessee Department of Corrections.

The sentence Alejandro received for 1st degree murder in Tennessee really didn’t make much difference. You see, effectively Tennessee has three death sentences for murder since life with the possibility of parole means the person must serve 51 years before parole eligibility can even be considered. Fifty-one years in prison is an unrealistic time to survive incarceration. Then of course, there is the death penalty and the life without parole sentence.

Tennessee is the only state where a life sentence with the possibility of release means serving 51 years. The national average for life with the possibility of release is 25 years. Actually, before the Clinton Crime Bill was enacted and Tennessee’s version adopted in 1995 – 25 years was the minimum standard in Tennessee.

Alejandro began life in Austin, Texas in what appeared to be a blessed two-parent home, attending church and excelling in school. Living on the outskirts of violent housing projects, it was always in Alejandro’s peripheral vision that danger lurked very close by, often seeing the police chasing people through his back yard. At fourteen, Alejandro’s life was about to change, his parents, both Mexican-American, divorced. Alejandro’s world was broken and the chaos that developed sent him into a downward spiral — from dropping out of school in the ninth grade, hanging out with the wrong crowd, running away from home to escape the dysfunction, to getting hooked on drugs and then selling drugs to survive. He found himself in and out of juvenile detention centers and rehab until he eventually simply ran away.

Like so many who find themselves running from something, what they run towards turns out just as bad or worse than the horrors they tried to escape. Trauma from the craziness of addiction and bad influences did not help Alejandro’s mental stability when he was robbed at gunpoint and felt very close to dying at 14 years old. The only thing he knew to do to feel somewhat safe at that point was to carry a gun.

On January 1, 2007, at age 17, Alejandro and a friend drove to Tennessee to sell the only asset they had to offer – marijuana. When State Trooper Calvin Jenks pulled the two over for speeding, the decisions Alejandro made in a few moments would end two people’s lives: The Trooper’s and Alejandro’s. In a hazy and scared attempt to get away, Alejandro fired two bullets into Trooper Jenks, and life ended.

As horrific as this crime is, the fact that a seventeen-year-old committed it has to be considered. “Scientific research shows key developmental differences between youth and adults that impact a youth’s decision making, impulse control, and susceptibility to peer pressure. While these differences do not excuse youth from responsibility for their actions, the U.S. Supreme Court has reportedly recognized that youth are less blameworthy than adults and more capable of change and rehabilitation,” according to the Juvenile Law Center.

If Alejandro’s attorney, Blake Ballin would have called the expert witness, Dr. James S. Walker, who was prepared to testify, the jury would have received forensic psychological evidence that may have weighed on their decision. “My evaluation of Mr. Gauna revealed that he was suffering from several mental health conditions at the time of his offense, including major depression, cannabis intoxication, formaldehyde intoxication, and antisocial/paranoid personality characteristics. His ability to act in a premeditated fashion was impaired at the time of the crime by his mental conditions,” Walker wrote in 2013.

An estimated 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year across the U.S. Despite the establishment of a separate juvenile system over a century ago – youth are routinely charged and prosecuted in adult criminal justice systems. During the 1990’s, the era when many of our most punitive criminal justice policies were developed – 49 states altered their laws to increase the number of minors being tried as adults.

According to 2017 data from Tennessee Department of Correction, there are 1,294 individuals in Tennessee prisons serving a 51-year life sentence. Over half (699) of these individuals were youthful offenders (between the ages of 18-25) or juveniles (below the age of 18) on the date of the offense. Specifically, 115 were below the age of 18.

Alejandro is contrite when recounting his story, first acknowledging the incredible harm he has done by taking an innocent life and all the pain he has caused the community and families. Now after being incarcerated nearly 15 years, and enduring all the difficulties of a juvenile entering an adult system, his regrets are many, from not finishing school, starting drugs, and picking up a gun to feel safe.

As he has matured, Alejandro has taken advantage of every opportunity for growth and education offered him. He earned his GED the very first year of incarceration, got involved with church programs, took business classes led by Stan Olson for five years, took part in speaking to youth groups visiting the prison (MARS Program), attended classes through Union University, received his Barber’s License, and now is working with TRICOR (Tennessee Rehabilitative Initiative in Corrections) – as a graphic designer. TRICOR helps offenders to transform themselves by providing continuous preparation and assistance through the context of work and career management. The ultimate goal for TRICOR is to prepare offenders for success after release.

Many advocacy groups are working hard to change the Life sentence laws in Tennessee, one in particular, No Exceptions Prison Collective (NEPC) has worked six years on the issue. “No Exceptions has worked to educate communities and legislators concerning this inhumane and draconian 51-year life sentence, and we have supported legislation that would reduce the 51 years back to 25 years for a possibility of parole for everyone with that sentence,” Rev. Jeannie Alexander, Co-Founder of NEPC, said.

“Accountability does not require death, it does not require an exile ending in death,” Alexander added. It does look like Tennessee is headed for making some important and moral decisions regarding their sentencing laws. Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), was quoted in a March 6, 2019 Tennessean article:

“Many young defendants face childhood hardships and trauma that can be overcome with time and treatment. It’s so complicated when you’re dealing with loss of life, but we are talking about children. As horrific as it sounds that a child committed murder, the person they are now is not the person they will be in 20 years.”

Perhaps 2022 will begin a transition for Tennessee laws and for Alejandro, and the work of NEPC along with many other advocacy groups, will help everyone acknowledge that justice does not look like making people disappear forever; justice is about healing, transforming, and true accountability. Vengeance is not justice.

Our Latest

DISPATCHES

Maryland Parole Commission suffers systemic problems, new report reveals

The Justice Policy Institute identified key inefficiencies in Maryland’s parole system, putting forth alternative measures In a new report, the Justice Policy Institute assessed Maryland’s

June 14, 2023

More Voices of Justice To Come

DISPATCHES

New report debunks 2020 youth crime wave

politicians and pundits are peddling youth gone wild but a new report says the most recent data doesn’t support their claims and harsher sentences won’t stop crime

June 15, 2022

IN DEPTH

The number of women behind bars continues to rise in U.S.

Just because prison overpopulation is usually discussed in regards to males, America also has a glaring problem of over incarcerating mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins and grandmas. There are currently 108,000 women in prison in the United States — accounting for nearly 30% of the world’s incarcerated females.

June 12, 2022

NUMBERS

Nearly 150,000 incarcerated mothers spent mother’s day apart from their children

Many are incarcerated awaiting trial simply because they can’t afford bail. We go to the Prison Policy Initiative for an insight into mothers in prison. Below are excerpts from the study.

June 9, 2022

IN DEPTH

Fighting for a second chance

When Dontrell Britton returned from federal prison to his mother’s DC apartment in 2017, he didn’t have tens of thousands of Instagram followers or over 400 thousand TikTok followers on his team like he does now.

May 29, 2022

More Voices of Justice To Come

Death Knocking on My Cell Door

Incarcerated writer, Karim Diggs, writes about the death he witnessed while surviving over a year of covid in prison

By Karim Diggs

Covid-19 drastically changed the community I exist in called state prison. The prison closed for a full lockdown in March 2020. There were no visits, phone calls or eating in the dining hall. Guards brought our meals to the cell. I stood at the door to receive my food tray through the small hatch. Sometimes the food didn’t come. Other times we were given extra food and snacks. While the TV news played out horrifying information of fear and blame toward China, I worried how all the negative rhetoric would affect my health and sanity.

The first week of the pandemic, an elderly man who befriended me several months before March was the first person I knew to die with covid. My friend was 74 years old. He had a heart condition, pain in his legs that kept him wheelchair bound and medical breathing issues. I advised him to tell his attorney to file a court petition for medical release from prison based on his poor health and age. He was serving a two to four year sentence for a domestic argument and a gun in the house. My friend was wealthy due to a successful auto repair business. His petition for release was granted, and he was waiting for the paperwork to process. But when the prison shut down, every aspect of the system slowed down too. He was rushed to the hospital where he died.

He died from neglect, and a system blind to the common humanity of people in captivity. I realized something was amiss and would continue to happen. My understanding increased that old systems such as the prison industrial complex, die hard and at the expense of people’s lives. I know 11 men in prison who had lost their lives to covid since the pandemic.

Slavery ended, the denial of the right to vote for women ended, and it is time to end these massive institutions of death. The deaths started to happen within the prison.

Everyday, I heard of men going to the community hospital. Some recovered, but others didn’t. The men who died were those serving life sentences without parole. There is no parole for us in Pennsylvania with these sentences, and all of us lifers fear dying in prison alone in an isolation cell. Dead with no opportunity to show the world that men of all colors make bad decisions when they are young and reckless, and that we have innate powers that allow us to become people of character and trust.

That opportunity vanished for those eliminated by covid. Within my own heart, I questioned whether covid creates the medical agony and the stress that attacks the body and causes death or is it the system that prevents us from becoming changed people who receive second chances. While watching the news stations, mainly CNN, the dreadfulness of being helpless and unable to address my fears of catching the virus made solitary confinement more stressful than usual.

I noticed nothing was mentioned about how prisoners were being treated. Whenever someone attempted to suggest prisoners are in need of protection from covid, the conversation was cut off and turned toward another segment of society. I grew afraid that the pandemic would empower those with the ability to inflict distress on prisoners to make prison even worse.

Even though the news featured voices saying that our natural immune systems could beat the virus, I knew they were wrong. I was seeing death constantly. My worry grew not just for those of us in the prison system but for the regular citizens of the world.

Masks were given out. I had to ask for an extra mask and was granted one. Block workers wiped down the telephones and showers multiple times a day with disinfectant. The floors were mopped several times each day. I must admit SCI Phoenix was doing all they could. The prison TV station ran daily and weekly warnings with updates. The administration even released a weekly newsletter which included the names of those who died and suggestions to follow to protect ourselves.

People continued to die as the months wore on. I knew every single one of them: mostly life-term prisoners. The cloud of worry grew heavier because they were me. I am an elderly prisoner, 70-years-old. To date, I do not have any underlying illnesses that would land me on the increased covid risk list. I felt each and every death as a person who did not need to die. The roller coaster of lockdown just got rougher.

Whenever covid broke out in our prison that specific housing unit went on an airtight lockdown. I went on lockdown at least a total of five times. Each lockdown lasted 5-10 days without any yard time, no phone calls, emails or showers. All medicine and food is delivered to your 9.5 x 12 cell. After a week or two, the restrictions loosen. When lockdown lifts, I have 45 minutes out of my cell with seven other men. Every other day, I get 45 min of outside yard time.

Covid brought many elements of the system and my humanity into close examination. I was given a cell partner to share my cell for the first time in decades. The cell is a bathroom sized place where I read, sleep, exercise, pray and watch TV – and hope that one day my door opens to my freedom. One day I had dizzy spells and almost passed out. I was taken to the outside hospital. They diagnosed me with vertigo. I appreciate and respect the medical care I received under this pandemic.

The mental rub comes from the way I had to get it: handcuffed around my wrists, ankles and waist as if I was some wild beast ready to jump on any human being. While in the hospital cuffed to the bed, one wrist and ankle is left free from the bed frame. Two or three prison guards with weapons stand watch 24 hours a day. In all my life, it is one of the most dehumanizing positions I have ever experienced.

I laid in the wonderful hospital bed, thinking of the many women who I read were pregnant while in prison and had to endure the same treatment of shackling like they were the “number one enemy.” I asked myself, “All of this wasted human energy, wealth and time just to show a massive force?”

People sentenced to prison or pre-trial custody remain human beings. The prison systems remain enslaved to a primitive and punitive 15th and 16th century model of inflicting pain and injury to the psychological stability of women and men. Security and maintaining control has served no good purpose except to create more police authority and repression of the human right to breathe as a person. All the prisons are being used to suffocate human development. Covid enhanced the punitive aspect of sentencing.

In America, sentencing is supposed to represent punishment, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation. These four elements are meant to remake the human being so that person can witness their own wicked ways and return to society as a productive person.

We’ve been made to believe that the system is not set up to meet the pandemic. This is false because systems are made up of men. The solution and intelligent way to combat covid is releasing incarcerated women and men in federal and state prisons and jails. This would keep the virus out of the prison systems.

Prisoners didn’t spread or create covid. Many of us have been locked out of society for decades, some as long as 30 years. We have not been sentenced to death. If so, we should have been executed decades ago. Yet we are now facing a death sentence amid the pandemic.

Covid is another dreadful reality where people in prison who are not considered full citizens of civil society remain in spiteful conditions. Even when death knocks at each of our steel doors, our lives are of no concern to the greatest nation ever on earth.

North Carolina’s police accountability bills fail to address systemic police violence and enact widespread reform

The state’s Republican controlled government struggled to pass police reform in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Activists say the few bills passed focus too little on systemic racism.

By Abby Ilfeld

When North Carolina sheriff deputies killed Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man, with five shots, including one to the back of his head, on April 21, 2021, the governor’s 2020 task force focused on racial equality and criminal justice reform had already delivered over 100 recommendations on police accountability, body camera footage release, cannabis legalization and more to the legislature. Brown’s death highlighted the urgent need for police reform in the state.

Less than a month after deputies killed Brown, a Republican-controlled legislature took only a handful of the recommendations and proposed just a few bills focused on individual law enforcement accountability. The bipartisan bills based on the recommendations encompassed a small fraction of the proposals and left out bans on police chokeholds, public access to body camera footage, bail reform, steps toward legalizing cannabis while ending qualified immunity.

A bipartisan bill motivated by the killing of Brown which expanded access to body camera footage for victim’s families was just recently rewritten after pressure from the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association, a lobbying group, to the outcry of Democrats and racial justice advocates.

Like many state governments, North Carolina talked big about police reform after protests swept the nation following the murder of George Floyd. But the low number of task force recommendations adopted to bills and the entanglement those bills faced from law enforcement lobbying groups and Republicans demonstrate the difficulty of turning social movements into real criminal justice and police reform in Republican controlled states like North Carolina. Some states have even increased law enforcement protection and passed anti-rioting bills that target protesters.

North Carolina falls in the lower half of the annual rates for police killings, but Black people in the state are still two times more likely to be killed by the police than white people, according to Mapping Police Violence. Nationally, law enforcement kills Black people at three times the rate of white people despite Black people being 1.3 times more likely to be unarmed.

Activists are concerned that a “bad apple” focus, where reform addresses individual bad police officers versus the larger law enforcement structure and role, does not confront the root of systemic racism and police brutality. Critics also question whether North Carolina’s individual police accountability bills will be effective without protection for whistleblowers within departments and with no reduction in qualified immunity. Legislation intended to protect whistleblowers in the past such as the 2019 House Bill 715 failed partly due to pushback from groups like the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association.

Republicans in North Carolina proposed bills in May 2021 aimed at increasing transparency in police departments and improving officers’ accountability through a statewide duty-to-intervene mandate, mandatory mental health screenings, measures to prevent officers with infractions or misconduct charges from jumping around to different departments and expansion of access to body-camera footage to families of police violence victims.

These proposals followed the 125 recommendations in December 2020 from the North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice. The task force’s suggested ways to improve racial equity within the state’s law enforcement and judicial system as well as strategies for implementation.

The bills gained broad support from former members of the governor’s task force, police organizations, lawmakers and criminal justice activists in North Carolina. Fred Baggett, the Legislative Counsel for the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police, expressed “complete support” for the recent bills, but he said he had no desire for further legislation, including that protection for whistleblowers in departments is “not necessary.”

Some see the lack of pushback from a Republican-controlled state as a sign that the legislation is not drastic enough to enact real change.

“I wanted to make sure that things on the agenda were things that could actually get passed,” Rep. John Szoka (R-NC), who co-sponsored the house police accountability bills, said. He was moved to act after witnessing protests in Raleigh last summer.

A former Lieutenant Colonel in the army, Szoka was particularly concerned with passing the statewide duty-to-intervene to protect “people from another George Floyd situation.” Military officers are bound by the Geneva Conventions to interfere if they see a fellow soldier violating someone’s human rights, and Szoka believes police in America should be held to the same standard.

He emphasized that policies to intervene in departments across the state were not strong enough. The personal awakenings of some Republican lawmakers did not change the political system they work within.

“Lawmakers have to start with mild reform [especially in conservative states],” Lauren Bond, the Legal Director of the National Police Accountability Project, said. But she is not convinced about the state’s approach: “By framing police misconduct as an issue of individual bad actors, policymakers are failing to undertake systemic reforms,” she said. In both the killing of Daunte Wright and George Floyd the officers who killed the Black men were also responsible for training officers. Derek Chauvin also had a long history of abusing use of force.

She points to reforms that focus less on training and individual officers and instead eliminate or reduce qualified immunity, which often legally protects officers who kill a person on the job.

“I can’t say the [North Carolina] bills will make a major difference,” Bond said. “I won’t say incremental reforms are useless, it’s helpful if we can save even one person from police violence,” she added.

North Carolina falls behind states like New Mexico, Colorado and Connecticut that limit qualified immunity, states like New York, New Jersey, and Virginia that legalized marijuana, and states like Minnesota, Nevada and Virginia that restricted police chokeholds. Compared to its southern neighbors where similar police accountability bills have been shot down by conservative figures, the state moved more swiftly.

“We have seen unprecedented recognition from conservative lawmakers that policing is in need of reform,” Bond said. And in some ways, Bond continued, “police conduct is being more restricted and monitored than ever before.” She pointed to “incredible progress” in some states towards the end of qualified immunity and to Washington and Wisconsin which both banned chokeholds.

“[This] wouldn’t have been feasible politically before 2020,” she said.

“There could always be more momentum,” Mary Pollard, part of the governor’s task force said of the slow pace of reform. Pollard is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services, which oversees legal representation for people unable to hire lawyers in North Carolina.

“It’s still [the] early days,” she said, and stressed that more progressive bills — like ones that would address qualified immunity — are in North Carolina’s future.

Rep. James Gailliard (D-NC), a former task force, believes the bills passed this year, like the statewide duty to intervene, will be successful — not only with decreasing police brutality — but also in changing the culture surrounding police brutality and criminal justice in this country.

“It may have to be slow, but it will hopefully be effective,” he said. He is still adamant that more progressive reform is an urgent necessity and said he was disappointed that more recommendations were not taken up by the legislature.

Gailliard said criminal justice is still at the top of his priorities and he is confident that he is not alone, but along with law enforcement reform has come increased protection for officers.

Around the country, policymakers have enacted legislation that increased protection for law enforcement over the past year. In Georgia, the governor signed a bill that bans local governments from defunding the police. Iowa codified qualified immunity, effectively strengthening officers’ immunity and also increased penalties for crimes committed during protests.

In North Carolina, an anti-rioting bill was passed with the other police reform bills. It will increase charges and potentially fine people who engage in or present a threat of rioting. But people are concerned about the vague language defining rioting and worry it will become another avenue for police to abuse their power, especially against Black and brown people. Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Missouri have all proposed or passed anti-protest bills.

Increasing police protection is not an unusual reaction, explained Gailliard, adding, “especially, in such a polarized environment when parts of our culture have become anti-police, there are people who want to ensure that officers are themselves protected.” But this drive to increase protection while simultaneously reforming can cause a standstill. Gailliard calls the law enforcement lobbying groups often behind the blocking of these reforms, “our Achilles heel.”

Color of Change, an organization focused on racial inequity that impacts Black people, found that law enforcement political action committees have given a minimum of $55 million to Democratic and Republican politicians at the state and federal level.

The pervasive influence law enforcement groups and PACS have over legislatures may seem bleak to those hopeful for more progressive legislation, but there are people across the country fighting to end these groups’ sway. For example, Color of Change is leading an initiative to stop Congressmembers from accepting funds from the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest certified police organization.

When asked if there is still enough pressure for criminal justice to be a priority for state and federal governments, Bond said she believed there is. She is hopeful the George Floyd Policing Act, one of the most comprehensive justice bills to date, will pass in the Senate this year: a good indicator of how much energy is left at the national level for reform. However, Black Lives Matter activists proposed the much more progressive BREATHE Act, based on abolitionist beliefs, which has gained no traction.

North Carolina Democrats like Gailliard and advocates are hopeful of more far-reaching legislation soon. But if North Carolina represents the national average when it comes to criminal justice reform, there is no time to rest, especially when monolithic police unions loom over many legislators.

“Unfortunately [in states like North Carolina], it’s going to be very hard for anyone who wants to go further in reform to get the platform and momentum needed,” Bond said. As for Brown’s family, they just recently announced that they are federally suing North Carolina sheriff’s department and deputies who shot Brown in the head as he drove away from them. The lawsuit seeks $30 million in damages for his death.

“Why do we want to kill all the broken people?”

What one man’s journey to free men on death row in Alabama tells us about mercy and redemption, a peak into Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

By LJ Dawson

Founder of The Des and freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C.

“Why do we want to kill all the broken people? What is wrong with us, that we think a thing like that can be right?”

At a young age, Bryan Stevenson, a criminal defense lawyer, established a practice focused on freeing people Alabama’s notorious prisons and on death row from execution. While the rest of the country was slowly killing less people sentenced to death by the courts, Alabama’s execution rate went the opposite direction.

In 2014, he released a book about his journey and The Equal Justice Initiative, the nonprofit he started to represent death row inmates, that covers many angles of the justice system. It is a heartbreaking book which lays bare the human torture and cost wreaked by our broken justice system. But deeper than the facts and injustice held in Stevenson’s pages, he asks us all to deepen our empathy in the most uncomfortable way. Haven’t we all asked for mercy and redemption at one point in our lives? Don’t we all deserve mercy? Aren’t we all better than our worst day?

America destroys people, and Stevenson tells stories of many of his clients obliterated by poverty, systemic racism and abuse. People who you cannot believe were still breathing by the time they got to him and asked for criminal defense representation.

These people, broken by the state, mental illness, disability and poverty, instead of being met with healing, compassion and accountability are thrown away into prisons that violate numerous human rights, and are either sent to execution or returned to society more abused and traumatized than ever before.

“In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice,” Stevenson writes.

This is the clunky, sticky work of abolition and peering into the justice system: it demands we see people behind bars or otherwise caught up as no different from our own broken selves. It asks us to look deeply into their lives to understand people despite their crimes or level of innocence.

“We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent,” he writes. Stevenson goes further to say that very brokenness is what makes us human.

“Sometimes we are fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion,” he writes.

How are you broken? When have you received compassion and mercy when you were undeserving of it? What makes us believe that we can deny the same to anyone else?

What could it mean to treat people with love and compassion instead of punishment? How different would our world look?

Stevenson chronicles how he witnessed victims of violent crime and their loved ones pressured “to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute.” This often leaves the families without closure and throws the defendants life away. Stevenson confronts the reader:

“We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.”

“If we all just acknowledged our brokenness, if we owned up to our weaknesses, or deficits, our biases, our fears. Maybe if we did, we wouldn’t want to kill the broken among us who have killed others.”

And possibly this is the only way to break our cycle of harm:

“The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that it’s most potent — strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering.”

What does mercy mean to you and where does it fit in your life?

Stepping in front of the gun

On the frontlines of the rise in homicides: an interview with a D.C. violence interrupter who works to stop murders and fights on the city’s notorious Good Hope Road

By LJ Dawson

Founder of The Des and freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C.

It’s a normal day for Sunny, a 22-year-old violence interrupter on Good Hope Road in Southeast D.C. He’s snapping Instagram photos for a friend, taking phones passed to him with calls from D.C’s jail, answering questions while dapping up cousins and friends alike. He’ll spend most of his day outside on the block in the middle of a constant barrage of swirling people.

But this is his job: to stay completely checked into his neighborhood and community to make it safer and healthier. He is supposed to see things before they happen and stop them. It’s a big task in D.C.’s historic Anacostia, a predominantly Black neighborhood that thrums with life and music but that is also notorious for its violence. Southeast D.C. is an area of the city that has seen disinvestment over decades. It continues to lack resources as the rest of D.C. falls to gentrification. Both Ward 7 and 8 continually log the highest murder rates in the city.

This year, 70 people have been killed in D.C. as of May 15, over 30 percent more than the same time last year. Formerly deadliest city in America, D.C. saw a plummet in killings in the last two decades, but the districts’ murders are back on the rise.

As a violence interrupter, Sunny is part of the effort to staunch the killing. He regularly jumps in between pointed guns and fighting people but he also puts on cookouts and regularly connects people to the resources they need. It’s a dangerous job: violence interrupters have been shot and killed. But it’s also effective.

From the neighborhood and often formerly incarcerated, violence interrupters work on the most violent blocks and street corners in cities across the country to stop violence before it escalates to fights and shootings. These men and women DO NOT work with the police. Instead, they develop close relationships with youth and their community to intervene in conflicts before they turn violent or deadly. As pressure grows to address safety without police, the use of violence interrupters is gaining new traction as a way to save lives from gun violence and incarceration.

In the nation’s Capital, violence interrupters work under the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement. Two separate groups work in Northwest, east and Southeast neighborhoods. The Des sat down in April with Sunny who works on the infamous Good Hope Road in Southeast. Sunny, who grew up in an area of D.C. called “Choppa City” or Historic Anacostia, started working for J&J Monitoring and the Far Southeast Collaborative in 2019 as a violence interrupter.

He completed extensive training to work in the position, but his biggest qualification comes from where he grew up. “I was born and raised around this neighborhood. So I actually know everything, and I know everybody, and they also got love for me and respect too,” he says.

“We went through a hundred trainings in 2019 before the pandemic. I went through training and I learned skills that I never knew.” He added, “I’ve been a peacemaker before this training, I didn’t need training to do this, but I definitely needed them to do the mediation.”

In the de-escalation training, he learned skills that allow him to build bonds and trust with youth. He also learned engagement skills. “When I am one-on-one with you, I’m talking to you about your lifestyle: ‘Okay, are you living at home? Do you need any case management?’ I refer them to case management.”

“Basically, me being engaged and me just being a part of their life for them to understand that I’m here. They don’t want nobody to just walk into their life and then walk right out,” Sunny said.

In cities like D.C. where few days this year have gone without a stabbing or shooting death, it’s hard to see the violence stopping. But to Sunny it’s simple: give the youth something to do other than be on the streets.

“I got the sauce on how to stop the violence.” He said people are always commenting on the people involved in the violence and judging them which doesn’t stop the violence. “But guess what, y’all have to provide for these people who have an impact on violence.”

“Not giving me invoices or money for cookouts. These people need steady jobs, these people need homes that they are safe in and sometimes [they just need] love.”

“I’m talking about youth from age nine and even men that still ain’t got it together at the age of 35. You got men looking up to young’ins that’s 24, and they’ve been out here all their life”

Sunny says Choppa city needs a recreation center that’s open even during virtual school and pandemics. “A place to show your talent, a place for you to work on your talent and a place for you to feel safe after school.”

Without a productive space to go, violence is created. “When there ain’t no recreations and nowhere in the community, there ain’t nothing else to do,” he says.

The violence is nuanced and chaotic and complicated. To outsiders, it doesn’t make sense. It can start between neighborhoods, families or friends. But Sunny understands it, he witnesses it everyday.

“It could be little things that start the violence. People that don’t ever step foot in these communities will never know what started [or] what triggered it. It could be over a burger. So you need people that can relate like me. I’m relatable to these people. They don’t want nobody they can’t relate to changing their lifestyles because now they can make you an enemy. They gonna think you’re trying to tell me how to live instead of trying to build a bond and help them.”

Sunny’s job is to pay special attention to the youth who are watching the older teenagers and young adults. “Them the most important ones. Because once they get fifteen to sixteen, they ready to carry that pistol.”

Being a violence interrupter on the front lines is dangerous. A few weeks before Sunny talked with The Des, he jumped in front of two guns in just one week. “I hopped in front of two guns, twice. I could have lost my life, but I didn’t want to see them lose their life either.

“But they weren’t gonna shoot in front of me. They weren’t about to shoot me. Even though their emotions could have ‘bahhh’ and I still could have gotten hit. God put me in front of both of them guns,” Sunny says.

“Me jumping in front of those guns wasn’t for my job, I swear. That was for them, I was trying to save them because one person will get killed and one of them throw their life away.”

Euphoria laid bare the pitfalls of the criminalizing addiction

Recent Articles

Eaten up by the system

Our Latest

Covid-19 rips through West Virginia women’s prison as federal agency takes heat

Recent Articles

‘so in your face you can’t ignore it’

The Des: Why did you found More Than Our Crimes?

The Des: What is your greatest achievement in criminal justice reform so far?

The Des: What do you think is the most pressing issue in the Washington D.C. criminal justice system?

The Des: What is your organization doing to solve this problem?

The Des: What is your advice for the average citizen, who has little or no experience with activism, but wants to get involved?

Our Latest

Christmas inside: a lifer’s look into how the holiday behind bars has changed

Over a million people in America will celebrate Christmas inside, we hear from one man in Pennsylvania

Our Latest

Do 51-Year life sentences make sense for juveniles?

Our Latest

Death Knocking on My Cell Door

North Carolina’s police accountability bills fail to address systemic police violence and enact widespread reform

The state’s Republican controlled government struggled to pass police reform in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Activists say the few bills passed focus too little on systemic racism.

“Why do we want to kill all the broken people?”

What one man’s journey to free men on death row in Alabama tells us about mercy and redemption, a peak into Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

“Why do we want to kill all the broken people? What is wrong with us, that we think a thing like that can be right?”

Stepping in front of the gun

On the frontlines of the rise in homicides: an interview with a D.C. violence interrupter who works to stop murders and fights on the city’s notorious Good Hope Road

“Basically, me being engaged and me just being a part of their life for them to understand that I’m here. They don’t want nobody to just walk into their life and then walk right out,” Sunny said.

“But they weren’t gonna shoot in front of me. They weren’t about to shoot me. Even though their emotions could have ‘bahhh’ and I still could have gotten hit. God put me in front of both of them guns,” Sunny says.