by Bill Keller, editor-in-chief of the Marshall Project and former executive editor of the New York TimesAs commissioner of corrections for the State of Maine, Joseph Ponte allowed a team from PBS Frontline to embed itself in the notorious solitary confinement ward of a maximum-security prison.The resulting 2014 documentary, six weeks of access distilled into an excruciating hour of television, is hard to watch. Inmates cut themselves with razor blades and smear blood on the walls and tiny windows of their cells. They send eddies of human waste under the steel doors. The racket of wailing misery and catatonic fury is hellish. It is an in-your-face exposé of conditions unworthy of a civilized society.
"The walls and razor wire surrounding prisons at times seem to serve dual purposes: to keep the inmates inside, and to keep everyone else out." —Jennifer Gonnerman
by Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, as told to Rory TolanThis spring, Kalief Browder, a young resident of New York City, hanged himself in his mother's apartment after being released from jail. He landed there as a teenager in 2010 for allegedly stealing a backpack, but he was never convicted. In fact his case, later dismissed, never made it to trial. Like many of his peers on Rikers Island, Browder languished in jail for three years—spending 400 days in solitary confinement—because his family couldn't afford his $3,000 bail.
The question of bail should be at the heart of any debate about justice reform, since it currently discriminates against people without means.
by Nicole D. Porter, director of advocacy for the Sentencing ProjectIf the United States is to succeed in scaling back the prison population, our country must revise its sentencing schemes. Congress and legislative bodies in almost every state have enacted laws—mandatory minimums, three-strikes policies that lead to life sentences, and truth-in-sentencing provisions that deny parole—that send more people to prison and incarcerate them for longer periods of time. In addition, the share of prison admissions for persons who violate parole—many for technical violations, not new crimes—has doubled in recent decades, from one in six in the 1980s to one in three today. Those interested in reform must demand new public safety priorities that diminish excessive prison sentences, prioritize evidence-based interventions that reduce the involvement of legal authorities, and establish community-based initiatives in high-incarceration neighborhoods that many defendants of color call home.There is reason to be cautiously optimistic, as some states have seen modest reductions due to changes in sentencing laws and practices. In recent years, California rolled back its three-strike statutes, allowing certain prisoners to be resentenced; New Jersey reduced sentencing enhancements for drug offenses; and New York diverted certain people convicted of drug crimes away from prison. These states have seen prison populations drop by about 25 percent, while experiencing greater declines in both property and violent crimes than other states. In New York the reduction in those sentenced for drug offenses also contributed to less racial disparity among incarcerated women, 90 percent of whom were African American or Latino. Cutting down on prison admissions for persons sentenced for drug offenses will inevitably lead to a decline in racial disparity overall.
by Jonathan Rapping, founder and president of Gideon's Promise and former MacArthur FellowWhen Hillary Clinton recently told Black Lives Matter activists, "I don't believe you change hearts, I believe you change laws," she revealed a philosophy shaped by a career in politics. Conditioned to see the answer to every problem through a policy lens, Clinton cannot imagine altering people's assumptions. But the activists to whom she spoke understand that injustice is driven by the values we embrace, and that to achieve long-lasting change, our country must alter how it feels about minorities and the poor. In the criminal justice system, no one is better positioned to drive this effort than public defenders, who are the voice of 80 percent of those accused of crimes.
by Marie Gottschalk, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American PoliticsThe late William Stuntz of Harvard Law School once characterized prosecutors as the real lawmakers of the criminal justice system because the penal code grants them enormous leeway. Changes in prosecutorial behavior over the past two decades have been leading drivers of the escalating incarceration rate. Much of the growth in prison admissions since the 1970s was not the result of judicial decisions to increase the use of prison sentences. It was due to a rise in the number of felonies that district attorneys brought forward and successfully prosecuted and an increase in the time served by people convicted of violent offenses.
by Nancy G. La Vigne, director of the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, and Janine M. Zweig, senior fellow at the Justice Policy CenterPresident Obama recently criticized American culture for being one in which prison-rape jokes are socially acceptable. During these remarks, he made the case that those who find themselves incarcerated should have the opportunity to reflect on their lives, recognize their errors, and make plans for a better and more productive future.
But it's not just the physical environment that makes correctional facilities safe—it's the people who work there. In a study of jail inmates with mental health issues, the leading suggestion about enhancing safety was to improve the quality of staff. We've found that training staff in how to identify inmates in crisis and direct them to treatment and services can have a positive impact on how they approach their jobs and interact with inmates. Corrections administrators should seek ways to train, motivate, and incentivize officers to approach their jobs with the highest degree of professionalism and develop accountability and performance measures.Inmates also have a role to play in preventing violence. Based on efforts to reduce sexual assault on college campuses, we know that bystander-intervention trainings have shown some success. Similar approaches might be adapted for prison, jail, and juvenile facilities. These trainings could teach inmates how to prevent or interrupt situations before or as they happen and may help create a culture that rejects sexual violence. Critical to this approach would be to provide inmates a safe and confidential way to report concerns to facility staff—without fear of reprisal or retaliation—if they are not comfortable themselves intervening.But fear of harm and actual experiences with violence during incarceration fly in the face of this goal and undermine one of the primary purposes of serving time: rehabilitation.
by Scott Budnick, film producer and founder of the Anti-Recidivism CoalitionAbout ten years ago, a friend in the movie industry invited me to attend a writing workshop at Sylmar Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles County with the InsideOUT Writers program. I immediately signed on to teach classes and began visiting juvenile halls weekly to mentor incarcerated youth. As I was creating hit comedies in Hollywood, I was witnessing firsthand how the cycle of trauma, crime, incarceration, and recidivism destroys individuals, families, and communities across Los Angeles.But I also saw incredible resiliency. I saw that with support and encouragement, young people whom the system was ready to give up on could change their mind-set, leave crime behind, and contribute positively to their communities. I learned that many incarcerated individuals want to change their stories and begin to make up for the pain and destruction their crimes have caused. They just need the chance. So I left Hollywood in 2013 and founded the Anti-Recidivism Coalition.
by Raphael Sperry, president of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, and Deanna Van Buren, principal of FOURM Design StudioThe growing call for prison reform raises many questions about the shape of our criminal justice system, but its literal shape—its physical structure—is often forgotten in these discussions.As legislators, advocates, and community members push for alternatives to incarceration, we must also rethink the spaces in which we conduct justice. Previous waves of penal reform were accompanied by new styles of prisons, from the 19th century's first penitentiaries (an innovative building type at the time), to the "big house" cellblocks of the Prohibition era, to the warehouses and dayrooms of recent decades. But today's demands for buildings are different. As our organization, Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, has long argued, the ingenuity and resources that went into building newer, "better" prisons helped create the horrors of mass incarceration we are starting to undo. We need to build something else entirely, not better prisons, to fix this problem.Architects and designers are starting to identify how new types of structures in communities can improve the effectiveness of alternative approaches to addressing crime. One such approach is restorative justice, a peacemaking process that puts reparations at the victim's discretion, not the system's. Rather than punishing offenders with an arbitrary prison sentence, restorative justice programs emphasize the need to reconcile criminals with their victims, to make up for their crimes in ways agreeable to their communities.Many of these programs, gaining traction in cities throughout the United States, are now run in the buildings of public agencies that can hinder their goals. For instance, having a victim and perpetrator meet in a courthouse or a police station can set the wrong tone: The security presence can make everyone feel like a suspect, and there are typically no spaces where participants can speak in confidence. Taking people out of their neighborhood and to a location of authority reinforces the message that the justice system is over and above the victim and the offender.In Syracuse, New York, the Near Westside Peacemaking Project, by FOURM Design Studio and the Center for Court Innovation, is a cutting-edge example of design for alternative justice programming. In order to integrate peacemaking practices into areas suffering from high levels of crime, an existing building in the community was adaptively reused. FOURM and CCI created a peacemaking area nested within a living room for community gathering and built reflection spaces, a kitchen for breaking bread, and room for one-on-one consultations with the appointed peacemaker. The integration of soft natural materials and local artwork provide a domestic, personal feel that is fitting for a justice process focused on healing relationships. The center provides neutral territory for these dialogues and is appropriately integrated in the neighborhood, both in size and in location.Scaling up the peacemaking approach doesn't necessarily mean making bigger centers; instead, it requires looking holistically at neighborhoods and entire cities to understand local assets, challenges, and opportunities. In Oakland, California, FOURM and the Institute for the Future worked with social workers, law enforcement, and local government to create the Restorative Justice City Map. This identifies areas where public services are lacking and proposes a network of new hubs that will bring together multiple alternative programs for addressing crime and violence. Other interventions include designing spaces that enhance neighborhood safety and expanding public schools into community centers that can provide health, adult-education, and other services that increase social cohesion.The design of spaces for alternatives to incarceration is just beginning, which makes these projects exciting but also challenging. They have little precedent, so planning must rely on extensive community engagement to gain understanding of the needs they should address—the end users are the real experts here. Involving the community creates a spirit of partnership and respect, which is essential to making a long-lasting impact on public safety.At its worst, prison design contributes to human rights violations—a prospect that ADPSR is working to prevent, through a proposed ban among architects on the design of execution chambers and solitary confinement spaces. But even at its best, prison design only responds to crime and violence after they have occurred. Architecture, design, and planning overall seek to solve problems before they occur. Criminal justice reform demands a new professional effort to design spaces where justice can be served in open air, not behind bars.TAKE NO PRISONERS
by Mariame Kaba, founding director of Project NIAIn 2015, it is hard to imagine an institution more harmful than a prison. With frequent reports of sexual assaults by correctional staff, hunger strikes by those opposing long-term solitary confinement, and many deaths in custody, prisons perpetuate violence and are antithetical to public safety.
In 2003, activist and scholar Angela Davis suggested that "our most difficult and urgent challenge to date is that of creatively exploring new terrains of justice where the prison no longer serves as our major anchor." Twelve years later, her admonition is more urgent and relevant than ever. Faced with the largest prison population on the planet, politicians in the US from Newt Gingrich to Hillary Clinton are rhetorically embracing the idea that mass incarceration is a national problem. Far fewer people, however, are ready to declare that prisons are fundamentally destructive and beyond reform. Both statements are true. As such, it is incumbent on all of us to collectively reimagine a viable and humane way to address our social problems beyond the endless cages. For these reasons and more, I am a prison abolitionist.Yes, some individuals in prison have caused great harm to people and to communities. This cannot be minimized. That's precisely why I am so passionate about the need to create community-based structures to address harm and to mediate conflicts. As a survivor of violence, I want safer communities. Notably, most people who do harm will never be imprisoned. Building community-based structures will allow us to focus on harms that our current systems of policing and punishment ignore, neglect, or are unable to resolve.From Ferguson to Baltimore, from Rikers Island to Guantánamo Bay, our prison nation ensures expensive and profound precarity and violence. Yet the current interventions posited as "alternatives to incarceration"—including drug treatment programs, boot camps, community-based supervision or probation, electronic monitoring, and community service—still depend on surveillance, containment, and sometimes punishment. We must create new forms of justice defined by principles of respect, interrelatedness, and mutuality, and we need to ask: Are prisons obsolete?Obviously, abolishing prisons is not something that will be accomplished easily, but we do have a growing community-accountability movement we can build on. Organizations and groups like Critical Resistance, Black & Pink, We Charge Genocide, Common Justice, the Audre Lorde Project, and my own organization, Project NIA, among many others, are practicing abolition every day. We are doing so by creating local projects and initiatives that offer alternative ideas and structures for mediating conflicts and addressing harms without relying on police or prisons.When I speak of abolition, I don't demand the immediate closing of all correctional facilities (though we can certainly accelerate the process through, for example, abolishing cash bail). The abolitionists I know understand that as a society we will always need to ensure accountability for people who repeatedly cause harm. Part of our work, then, must be to create the conditions necessary to ensure the possibility of a world without prisons. There are many vexing questions to puzzle through, but we can do this together. We must, we will, and we are.In 2015, it is hard to imagine an institution more harmful than a prison.