"The banality of heroism is why, when people ask what they can do about the seemingly unsurmountable problem of mass incarceration and mass injustice, beyond donating to organizations or showing up at rallies, I offer simple advice:
Be conscious. Learn about the problems and the solutions. Then spread the word, to anyone who will listen--whether it is your friend, your bus driver, the random person you chat with on the street corner. You're an educator if you want to be. And you never know when some small progressive seed will sprout and flourish and produce change...
Changing policy is what will ultimately change reality, yes--but changed policy is a result of changed public consciousness. We all have a hand in that mission."
-- Baz Dreisinger, Incarcerated Nations: A Journey to Justice In Prisons Around the World (Other Press, 2016)
My name is Dustin Gordon (IncarceratedStudentsThoughts.blogspot.com), and my friend Bryan Noonan and I are writing guest blog posts for each other. I wanted to begin with a quote by Baz because I am often asked by friends and others what difference they can make in the larger scheme of things. Very few have time to organize or attend rallies or conferences, but each and every one of us has the time to speak to those within our spheres of influence. Changing the public consciousness concerning issues like mass incarceration, mandatory minimums, or other injustices is a huge mission that everyone who is knowledgeable concerning the issues can engage in.
Becoming knowledgeable about the injustices and disparities found within our cities, states, countries, and the world at large can be difficult, but there are many people working very hard to make this information easily accessible to all those who are interested. Magazines like GEEZ, which can be ordered through www.geezmagazine.com, and websites like www.SocialJusticeResourceCenter.org are two great examples of places where people can go to find information on injustices in our societies and ways they can help to make a difference.
Consciously making an effort to affect change is never easy, but it is necessary if we want to live in a better world. The least that each and every one of us can do is to make others aware of the injustices that exist. It is so easy in today's society to insulate ourselves from the injustices that others experience. Many good hearted and compassionate people are walking around with blinders that they do not know they are wearing. A short conversation or an email with someone unaware of their blinders has the potential to set off a chain of events that affects countless others. I hope everyone reading this blog discusses a topic concerning injustice this week with someone they come across. Do your part to help change public consciousness.
(Bryan's shameless plug: You can start conversations with others by sending them the link to this blog and asking them to read some posts so you can discuss them together.)
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
The Forgotten Victims
Mother's Day is often a difficult day for those in prison, but I imagine it is immensely more difficult for the mothers of those prisoners. The pain of seeing one's son or daughter sent to prison for harming someone else is a pain I can only imagine. It crushes me to know my own mother had to experience that pain and still has to deal with the pain of not having her son free. I'd like nothing more than to make my mom's day special, but I'm in prison, restricted to a phone call or email. I'd like to make the day special for the mother of my children too, but I can't do that either.
When someone commits a crime, many people suffer for it. But today I want to acknowledge my own mother and the other mothers who have suffered the agony of knowing their child harmed someone else and who have suffered their own loss as a result. You moms, including my own, who have stood by your incarcerated children, reassuring them that they are still loved and valued even when they did wrong...you deserve more than a phone call, email, or handmade card. You deserve recognition for your warrior spirit. You deserve recognition for your unconditional love.
Some of us have been very unloving, but you've loved us anyway. Your examples give us something to live up to, something to aspire to. For all you have done, for all you continue to do, but most of all for who you are: Thank you!!
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
I love you Mom!
When someone commits a crime, many people suffer for it. But today I want to acknowledge my own mother and the other mothers who have suffered the agony of knowing their child harmed someone else and who have suffered their own loss as a result. You moms, including my own, who have stood by your incarcerated children, reassuring them that they are still loved and valued even when they did wrong...you deserve more than a phone call, email, or handmade card. You deserve recognition for your warrior spirit. You deserve recognition for your unconditional love.
Some of us have been very unloving, but you've loved us anyway. Your examples give us something to live up to, something to aspire to. For all you have done, for all you continue to do, but most of all for who you are: Thank you!!
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
I love you Mom!
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Prison Food Problems Continue
On April 30, 2017 the Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan's prison food service vendor, Trinity, was fined $2.1 million for service failures. This fine was the result of the MDOC's new 24-person service monitoring unit that costs the department $2.8 million to operate. Trinity is the food service vendor that replaced Aramark when they terminated their three-year contract with the MDOC early after repeated problems.
While I applaud the department's efforts to keep contracting services accountable for the services they agreed to provide, according to the Free Press the monitoring unit levied this fine because of such things as "unauthorized meal substitutions, delays in serving meals, inadequate staffing levels and sanitation issues, among other problems." These problems are serious enough to be addressed by the monitoring unit, but there are much greater problems with the service that Trinity provides.
Although Trinity is hardly the only prison food service provider to have these problems, Michigan's prisoners would like to see the MDOC address the issues of food quality and quantity. At the facility where I am housed, two inmates (I was one of them!) recently found larva or maggots in our spinach (about a week between incidents). In one case, Trinity staff acknowledged the problem but refused to remove the item from the serving line (this would have required a replacement). Officers who were made aware of the problem just shrugged their shoulders and did nothing. In the second incident both Trinity staff and officers responded quickly to remove the offending item from the line and documented the problem. But maggots are hardly the only problem with the quality of food being served to prisoners. The vegetables being served are often animal feed quality, not the sort fit for human consumption.
I don't think prisoners should expect to have gourmet quality food. It is prison after all. However, the State of Michigan does have a duty to ensure the food they are serving prisoners is eatable and provides the adequate nutrition necessary for a healthy diet. Yet, the very carb-heavy, low quality food is not only not nutritious, it is often so old or low quality that it may actually be harmful to our health.
Director Washington has taken a positive step in monitoring service providers and keeping them accountable; she should be commended. This action should save the State money for services not properly rendered. But who are the ones that end up suffering for these service shortages? It is the prisoners. I would suggest that if the problem directly affects prisoners, maybe the fine that is levied ought to be paid to the prisoners. Officers and administrators would hate that, so maybe they would do more to ensure compliance by the contracts at a facility level.
While I applaud the department's efforts to keep contracting services accountable for the services they agreed to provide, according to the Free Press the monitoring unit levied this fine because of such things as "unauthorized meal substitutions, delays in serving meals, inadequate staffing levels and sanitation issues, among other problems." These problems are serious enough to be addressed by the monitoring unit, but there are much greater problems with the service that Trinity provides.
Although Trinity is hardly the only prison food service provider to have these problems, Michigan's prisoners would like to see the MDOC address the issues of food quality and quantity. At the facility where I am housed, two inmates (I was one of them!) recently found larva or maggots in our spinach (about a week between incidents). In one case, Trinity staff acknowledged the problem but refused to remove the item from the serving line (this would have required a replacement). Officers who were made aware of the problem just shrugged their shoulders and did nothing. In the second incident both Trinity staff and officers responded quickly to remove the offending item from the line and documented the problem. But maggots are hardly the only problem with the quality of food being served to prisoners. The vegetables being served are often animal feed quality, not the sort fit for human consumption.
I don't think prisoners should expect to have gourmet quality food. It is prison after all. However, the State of Michigan does have a duty to ensure the food they are serving prisoners is eatable and provides the adequate nutrition necessary for a healthy diet. Yet, the very carb-heavy, low quality food is not only not nutritious, it is often so old or low quality that it may actually be harmful to our health.
Director Washington has taken a positive step in monitoring service providers and keeping them accountable; she should be commended. This action should save the State money for services not properly rendered. But who are the ones that end up suffering for these service shortages? It is the prisoners. I would suggest that if the problem directly affects prisoners, maybe the fine that is levied ought to be paid to the prisoners. Officers and administrators would hate that, so maybe they would do more to ensure compliance by the contracts at a facility level.
Saturday, May 6, 2017
Toxic Shame: A Recipe For Increased Crime?
Shame is an important aspect of healthy healing and rehabilitation from one's aberrant thoughts and behaviors; however, in order for shame to lead to healing, it must be the type of shame that leads to repentance and restoration. John Braithwaite, a pioneer in modern restorative justice practices, calls this reintegrative shaming.
(1) The shame we feel when we do something wrong is supposed to hurt; it's supposed to make us feel badly about ourselves. But it is also supposed to lead us to correct our bad thoughts and behavior, and it ought to lead to restoration for those who are truly repentant and changed.
The problem with shame is that as a whole it is rarely experienced in reintegrative form. The justice system and prison systems in the United States are designed to reinforce toxic shame that leads one to feel hopelessly defective or flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and acceptance. Nobody wants to feel hopelessly defective and unworthy of society's acceptance, so these feelings may lead one to a feeling of coldness or deadness. According to psychiatrist James Gilligan, this deadened feeling is the result of constant shaming; he calls this overwhelming shame "mortification"
(2) Gilligan states, "Shame, like cold, is, in essence, the absence of warmth. And when it reaches overwhelming intensity, shame is experienced, like cold, as a feeling of numbness and deadness"
(3) He goes on to compare this cold deadness to the lowest circle of hell in Dante's Inferno.
While society has an interest in protecting itself from those who commit crimes, it also has an interest in ensuring that those incarcerated citizens who return to society do so without this feeling of deadness as a result of mortification. This toxic form of shame may actually lead to higher rates of violence and other crimes because those who are under constant shaming may believe they have no other recourse than to live up to the expectations of the society that is shaming them. Psychologists call this phenomenon self-fulfilling prophesy.
Restorative justice focuses on making shame restorative. Shameful behavior must be acknowledged as such, but the person who committed shameful behavior, and the one against whom the shameful behavior was committed, must not be made to feel that they are worthless as a result of that behavior. Restorative justice ensures that the cycle of shame, which according to Braithwaite may lead to a shame-rage spiral
(4) is broken by pursuing reintegration and joint healing between the victim and offender.
It might make society feel better treating offenders as they deserve--with constant shaming, but if we are to break the cycles of crime that result from this toxic shame, we must be intentional about choosing a different way. That doesn't mean rejecting shame entirely, but it means intentionally using the shame that should result from the commission of a crime to lead to correction and a path towards restoration.
----------------------
(1) Braithwaite, John. "Restorative Justice and a Better Future." Restorative Justice: Critical Issues. Ed. Eugene McLaughlin, et all. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc., 2004. 54-64.
(2) Gilligan, James. "Violence: Reflections on Our Deadliest Epidemic" qtd. in So You've Been Publicly Shamed (Jon Ronson) p. 250 (215) (publisher unknown)
(3) Ibid.
(4) Braithwaite, ibid at 56.
(1) The shame we feel when we do something wrong is supposed to hurt; it's supposed to make us feel badly about ourselves. But it is also supposed to lead us to correct our bad thoughts and behavior, and it ought to lead to restoration for those who are truly repentant and changed.
The problem with shame is that as a whole it is rarely experienced in reintegrative form. The justice system and prison systems in the United States are designed to reinforce toxic shame that leads one to feel hopelessly defective or flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and acceptance. Nobody wants to feel hopelessly defective and unworthy of society's acceptance, so these feelings may lead one to a feeling of coldness or deadness. According to psychiatrist James Gilligan, this deadened feeling is the result of constant shaming; he calls this overwhelming shame "mortification"
(2) Gilligan states, "Shame, like cold, is, in essence, the absence of warmth. And when it reaches overwhelming intensity, shame is experienced, like cold, as a feeling of numbness and deadness"
(3) He goes on to compare this cold deadness to the lowest circle of hell in Dante's Inferno.
While society has an interest in protecting itself from those who commit crimes, it also has an interest in ensuring that those incarcerated citizens who return to society do so without this feeling of deadness as a result of mortification. This toxic form of shame may actually lead to higher rates of violence and other crimes because those who are under constant shaming may believe they have no other recourse than to live up to the expectations of the society that is shaming them. Psychologists call this phenomenon self-fulfilling prophesy.
Restorative justice focuses on making shame restorative. Shameful behavior must be acknowledged as such, but the person who committed shameful behavior, and the one against whom the shameful behavior was committed, must not be made to feel that they are worthless as a result of that behavior. Restorative justice ensures that the cycle of shame, which according to Braithwaite may lead to a shame-rage spiral
(4) is broken by pursuing reintegration and joint healing between the victim and offender.
It might make society feel better treating offenders as they deserve--with constant shaming, but if we are to break the cycles of crime that result from this toxic shame, we must be intentional about choosing a different way. That doesn't mean rejecting shame entirely, but it means intentionally using the shame that should result from the commission of a crime to lead to correction and a path towards restoration.
----------------------
(1) Braithwaite, John. "Restorative Justice and a Better Future." Restorative Justice: Critical Issues. Ed. Eugene McLaughlin, et all. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc., 2004. 54-64.
(2) Gilligan, James. "Violence: Reflections on Our Deadliest Epidemic" qtd. in So You've Been Publicly Shamed (Jon Ronson) p. 250 (215) (publisher unknown)
(3) Ibid.
(4) Braithwaite, ibid at 56.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)