Re-Entry and Rebuilding Relationships with a Father After Prison

In recent weeks, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has spoken openly about his admiration for the outdated War on Drugs and Nancy Reagan’s zero tolerance drug campaign, “Just Say No.” This approach was ineffective and caused the US incarceration rate to skyrocket. When policies like these are enforced, the families of those who are incarcerated feel the impact most acutely. Children with incarcerated parents face a plethora of challenges. Those incarcerated find it increasingly difficult to secure successful reentry into their family lives and society.

At our Greensboro lab, storyteller Tiffany Bullard spoke of her father who was incarcerated when she was only two years old. She met him for the first time sixteen years later once he was released. Her story reflects that of the more than 2.7 million children who currently have an incarcerated parent. That is 1 in 28 or 3.6% of American children. Research has shown that nearly half of those incarcerated lose contact with their families, halting any chance for parent-child connection and successful reentry upon release. Tiffany’s story was grounded in a memory of her father taking her out on a fishing boat years after his release and helping her bait her line. She speaks of the silence and awkwardness they felt.

““I met him right after I graduated high school,” she shared. “I remember what it felt like to hate and love him so much. To know that his blood was mine but to feel so cold and very far away from him. […] So much was lost.””

— Tiffany Bullard

There are many reasons why families lose contact with an incarcerated family member. Correctional facilities are often geographically isolated, making travel to and from the facility challenging. Families who are able to visit often face visiting facilities that are inadequate and hinder healthy family interaction. Additionally, family members often report experiencing disrespect from staff when visiting and are subject to extensive security procedures, which can be traumatizing to children. Such obstacles can have lasting effects once the incarcerated family member is released. Tiffany explains,

“Incarceration does not just remove a person from society. It strips away our innate ability to connect with one another. Our sense of belonging. Our sense of love. ”

— Tiffany Bullard

Tiffany highlighted the difficulty that her father has faced in terms of reentry back into society after incarceration, and specifically how difficult it has been for the family to connect.

“It has been seventeen years since my father’s release and there is still a part of prison that follows him around. Reentry is not something that happens overnight. Reentry is not just a program, something to quantify or sell or get funding for. It is deeper than that. Reentry is complicated. It is a holistic lifetime journey with many moving pieces, places and people. It is a process that takes time. Sometimes, a lot of damn time.”

— Tiffany Bullard

Incarceration creates a barrier between returning citizens and their families and communities. Successful reentry for the formerly incarcerated can be difficult, but people like Tiffany work tirelessly to provide solutions. Tiffany is the Programs Manager for Benevolence Farm, a residential reentry program that supports women leaving the North Carolina prison system by offering housing, employment, career development, and agricultural skill building. To learn more about Benevolence Farm, visit http://benevolencefarm.org/.

Visit www.MassStoryLab.com to find out how you can help us bring Mass Story Labs to 10 communities in 2017.

By Claire Zager, Mass Story Lab Intern

Raise The Age

Words such as violence, corruption, brutality, and abuse only begin to describe the experiences of those incarcerated in New York City’s main jail complex, Rikers Island. While the experience of anyone who has been incarcerated at Rikers is no doubt horrific, what is more unsettling is the fact that amongst the imprisoned are children. New York and North Carolina are the only two states that prosecute all youths 16 years of age and older as adults. Adolescent brains, however, are still developing and highly receptive to change. Since their cognitive skills are continuing to develop, their decisions are often impulsive but they’re likely to grow out of negative behaviors. For youth, Rikers can do serious damage long term. More disturbing? Youth are 36 times more likely to commit suicide in an adult facility than a juvenile facility. It is time to raise the age.

In June 2016, we held a Mass Story Lab here in New York City with storytellers all previously incarcerated at Rikers. Storyteller Vidal Guzman was 16 years old when he was arrested and sent to Rikers complex. He expressed that his time on Rikers Island was full of violence and suffering.

““When I had to wake up, my first routine was do pushups, get ready to fight,” he says. “I was scared everyday but I couldn’t show that to anybody else. Not my mom, not my friends, not people that I’m incarcerated with, because if they see that, then I’m a target. I felt like I was an animal. [….] I was just trying to get home to my family.” ”

— Vidal Guzman

Vidal Guzman speaking at the Rikers Mass Story Lab

Vidal described his life after his release, where he recounts having violent nightmares, not knowing where he was, and hurting himself in his sleep. The trauma that surfaced incredibly challenging for him and his family.

““Being home didn’t feel so real. Waking up with my hands hurting from all the fights I had [while asleep]. For the first two weeks, I didn’t really look in the mirror because I got used to black and blues. Now that I’m free, I’m trying to get my mind back to society. But how could I when every time I closed my eyes I felt like someone would attack me? Jail made me not trust anybody. Not even my own best friends. It made me into a new human being, one that people disliked. It’s like jail made something different. I didn’t even know my own self. Jail destroyed my mind, body and soul.” ”

— Vidal Guzman

This is an unfortunate example of what is likely to happen when youth are sentenced as adults. When they are incarcerated in adult facilities, they’re more likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse, and don’t have access to age-appropriate rehabilitation services. Additionally, more than 600 children aged 13-15 are processed in adult criminal courts, taking a devastating toll on their futures. This is unacceptable, and action must be taken.

We must raise the age for justice to be achieved for young people such as Vidal in the criminal justice system. To take immediate action, call New York’s Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (631-361-2157), Senate Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeffrey Klein (718-822-2049), Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (718-654-6539) and Governor Andrew Cuomo (518-474-8390) and make your voice heard. You can also send letters to representatives here: http://www.cccnewyork.org/actions/help-protect-public-safety-raise-the-age/. For more information about the #RaiseTheAgeNY campaign, check out http://raisetheageny.com/. You can follow the conversation and discover ways to get involved in real time by following @RaiseTheAgeNY on Twitter.

Additionally, we urge you to get involved in our efforts to close Rikers by donating to our partners, JustleadershipUSA’s #closeRikers campaign. To learn more about JustleadershipUSA’s efforts, check out www.closerikers.org and visit www.MassStoryLab.com to find out how you can help us bring Mass Story Labs to 10 communities in 2017.

By Claire Zager, Mass Story Lab intern

The Jumpsuit Project: Turning Stigma into Socially Engaged Art

In a time of hyper-incarceration where at least 70 million people have a criminal conviction on their records, storyteller Sherrill Roland of our November Greensboro lab created a project that combats stigma, and puts him in charge of his past. Sherrill is an artist and graduate student at UNC-Greensboro. Stigma surrounds incarceration and follows returning citizens after they are released, even if they were incarcerated for a crime they did not commit. This was Sherrill’s experience.

2015 was a record-breaking year for wrongful convictions. By the end of the year, 149 people were declared innocent or cleared of the consequences of their convictions or guilty pleas. Many of these people had been in prison for a lengthy amount of time, the average being 15 years. Those convictions ranged from low-level offenses to major felonies. 54 of them were murder convictions, and 5 of those formally incarcerated were awaiting execution. Additionally, more than two-thirds of the people wrongly convicted for homicide were people of color. Half of them were African American.

In August 2012, Sherrill was issued a warrant in Washington, DC, explaining that he had 4 felony counts against him pending indictment for crimes he did not commit. After 9 months, an indictment was never issued and the felony charges were dropped to misdemeanors. In October 2013, he went to trial and lost, and 10 months later he was released from state prison. Almost a year and a half after being released, he was exonerated of all charges and granted his bill of innocence.

Understandably, Sherrill was greatly impacted by his wrongful conviction, finding it difficult to move past the trauma that he had faced. His graduate studies were interrupted, he was taken from his friends and family, and the conviction caused a roadblock in his career. There was no way that he could forget or ignore what had happened to him. At the lab he stated,

“After going through that, I really couldn’t maneuver though life with what I just went through. Trust issues, being inside, living that lifestyle and coming back out… I could not get used to the idea of ignoring what I had just experienced.”

— Sherrill Roland

Sherrill, an artist, took the idea of stigma and turned it inside out. He created The Jumpsuit Project. It is currently taking place throughout the 2016-17 academic school year at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where Sherrill teaches art. At our lab he noted that he didn't have the same appetite to make art as he did before, which was devastating for him. In an effort to fight back against stigma and his artistic blockage, The Jumpsuit Project is a socially engaged art project designed to raise awareness about issues relating to incarceration. He and other previously incarcerated staff members and students wear orange jumpsuits around the campus as a visual representation of what they endured in an effort to share their stories publically. On his website, he poignantly writes,

“For more than three years, I was forced to relinquish control of my life. Through this very personal project, I want to provide an opportunity for people impacted by incarceration (whether directly or indirectly) to share their stories and to create a new network of support for each other. The stories before, during and after incarceration are usually the ones we don’t share. […] This project will hopefully raise questions about incarceration and start conversations about how it affects our lives.”

— Sherrill Roland

Image of Sherrill Roland taken from The Jumpsuit Project's Instagram, @the.jumpsuit.project

 Check out www.jumpsuitproject.com to learn more about The Jumpsuit Project and Sherrill’s journey. You can also see photos and updates by following the project’s social media accounts:

Instagram: @the.jumpsuit.project

Twitter: @JumpsuitProject

Facebook public group: Jumpsuit Project

Visit www.MassStoryLab.com to find out how you can help us bring Mass Story Labs to 10 communities in 2017.

By Claire Zager, Mass Story Lab intern

Who Really Profits From Parole?

To put it lightly, President Donald Trump’s approach to crime is problematic at best. It has become apparent that his law enforcement priorities include conviction as a default response to essentially every broken law, no matter how small the crime. His plans will not only put undeserving people in prison, but it will also make it much harder for those on parole to stay out of prison. Successful reentry is already a challenge, and Trump vows to make it worse.

In November, we held a Mass Story Lab in Greensboro, North Carolina. Storyteller Anita Bennett spoke about her negative experience on parole. "[Parole] is not designed for productivity,” she stated. “It is designed for failure." Parole refers to the supervision that those convicted receive once they are conditionally released back into society after serving time in prison. If the rules are violated in any way, those on parole risk returning to prison. Two-thirds of them will be back in prison within three years, and many of them for minor, non-violent offenses. Anita urged the audience to understand that parole is essentially incarceration after incarceration. After being unable to supply her probation fee of $15,500, she was threatened with more time and even taken to court. She recounts,

"The court decided I needed an additional three years of probation. Each time I went to court I was advised that I could once again be sent back to prison. But what's important to note here is that each time it was abundantly clear that it was the intention of my probation officer was to do just that: incarcerate me again. Really? For a non-violent crime?" –Anita Bennett

The goal of probation should be to provide a smooth transition, but in truth, the system is corrupt. There are countless reasons why people on parole may be sent back to prison, often for monetary reasons. This can affect many consequences for people. Employment is very difficult to come by for people who have been incarcerated, though required by parole. Many returning citizens are responsible for child support and required behavioral programs for things such as chemical dependency and mental health therapies. Anita, who pursued her degree while on parole, shares with us how much of her life was overtaken by this restrictive and harmful system:

"In total, one hundred and two months or two and a half years of incarceration, six years of probation and a total of seven court dates of time spent dealing with the judicial system. Not to mention the monetary part of it." –Anita Bennett

These excessive court dates restricted Anita’s ability to travel, preventing her from supporting her daughter, a traveling athlete, and being the mother that she wanted to be. Along with the probation fees, this was devastating for her.

People who are unable to pay their probation fees should not be sent to prison. The same goes for substance dependent, physically disabled, or mentally ill folks who are unable to attend required treatment programs, those who cannot find employment due to lack of education or skills, those who are illiterate and unable to fill out required forms, and the many who are left homeless. It is unacceptable that such struggles are considered violations of parole and often lead to additional prison time. Rather than a parole system that continues patterns of punishment and entrapment in the criminal justice system, we need a system of support, care, and empathy for people who are coming out of prison. 

Visit www.MassStoryLab.com to find out how you can help us bring Mass Story Labs to 10 communities in 2017.

By Claire Zager, Mass Story Lab intern.

Refuge to Rubble: The American Dream & Immigrant Detention

The relevance of immigrant detention all throughout America right now is, unfortunately, evident everywhere we turn. On the news, social media, and through simple word of mouth, updates on Trump’s new immigration ban and his plans to build a wall are unavoidable. In addition to the effect of immigrant detention on the families of detained immigrants, as discussed on Tuesday, many victims of Trump’s legislation are forced to live in unacceptable and inhumane conditions within the walls of detention facilities. Immigrants seeking refuge from danger in their countries are shown no mercy. It’s imperative that we continue to speak up.

During our trip to Austin, six storytellers shared with us their intersecting experiences within the twin systems of incarceration and immigrant detention. Detention facilities are meant to be a holding center, but have proven to resemble a prison environment despite housing non-violent immigrants who pose no threat. It is said that they’re detained for national security reasons, but considering Hispanics are actively sought out near the border, it is essentially legalized racial profiling. In Spanish, storyteller Sulma Franco recounted her personal experience with immigration detention, which began on only her second day in the United States:

“I fled my country to escape persecution for my sexual preference only to come to America and be arrested by immigration for crossing the border, and then humiliated for having been arrested, not having a social security number, not having a driver’s license, not speaking English. 

Many immigrants, such as Sulma, attempt to escape from danger, hoping that in America they will find a better life. Survivors of torture, asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups including children, pregnant women and those with serious illnesses are in detention. The better life that they expected to find in the United States has been taken from them. Instead, they are subjected to harsh conditions. Sulma continues,

"We were held in a small room, many of us, all from different countries, huddled together on the cold cement ground. There was one bathroom for all of us with no door. Not even a shower curtain to protect our female bodies. If you wanted to do anything in the bathroom, you had to do it in front of everyone.”

 Immigrants are given shocking conditions in which to live and are treated inhumanely in the detention centers. The motives behind immigration detention are largely financial, which explains the cruelty and neglect. Sexual assault is prevalent within the detention centers, but justice is very rarely served. Immigrants are often denied health care. Additionally, detainees with lawyers are a minority. The right to an attorney is only a guarantee if you’re in criminal court. Due to the neglect and mistreatment of detained immigrants, a reported 115 people have died in immigration custody since 2003. There are countless heartbreaking stories. Sulma’s is just one of them.

In light of the recent inauguration of Donald Trump, action is more important now than ever. We urge you to donate to our Texas partners, Grassroots Leadership and other causes that will work to change, such as The National Immigration Law Center, and Americans for Immigrant Justice . Protest and speak out for people like Sulma.

On Saturday, Feb 4th, Mass Story Lab traveled to Miami, Florida to continue amplifying the stories of people surviving the intersections of incarceration and immigrant detention. Visit www.MassStoryLab.com to find out how you can bring a lab to your city in 2017.

By Claire Zager, Mass Story Lab Intern