(AMBIENT VIOLIN MUSIC)
(PEN SCRATCHING)
(DRAMATIC AMBIENT MUSIC)
- If you wanna be safe in a city,
if you wanna be safe in your neighborhood,
and Philadelphia is a beautiful large and vibrant city,
then you better care about the justice system
and about what goes
in and out of the prison.
(SOFT AMBIENT MUSIC)
- [WOMAN] We as a nation have become blind not so much
to race, but to the existence of racial caste.
We've become blind to the existence of a group of people
who are locked into a second-class status
and become indifferent to their suffering.
- We've got thousands of people in this city
that need training, that need jobs,
that need economic opportunity, that need housing
and that they need a sense of hope
that many of them don't have now.
(SOFT AMBIENT MUSIC)
- I would say people that, even if they don't have
people in the prison system,
they should care, just...
I mean, my own opinion is it's only right.
You know, like they humans just like y'all are.
So, what's the difference?
- It's very common to go to some neighborhoods
and very hard to find a family that doesn't have somebody
somewhere in the criminal justice system.
♫ I had to fight
♫ They say criminals should be locked in prison
♫ But they livin' in the big house
♫ This white is not right
♫ We gotta fight
♫ They don't lock up corporate criminals
♫ That ruin the planet
♫ Jails filled with non violent offenders
♫ And it's tragic
♫ There's the rehabilitational correctional
♫ Direction is corruption
♫ They got gangs
♫ They can stop the way it's running
♫ Then they's coming out worse
♫ They emerge to dysfunction
♫ Gotta stop the profits in the prison
♫ You're driven in chains
♫ The societal condition's cause inequality and robbery
♫ Technology is somethin' that's not distributed properly
♫ It's packed with mostly blacks and Hispanics
♫ It's riddled with a lot who got time that's innocent
♫ I start to explain
♫ With the hurricane's pain
♫ It's a shame
♫ It's so much racism in the system
♫ Opposite of heaven
♫ Rockefeller drug laws is used as a weapon
♫ In deception of detention
♫ I had to fight
♫ My mind is gasoline
♫ I had to fight
(SIRENS WAILING)
- For almost 200 years this country had
a direct correlation between crime
and prison populations
and the prison populations rose and fell just a little bit
but were generally the same, and then about 30 or so
years ago it just went off the charts.
(EXPERIMENTAL JAZZ MUSIC)
Decisions were made to utilize incarceration
to address social ills that had never been made before,
primarily the drug war,
criminalizing all kinds of conduct
that in the past had been subject to treatment,
mental illness, drugs, alcohol, things of that nature.
There was a decision made by both major political parties
to use incarceration to address social ills
and it caused a tremendous increase in prison populations.
We have 5% of the world's population
yet we have 25% of the world's prison population.
- You know,
we're building prisons rapidly, fast.
And each year, we're talking about every two years,
you know, they're over crowded.
So, I'm saying that can not be the answer.
I mean, people just don't wanna come to jail, I don't think.
You know, I just don't buy that.
But the whole concept is, is that
if you put that much time in rehabilitation
as you do putting money in jails.
You know, what difference would that make?
So, we at the same scenario
that we just keep dealin' and more people come to jail.
Know what I mean?
And then you're putting them back on the street again.
'Til another six months, to another year,
they're back in the jail again.
Know what I mean so,
why is it recidivism?
- Sometimes crime
goes down like it has in the recent past,
although it's heading up again,
and criminologists love to debate why that is.
And then there's wide disagreement.
I think people do agree that the economy plays
an important role in the social picture
and, therefore, in the use of criminal justice.
- Most prisoners are in prison for economic crimes
or crimes that are related
to economics, that's why.
Well, once the average person understands
the nature of the society, right,
and if they call themselves people of conscious,
people of spirituality,
forthright people, then they should understand
the nature of this society and the victimization
of the poor here.
- People in the brown and black community
are being arrested more than any other group of people.
Also...
Pennsylvania has increased the population
within the last three years by 24%
and we are one of the third fastest growing
prison department in the country.
Pennsylvania, it's big.
We're at the top of the list
for this overcrowdin'.
- If you look at crime rates over the last 30 years
you see that...
property crimes went down just a tick,
violent crimes went up just a tick,
but the prison populations have gone up over five, 600%.
So, there's not much correlation anymore
to prison populations to crime rates.
(SOFT AMBIEN MUSIC)
- The use of confinement is responsive
to what we do about crime.
So, if we are arresting everybody,
there goes the population.
In the '80s and '90s the drug war,
the drug epidemics happened,
started as cocaine then changed
to crack cocaine and now we're into very bad days.
- President Reagan declared, officially declared
his drug war in 1982 at a time when drug crime
was actually on the decline not on the rise.
It was about racial politics not drug crime.
But they got lucky,
and a couple years after the drug war
was declared crack hit the streets.
First in Los Angeles and later spread
to communities of color across America.
- Today, there's a new epidemic.
Smokable cocaine, otherwise known as crack.
- The Reagan administration seized on this development
with glee, actually hiring staff whose job it was
to publicize inner city crack babies, crack dealers.
- I'm especially concerned about what drugs are doing
to young mothers and their newborn children.
- The so called crack whores and in efforts to build
public support for a drug war it had already declared.
- In my opinion, we're better off
from a public safety perspective,
to treat individuals with drug and alcohol problems
and mental health issues than to incarcerate them.
Generally their time in prison is a waste,
it's very costly,
and they get out with the same issues that they went in.
- And, plan worked like a charm.
Almost overnight our television sets were
flooded with images of black and brown drug users
and dealers and drug related violence
and soon politicians across the political spectrum
began competing with each other
to prove who could be even tougher on them.
(RHYTHMIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
- My name's Nathaniel Gravely Hayes,
I live in North Philadelphia.
Quiet neighborhood now.
It used to be a little bit better before, but...
- [INTERVIEWER] Tell us where you work, Nate.
- Now I do construction with my father.
We actually doing jobs now renovating temple houses.
Yeah, I grew up around here.
I was born in MCP hospital.
Up by Henry Avenue.
Been living right here just about my whole life.
When I first started school, elementary,
I started school at...
Thomas May Peirce.
My daughter attends it now.
- [INTERVIEWER] What grade is your daughter in?
- She's in kindergarten.
She just started.
- [NATHANIEL] Mr. Moore.
- He was my second grade teacher.
He was the best teacher I had.
I still be in connection
with him now.
- Yeah.
- Just about, yup.
- Yeah.
(SOFT ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
- People who are living in ghetto communities today
experience tremendous frustration
because not only are they being targeted,
in clearly biased ways by law enforcement.
You know, in countless ways,
they experience the discrimination and often brutality
of our criminal justice system.
And yet the people in those communities
also desperately need law enforcement protection.
They desperately need crime prevention.
And so they're caught, they're trapped.
And this creates a dynamic in which
police departments can say,
Well, those communities want us,
they ask for us to come in
and, you know, they want us to get tough
on the violent offenders in their community
and they want us and they need us.
Look, they're demanding more law enforcement protection.
But the problem is, is that it's the only thing
that people of color can ask for and get.
- [MAN] Stop fightin' (mumbles).
(CROWD CHATTERING)
- [OFFICER] You done it first.
(BATON CRACKING) - Oh!
(CROWD SHOUTING)
- [MAN] Yo, he down, man, God!
- [OFFICER] Stop it.
(MUMBLES) fuck with him!
(CROWD SHOUTING)
- [MAN] Askia stop!
Stop fighting, Askia!
Stop!
(CROWD SHOUTING)
- [MAN] Yo, come up here OG.
They fuckin' Askia up, dog.
- [OFFICER] Put your hands behind you back.
(CROWD SHOUTING)
- Askia! (BATON CRACKING)
(CROWD SHOUTING)
Stop it, you done fuckin' almost killed him, man!
Stop it! Stop it!
- [OFFICER] Put your hands behind your back.
- [MAN] Filmed this shit, yo.
(CROWD SHOUTING)
Askia quit fightin', quit fightin'.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC)
(CROWD APPLAUDS)
- [INTERVIEWER] Go ahead, make your point sir.
- I think we ought to be tough.
I like the concept, you liberals like to accuse me,
we conservatives of wanting hanging judges, I do.
- [INTERVIEWER] You do?
- I want tough, tough laws.
(CROWD APPLAUDS) I want 'em to be enforced.
I'd do a lot of different things.
- If you trace the origins of the "get tough" rhetoric
you can actually trace it all the way back
to segregationists who were searching
for color blind rhetoric.
- [NARRATOR] Our streets are not safe.
Immorality begins to flourish.
Violence pits American against American.
- You know, once the Civil Rights Movement
began to gain steam and it no longer became acceptable
to say, "Segregation forever!"
And they were searching for a rhetoric that would appeal
to poor and working class white voters,
particularly in the South,
who were threatened by and resentful of many of the gains
of African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement.
Now, the Civil Rights Movement really rocked the world
of poor and working class white folks in the South.
You know, wealthy whites could send their kids
to private schools and give their kids all of the advantages
that wealth has to offer.
But poor and working class whites were faced
with a social demotion
in the advent of the Civil Rights Movement.
It was their kids who were, you know, gonna be
bused across town to a school
that they thought was inferior.
- [NARRATOR] Follow as your children are bused across town.
- As president, I shall, within the law,
turn back the absolute control
of the public school systems
to the people of the respective states.
- Well, pollsters and political strategists
found that by using these racially coded,
you know, catch phrases, "Getting tough on crime"
and "Cracking down on welfare,"
"Getting tough on them."
- [NARRATOR] The other America,
the other America is no longer a dream but a nightmare.
(CROWD SHOUTING)
We don't want this.
- They could appeal to those voters as effectively,
if not more so, as with the segregation forever
and the explicitly racist rhetoric.
You know, we now have today a system unparalleled
anywhere else in the world that was born of racial divisions
in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement.
(SOFT AMBIENT MUSIC)
- HRC has knocked on a couple of church doors
to ask them "Can we come in and educate your congregation
"in reference to what's going on in the prison?"
But what we are finding with the churches is that
a lot of members of the church have a shame thing
going on about admitting that they have
a loved one in prison.
- My family wanted to visit me when I was incarcerated
but me myself I didn't want 'em to.
So I just told them to stay home,
maintain your regular lives.
I don't wanna be a burden on nobody else
and my situation is my mistakes.
(WOMAN SINGING GOSPEL MUSIC)
(CONGREGATION SINGING AND CLAPPING)
♫ Is the word of God
(MUMBLED SINGING)
♫ Is the word of God
♫ Sing God's word, it's God's word
♫ It's the word of God
♫ Are you lookin' for your deliverance
- Brother Wayne and Michelle Powell, Amen?
Praise God, in that order.
God bless you.
- [MEMBERS OF CONGREGATION] Amen.
- What I do want to say is that I'm glad
that God has called myself along with some
of these brothers that I see and I know
and I love and I minister with so well, Amen?
We who were incarcerated together.
(CONGREGATION CHEERS)
- Stop talkin' 'bout them babies walkin' down the street.
Oh look! Help her.
(CONGREGATION SHOUTS AND CLAPS)
- [MEMBER OF CONGREGATION] Thank you, God!
Hallelujah!
- [MAN] Amen!
(CONGREGATION CLAPS)
- We're (MUMBLES) the prison system.
I mean, for me,
it was 18 years I did it.
It was the best babysittin' job I ever had.
I made good money at it,
but I realized that
- So, what we try to do is we try to humanize the issue.
We try and involve ourselves
with the family members and prisoners.
So we do forums, we do rallies,
we conduct meetings and so on to try and build, you know,
and show the humanity that exists
even in a place like death row.
- People who have been branded felons
often deal with such shame and stigma
that they try to pass.
People labeled felons try to pass
not just by lying to employers or housing officials,
but also by lying to friends, neighbors,
and loved ones about their own criminal history
or that of their loved ones.
- So then you have this dynamic going on
that also builds into this very disenfranchised community,
right, of people, and they feel shame
and they feel they have no outlet.
They have absolutely no idea how to take on
something like the criminal justice system.
- You know, mothers can't bare to admit,
yeah, my son's in jail
so they say, "Oh yeah, I haven't seen him for a while.
"He must be stayin' with his daddy."
- I think the most meaningful experience that we have
is to get families involved in the lives
of their loved ones incarcerated.
- We've gotta begin to admit out loud
what's happening in our communities
and recognize that all of us are criminals.
All of us are criminals.
There's not one of us who has not violated the law
at some moment in our lives.
- I stole my Nana's TV.
See, when you confess your sins...
Can't nobody talk about me 'cause I already done told ya.
(CONGREGATION CHATTERS IN AGREEMENT)
And I'm free.
- Most Americans have violated drug laws in their lifetime.
Barack Obama has admitted to violating
our nation's drug laws over and over again.
And if he had been arrested and treated like, you know,
an ordinary, you know, criminal.
If he hadn't been insulated by growin' up in Hawaii
and attending predominately white universities,
more likely than not, he'd be branded a felon,
cycling in and out of prison with the rest of them.
(PULSATING ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
- Seeing that our position here in this country,
black people, is a situation of inequality.
No matter what the propaganda says,
we're still on the bottom.
Everything stands on our shoulders.
- In the words of H.R. Haldeman,
President Richard Nixon's former Chief of Staff,
he said, quote, "The Whole problem is really the blacks.
"The key is to devise a system that recognizes this
"while not appearing to," end quote.
- I spoke with some youth the other day
and I asked them, how many of you know somebody
that's incarcerated?
It was over 90%.
- [ANGUS] It has taken away a lot of the young
African American population from the communities.
- [KHALID] I say, how many of you
have a family member that's incarcerated.
Again, over 90%.
- Sentencing project in Washington, D.C.
has done a number of studies.
One in four African Americans in their 20s
are subject to some kind of supervision
from the criminal justice system, on and on.
(SOFT AMBIENT MUSIC)
- In fact, in the United States today,
there are more African Americans under correctional control,
in prison or jail, on probation or parole,
than were enslaved in 1850,
a decade before the Civil War began.
That's the scale of mass incarceration
in the African American community today.
(DRAMATIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
We have the sense that black men have just disappeared.
When in reality, they've been rounded up and disappeared.
They can be found in our prisons and jails.
They can be found hunting for work.
(DRAMATIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
In the drug war, people of color are targeted
at such a grossly disproportionate rate
that in some states 80-90% of all drug offenders
sent to prison have been African Americans.
Now, this is just astounding given the fact
that for decades now, studies have consistently shown
that people of color aren't any more likely
to use or sell illegal drugs than whites.
Our stereotype of a drug dealer
is a black kid standing on a street corner
with his pants hangin' down
and plenty of drug dealing happens in the ghetto,
but it happens everywhere else in America as well.
Drug markets, like much of American society
is fairly segregated by race.
Whites tend to sell to whites,
blacks tend to sell to blacks,
university students sell to each other,
but because the drug war has been waged
almost exclusively in poor communities of color,
we now have our prisons overflowing
with black and brown drug offenders.
(DRAMATIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
- I was incarcerated
June 16, 2009
and I did a little time at CFCF
before they switched me to the House of Corrections.
I sat there for about four months.
They give you three hours
for somebody to pay your bail...
and after the three hours they ship you to CFCF.
- And then after your name is called,
after you're done waiting for a period of time,
you're supposed to give up all the things that,
A., your personal effects and B., the other idea
is whatever can be used as a weapon.
Sort of things like your keys, your wallet, your belt.
Then you move into another holding cell
where you're searched.
There's a special chair that inmates are supposed to sit in
to detect if anything is inside their anus
and then you move on to another holding cell
where you take a medial examination
and then from there you move on to a shower,
the last shower you'll take by yourself.
You're given a small piece of soap,
you take your shower, and then from there
you're moved on to a holding cell until you're moved
into, I guess what might be called your permanent cell.
- [NATHANIEL] That's the whole process of
I'm givin' you your, the orange jumpsuits
and your toothbrush and stuff like that.
Taking your blood, a blood test.
- The Philadelphia prison system is actually
composed of a number of different small prisons and jails.
Some of them are not so small, but it's composed
of a number of different prisons.
And they vary in terms of the physical structures.
Some of them are newer, but some of them are very old.
(SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
- [TOM] The holding cell could be at what was the once
defunct Holmesburg Prison, which is now
the not defunct Holmesburg Prison.
(SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
(METAL LOCKS CLICKING)
(SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
- As the inmate population began
to grow and escalate, we started
double and triple celling.
In fact, one of my commissioners said to me that there's
not a flat surface out here that we don't have
somebody sleeping on.
I mean, you see people sleeping in gymnasiums and hallways.
I mean, we always try to do the very best we can...
but it's just really very, very tough.
And we, of course, were sued and we went through
a whole legal battle about all of it
and we hired people from Temple University.
- It was my impression that we finished
our work toward the end
of one mayoral administration and that the city
was interested in settling the suit
and did so.
And that probably very little of the policy changes
that was recommended then was put into place.
(PULSATING AMBIENT MUSIC)
- The back wall is where the beds are like,
nailed up you might as well say,
and they got two little foam cots on it.
You put your sheet and, you know, your blanket and stuff.
You don't get no pillows.
And then on the left side of the wall on the floor
that's where the blue boat is sittin' at
for the third party to lay down.
Then when you first come in to the cell,
the toilet is right there, that and the sink.
That's basically how it looks.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC)
With a lot of people that was out there with me,
just about everybody, like, nobody really
was sittin' in there and, like, already got convicted.
Everybody's waitin' for trial.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC)
- There have been several generations of jail crises here.
Bail and pre-trial attention, decision-making
has always been a big part of that.
- When I first received my bail it was $10,000
and you have to pay 10%.
Means you need $1,000 to get out.
I didn't have it at the time.
Each month I'd try to get a bail reduction, but...
I was always denied.
I was incarcerated June 16th but I finally...
seen the judge October 5th
at the Criminal Justice Center.
She herself said it was ridiculous I'm sittin' in here
on that $10,000 bail so she lowered my bail
from $10,000 to a thousand,
and that's a hundred dollars, 10%, so that's how I got out.
I got out October 7th.
- I think it's absolutely essential that when we talk
about prison overcrowding in the Philadelphia prison system
we remember the context of this overcrowding.
That the largest portion of people who are subjected
to these conditions have been merely accused of a crime,
have not been found guilty of anything by a judge or a jury.
When we think about the fact that these are the people
who are being subjected to the conditions
that we've talked about, that is a serious, serious concern.
- In the House of Corrections,
it's like a mouse party.
It's just...
even when you on the block, you would figure, like,
all right, when they lock us down
you would see mice runnin' around.
You could be on the block, doin' whatever you doin',
you might see two or three mice run past you.
Run from this vent to the next vent.
It's filthy.
Roaches everywhere.
Not to my knowledge, I never heard nobody say that,
like, in the kitchen area it was like that, but...
I figure if it was like that on the block,
you know, what the kitchen look like? (CHUCKLES)
I mean, when you sleepin' in the blue bucket,
that's automatic.
You gotta worry about
rodents may crawl on you or anything like that.
I mean, you're floor level, so...
That's where everything be at.
(TRIBAL PERCUSSION MUSIC)
(SOFT SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
- Well, honestly, when I started in the prison system
it was a attitude that I was better than they were.
Everybody that came to jail would deserve
to be in jail.
I was there to maintain 'em,
to control 'em and keep them,
keep them directed to the prison establishment.
(SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
When you got three people in the cell,
sometimes up to four people,
people that don't know each other
and they're put there because the jail is crowded
and they don't have no space and nobody's bein' released.
- Well, there's a legal definition and a working definition
as they say in Philadelphia and...
a common sense definition.
Double celling's bad enough, triple celling's outrageous.
- When you don't have enough space for the individuals
who are being sent there to house them
in a humane condition.
And so I guess that would be my definition of overcrowding.
Well, I suppose if you look at the raw numbers,
one might conclude that Philadelphia prisons
are overcrowded.
I don't really have a good perspective as to
how one determines overcrowding.
Is it just based on sheer numbers?
Is it based on the number of individuals
who are sharing cells or how many people
are in the cell?
- When you talk about overcrowding
it's looking at all the various components
of a prison system alone and in combination
to determine whether or not the minimal civilized
measures of society are being met.
That the Philadelphia prison system has been
found to be overcrowded by the federal courts
pretty much almost constantly since the late '70s.
(SOFT GUITAR MUSIC)
- More people graduate from the Philadelphia prisons
in some neighborhoods than graduate from high school.
The Philadelphia prisons turns out to be an institution
that reaches almost every neighborhood
and every family.
It shouldn't be like that.
And why is that?
Well, since we've relied so much on a punitive response
to social problems in criminal justice,
people go to prison and guess what?
Now they're back.
They're back in the same communities only it's a worse time.
- Well, a person who's been convicted of a felony
actually enters into a parallel social universe.
Once you have that 'F' label, you're relegated
to a permanent second-class status for life.
You may be denied the right to vote,
you are deemed ineligible for jury service
for the rest of your life, and you can be legally
discriminated against in employment, housing,
access to education, public benefits.
So many of the old forms of discrimination
that we supposedly left behind during the Jim Crow era,
are suddenly legal again once you've been branded a felon.
These men are part of a growing undercaste,
not class, caste.
A group of people defined largely by race
who are locked in a permanent second-class status
for the rest of their lives.
(SOFT AMBIENT MUSIC)
You know, people think that, you know,
the system, which appears colorblind on the surface,
must be colorblind in effect because there's no laws
requiring people of different races
to be treated differently.
Well, the reason that a seemingly colorblind system
can produce these extraordinary racial disparities
is because of discretion.
Police and prosecutors have extraordinary discretion
about who should be stopped, who should be searched,
who should be arrested, who should be charged,
and with what kind of offense
and what kind of plea deal should be offered,
who should be given a break, who should be cut loose.
Just incredible discretion, nearly unbridled discretion
that police and prosecutors have.
- I think that most judges don't let it
impact what they do in terms of sentencing
and that they truly look at the individual,
they look at the crime,
they look at the sentencing guidelines
and they give an appropriate sentence
despite whatever their feelings may be
about prison overcrowding.
I think there are many programs
that we have designed here on the criminal side
that are meant to look at prison overcrowding.
No, not everybody that commits a crime
needs to be in jail, there are other
mechanisms for dealing with the punishment,
the retribution, the rehabilitation.
And so, some programs are designed specifically
to get people out of prison
or to not let them enter the prison doors at all,
and judges are very aware of those programs
and if they are appropriate candidates for those programs
they will forward those individuals to those as well.
- In exercising this discretion, in making decisions
about who seems like a good kid who deserves another chance
and who seems like a hardened criminal
or someone who can't seem to learn a lesson
or poses a risk to society.
In making those incredibly subjective determinations,
both conscious and unconscious biases and stereotypes
inevitably affect decision-making.
- [MAN] Would you close your eyes for a second
and envision a drug user and describe that person to me.
- You know, we all have racial biases and stereotypes.
You can't live in our society today
and not have some racial biases and stereotypes
about, you know, who the likely criminals are
and who's more likely to be involved
in drug dealing or sales or who's more likely
to be violent.
Our media is saturated with these images.
You know, our culture has been saturated with them
and police and prosecutors are not immune,
like the rest of us.
They have these conscious as well as unconscious
stereotypes and they do infect decision-making
at every stage of the criminal justice process.
Study after study that has been done
over the last 20 or 30 years has shown
that police and prosecutors exercise their discretion
in racially discriminatory ways
that have truly disastrous consequences.
(PULSING ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
- Generally 2/3 recidivate...
of the average inmate.
- Why is that the case?
Is that what we want?
People to go in prison,
become more violent, come out, commit more crime.
Let's look at our, let's look at prisons overall
and look at the role that prisons play in society
and ask what are they doing and how are they set up?
Because if you look at our prisons now
there's no education by and large,
that's just driven out of all the prisons, okay.
So, people go into prison and what do they get?
They get trained to become more violent.
- But, programs have been successful in reducing this.
In Philadelphia part of the fine money from the Jackson case
was used to fund a program called The Jobs Program.
And after two years they had
a recidivism rate in the teens.
But money ran out and the city decided not to pick up
once our money was exhausted,
and the city decided to go in a different direction,
which was tax incentives to employers
who hired ex-offenders.
Sadly, not one employer has taken up
the opportunity to hire an ex-offender
and get a tax credit and the program's now
about two years old.
So, we had a program that we felt was working.
It was a hands-on program where there was direct supervision
and intervention by social workers and trained professionals
and it seemed to be working well, but it was discontinued.
(RHYTHMIC PERCUSSION MUSIC)
(CROWD SHOUTING) (HORNS HONKING)
(RHYTHMIC PERCUSSION MUSIC)
- We all talk about re-entry.
That's comin' back.
If we could figure out re-entry
then we could figure out pre-entry,
which means let's do the things
that we now are beginning to talk about
to integrate offenders who have gone through the system.
Let's bring those issues to bear to communities
and get those folks not to go
into the system in the first place.
- There's a lack of real skills in the black community
and maybe in some of the other poor communities.
A lack of skills.
Inadequate education.
- If they had more programs in the prison,
had people doin' somethin' rather than
just sittin' around playin' cards and stuff.
I mean, people come out and turn out better,
you know, 'cause, I mean, they had somethin'
to look forward to rather than just sittin' around
and just guessin' what they gonna look forward to
when they get out.
- There was a period when rehabilitation
was the word and that was
the '70s and the '80s.
(ELECTRONIC MUSIC WITH A HEAVY BEAT)
But the overcrowding just overwhelmed
the ability to rehabilitate and, in my opinion,
the '90s and into the 21st century
have largely been about warehousing.
- If we were to go back to the rates of incarceration
that we had in the 1970s, you know, a time
when many civil rights activists thought
that rates of incarceration were just egregiously high,
but if we were to go back to the bad old days of the 1970s,
we'd have to release four out of five people
who are in prison today.
More than a million people employed
by the criminal justice system could lose their jobs.
- [CARLTON] They're set way out in the suburbs
so that gives jobs to people in the suburbs.
Building the prison gives jobs to the construction company,
et cetera, et cetera, and it just keeps magnifyin'.
And then, of course, you have to have the prisoners,
who, once again, are poor folks,
black folks, Hispanics, et cetera.
- Prisons across America would have to close and shut down.
You know, we're not gonna get there
without a major fight, so that's why I say
nothing short of a major social movement
has any hope of ending the system.
- At the state level, the more we spend on prisons,
the less we have for secondary education.
I mean, that's just obvious in the state budget.
But somehow, if don't start dealing with neighborhoods
in trouble, which involves a whole lot of things
that aren't criminal justice...
Criminal justice is the social service institution
of last resort, not by its choice.
We have neighborhoods that reflect the breakdown
of community health systems,
community mental health systems, school systems,
and a lack of economic opportunity.
- You know, back in the 1950s?
You know, areas that we think of as ghettos today,
most of 'em were actually doing quite well.
You know, those communities may have been suffering
a high level of discrimination and racial segregation,
but at least the people who lived there had jobs
because factories were typically located
in those urban communities, so those businesses
would have quick access to cheap labor.
Well, today those factories are gone.
They vanished.
You know, in a very short period of time
due to de-industrialization and globalization,
those factories have closed down,
those jobs have been shipped overseas.
Hundreds of thousands of people found themselves jobless
and stranded in these segregated, ghetto communities.
Well, we could've responded to that crisis
with a wave of compassion and caring,
with economic stimulus packages, bail out plans, you know.
We could've responded with a wave of compassion and caring,
but instead we declared the war on drugs.
- Again, if you not able to create jobs for people
and put people back to work and be responsible...
then the drug problem's gonna exist, you know what I mean?
And it's not gonna change.
So it's like a rollin' ball.
We just keep rollin' and rollin'
and it gets bigger and bigger.
So, we need to let the politicians know that,
you know, you can't keep doin' this.
You have to come up with some kind of plan
or try to start workin' with programs
that's really feasible about workin'.
And make programs be accountable for what they doin'.
- I also think our,
we have to take a look at our sentencing practices.
You know, we went through this period of time, I guess,
in the '90s when we had these mandatory sentences
and, you know, it was three strikes and you're out.
And we were giving people really, really very long sentences
and it's not a deterrent.
- And it's not working.
Crime is still really, really high.
We know that.
And I think for the politicians,
like for the Democrats and the Republicans,
basically I think that they can come out
and try and pose as tough on crime
and say we care about safety so I'm gonna make sure
these streets are cleaned up and argue for more cops
and say that we, you know, that they care about safety
and never really get into what I like to say is,
you know, the causes of crimes.
Let's get into what really is gonna make things more safe.
And unfortunately, they're all the things
that we see our president cutting.
You know, things that are, you know,
better substance abuse programs.
You know, things that really will matter.
If people live in desperate circumstances,
then desperate acts take place.
♫ The system that has to be changed up dramatically
♫ Factually is actually one of the worst ways
♫ Of not actin' democratically
♫ It's torture in solitary
♫ Prisoner abuse is not very
♫ Conducive to solutions, it's quite the contrary
♫ It's way too overcrowded
♫ But do they care, I doubt it
♫ 'Cause it's not about logic
♫ It's that they pocketin' the profits
♫ Because you're actually nothin'
♫ All you are is something locked in a cage
♫ Back and forth every day
- We're going to need to see
a new Civil Rights-type movement.
We're going to need to see more and more people
joining together to challenge some of these institutions.
(CROWD SHOUTING AND CHANTING)
- [CROWD] The board of education, the future of a nation.
The board of education, the future of a nation.
(CROWD CHANTING AND CHATTERING)
- We can not afford to lose our voice in this,
not in our city that has one of the highest
youth incarceration rates in the country.
Not in our city that has one of the lowest,
one of the lowest college going rates in the country.
We can not afford it, not for our youth.
Not as the push out rate skyrockets
and the prison system expands.
We can not afford it.
(CROWD CHEERS)
- I find many people say, well, why don't we
just file a big class action lawsuit
to address racial bias in the criminal justice system.
But what people don't realize is that the U.S. Supreme Court
has closed the courthouse doors to claims
of racial bias at every stage
of the criminal justice process,
from stops and searches, to plea bargaining, and sentencing.
For all practical purposes, race discrimination
in the criminal justice system is perfectly legal
so long as no one admits it.
That's the key.
In a series of cases beginning with McCleskey v. Kemp
and Armstrong v. United States,
the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that no matter
how compelling the statistical evidence may be,
no matter how severe the racial disparities might be,
unless you can offer proof of conscious, intentional bias,
you know, tantamount to an admission,
you can't even get in the courthouse door.
(SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
- We're not going to allow this to take place anymore
and we're gonna figure out a way to fight back,
and that's not always exactly clear about how to
exactly do that, but we have to take on
both our politicians and the courts.
That we have to challenge the framework
that says that, you know, we have to wait for
the politicians to grant us our rights or things like that,
or we have to wait for the courts to give us a decision.
- So, in this way, the U.S. Supreme Court has made
our criminal justice system, you know, off limits
to scrutiny for racial bias, much in the same way
that the Supreme Court once rallied in support
of Jim Crow and slavery in their day.
(DRAMATIC AMBIENT MUSIC)
So, we're not going to end bias in this system
or end mass incarceration
through a grand litigation strategy.
It's gonna take a major social movement.
(CROWD SHOUTING)
- [MAN WITH MEGAPHONE] Stop police brutality!
- [CROWD] Stop police brutality!
- [MAN WITH MEGAPHONE] Stop police brutality!
- [CROWD] Stop police brutality!
- [MAN WITH MEGAPHONE] No justice!
- [CROWD] No peace!
- [MAN WITH MEGAPHONE] No justice!
- [CROWD] No peace!
- [MAN WITH MEGAPHONE] No justice!
- [CROWD] No peace!
- [MAN WITH MEGAPHONE] No justice!
- [CROWD] No peace!
(MUFFLED SHOUTING IN MEGAPHONE)
- We told you we're coming back!
So this movement is just not for Al Purnell,
it's of all of the citizens in this city.
Enough's enough.
We know it's gonna be hard.
We know it's gonna be resistance.
But power concedes nothin' without a struggle!
Nobody's gonna give it to us.
We've never gotten anything in this country
without a fight!
Occupy Philadelphia...
doin' a great thing.
They came out and they're addressing
all kinds of issues in Philly,
New York, Oakland, all over the country.
- [CROWD] Fund education, not incarceration.
Fund education, not incarceration.
Fund education, not reincorporation.
- All over the world, people are standin' up saying
this is not business as usual.
You can bring the cops out here all you want.
You can beat, you can do tear gas,
it's only makin' the movement stronger
because this is our country!
(CROWD CHEERS)
- We need a movement
(CROWD CHEERS)
- Don't underestimate what can happen in these prisons.
And it's very, very difficult to organize
inside these prisons, extremely difficult,
but it can happen.
We see it in the DRIVE Movement in Texas,
we saw it here in Illinois with the Death Row 10 struggle,
and we saw it just recently with the largest
prisoner strike ever in U.S. history
taking place in Georgia.
And what were some of their demands?
We want dignity.
We want better healthcare.
We want training and education in prison.
And basically their slogan was, we want dignity.
And they were in a lockdown for liberty,
as they called it.
It was extremely, extremely inspiring
to those of us that do criminal justice work
on the outside to see that kind of a struggle take place.
And even though they were massively repressed
because of what they did, they got their voice out there
and they felt their power and they came together
across racial lines, across ethnicity, religious lines,
and we know what they do in these prisons
that they foster groups and they pit them
against each other and not to come together
and this was a brilliant showing of the prisoners
coming together and say, "We will not be divided."
- While the "get tough" movement and the War on Drugs
was born with black folks in mind,
it has now destroyed people in communities of all colors.
You know, a black kid who's facing 15 years in prison
for a relatively minor drug crime
and the white kid in Kansas who's facing a prison sentence
rather than drug treatment he needs desperately,
are both suffering because of a drug war
that was declared in the wake of, you know,
the Civil Rights Movement with black folks in mind.
- I think in a very true, just society
where people are treated fairly,
where there isn't racism, where people can afford
to feed their families and have good childcare
and things like that, crime will absolutely go down.
You're not gonna see those kinds of things,
you're not gonna see the need for prisons
the way that we have them.
But while we do have them, they need to be places
that are humane.
We need to argue for things like education.
One of the things that we know is that when people
are educated in prison, they are much less likely
to commit crime when they go out of prison.
What's the second most important thing we know?
A connection to their families.
So we need to make it, make sure that they can have
access to their family and to things
in the community, so it means not building
these prisons that are, like, a gazillion miles
from where these families live.
Make it affordable that they can call their loved ones.
- We need your help.
We desperately right now,
we need every person,
even outside of havin' a loved one in prison,
we need your help.
We're seeing prison become
part of a educational thing here
in Philadelphia, that not only are our kids
being disciplined, they're being sent
to the CEP prison school.
So, if for no other reason, you don't wanna get involved,
get involved, save our youth.
Save our youth who are, like, destined.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
- Nothing short of a major social movement
has any hope of ending the system,
not that we should become discouraged
or overwhelmed by that.
You know, there was a time when people thought
there would be no way that Jim Crow
could ever be brought to its knees,
but a major social movement did arise
that managed to do precisely that.
Well, we've got to do it again.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
- [MAN WITH MEGAPHONE] This is our country!
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
♫ Nourish me, water me, mother me, father me
- We make sure that our students
go inside the Philadelphia prisons,
but also inside the state prisons
and play a role in discussions with the inmates.
And somehow realizing that the people who are there
are people like you and me,
less fortunate at the moment,
and to realize that they're human beings.
And so, the way to think about helping that situation
is to sort of identify the problems that you see
that are involved with people going to prison
and staying in prison and when they come out of prisons.
♫ Nourish me, water me, mother me, father me
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
- We've gotta begin to embrace those labeled criminals.
Not necessarily all of their behavior,
but them, their humanness.
So we've gotta open our hearts and our minds
and start tellin' the truth to each other
about how this system operates, where it came from,
and what it's doing to our communities in the present.
And this dialogue can begin in schools, in churches,
and in community centers.
And once we all begin to wake up,
I think a major social movement is far more likely.
(CROWD CHEERS)
- [CROWD] Time to educate, not incarcerate!
Time to educate, not incarcerate!
(SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
♫ The dimming of light
♫ The thief in the night
♫ Has broken and entered the household
♫ Something akin
♫ To the feeling within
♫ When I discovered my mother with a needle
♫ Body blows, body sees
♫ A shock wave of being
♫ And I'm watching the thief rob and plunder
♫ I cry and I spin
♫ Then numbness sets in
♫ As I rage like the lightning and thunder
♫ Hope, trust, sanctity withers and dies
♫ I deaden inside
♫ It tears my soul apart
♫ And sours my mind
♫ I deaden inside
- [DAVID] The feeling I had
when I found out my mother was on drugs,
the day I realized a thief in the night
has broken and entered our household.
Hope, trust, sacredness, my pilot light dimmed.
There was nothing I can do but stew in despair,
expressing my feelings in outbursts of...
Defining pain (MUMBLES) by the feelings the drugs possess,
feeling my life is a mess.
But truly contraire, still in despair, I cry.
My life is now altered,
feeling that all things have faltered.
My mom was like my God at that age to me.
Has God failed me?
Where would I look to now for guidance?
An inception of the wearing down into your heart.
Numbness sets in, the sentiment becomes stoicism,
indifference.
I rage.
Was it the finding out my mother did drugs?
Or the acknowledgment that that spark in her eye
wasn't because of me anymore.
Or for my sake she would not quit and do it anymore.
Or that I had to accept the things that she did
that hurt me to the core.
Like mental body blows that later became my walls.
(ELECTRONIC BEEPING)
(SYNTHESIZER MUSIC)
♫ Body blows, body sees
♫ A shock wave of being
♫ And I'm watching the thief rob and plunder
♫ I cry and I spin
♫ Then numbness sets in
♫ As I rage like the lightning and thunder
♫ Hope, trust, sanctity withers and dies
♫ I deaden inside
♫ It tears my soul apart and sours my mind
♫ I deaden inside