A Reflection on Our State of Criminal Justice on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, by Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Executive Director, Family ReEntry

Prisonist.org: Faith & Dignity 
for the Days Ahead
Blogs, Guest Blogs & News

A Reflection on Our State of Criminal Justice
on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

By Jeff Grant, JD, M Div
Executive Director

Family ReEntry

Bridgeport, Connecticut

Reprinted from Inner City News,
Page 21
New Haven, Connecticut
Jan. 11, 2017

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

_____________

What should I do, as a white man, prison minister who was incarcerated for a white-collar crime, and as Executive Director of a Connecticut criminal justice nonprofit, to walk in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr.? How do I apply his words, that are so easy to read but so difficult to put into action? How do I honor his memory in these most challenging and controversial of times?

The moment of our comfort and convenience is certainly over. This is true on the national level where we have new, untested leadership. And this is also true here in Connecticut, where the budget crisis has made the state unable to do what is just, and fair, and safe.

Our state government has closed prisons and reduced the prison population to the lowest level since the 1970’s. This is a good thing. 

However, we are in a paradigm shift of epic proportions in which there is no public money to fund solutions to our current problems - and no adequate explanation as to how we got into this situation.  And yet, we keep going back to the state looking for handouts - for funding the way it has always been. And we are surprised and hurt when the answer is no. 

I urge everyone, and especially my fellow criminal justice colleagues, to wake up.

The fiscal crisis has caused the state to terminate the funding for - and close down - our community-based prisoner reentry behavioral health programs. This means thousands of people, many or most of them people of color, will be released from jails and prisons this year without access to therapy, life skills training, mental health services, substance abuse counseling, housing opportunities, education, or even minimum wage jobs. I propose that without this critical support, most are going to recidivate and will go back to prison in record numbers. But not before they return to the very behavior for which they were incarcerated in the first place. This is a very bad thing – for everyone.

How big is this problem? Michelle Alexander, in discussing her seminal book “The New Jim Crow” cites that there are more African American men in prison and jail, or on probation and parole, than were slaves before the start of the Civil War.

The theologian Audre Lorde observed that, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” If this is so, we need to find new tools. We need to stop groveling. With fewer government dollars to support our missions, we can get creative. We can seek out and find solutions even if the state has limited ability help us. We can envision a real private/public partnership, with compassionate foundations and other institutional sources willing to fund our justice reform efforts.  These funding sources will provide support for our advocacy in promoting change and will reward our evidence-based impact in reducing recidivism - and hold our feet to the fire if we do less.

So, where do I stand at this moment of challenge and controversy? I will do as Dr. King did - do my best. Do anything and everything it takes. And like Dr. King, take comfort in knowing that - if we really work together for it - we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.

Family ReEntry, Inc.
Bridgeport, New Haven

Norwalk, Connecticut
familyreentry.org

Conmments from Social Media:

Robert Bridges Jeff Grant, JD, M Div In your latest offering you note that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” If this is so, we need to find new tools. We need to stop groveling. With fewer government dollars to support our missions, we can get creative.<<" I agree 100% We get creative and we speak out from our hearts and we stay flexible and innovative and focused just as you are with your work reforming the criminal justice systems.  

RONALD R. KARNS III I'm curious if Dr. King would want us to walk in his footsteps? I think he would want us to blaze our own trail of social justice. 

Connie Shelley When I first met VIncent Harding (a co-conspirator and good friend and jail mate of Dr. King) in 1964 he told me that MLK knew he would die, he just didn't know where or when. Since that time I have often asked myself how far I'm willing to go for the sake of Justice. I work in a prison, but I don't live there; I speak with those who have no homes, but I don't live there, either; I drive through the places where the most minorities live in Denver, but I drive back to my house. In other words, I can always leave and go home where I'm comfortable and feel safe. That's one thing that Dr. King didn't always do...so perhaps there is an invitation for me in that in some way.

Jacques Johan Swanepoel Sorry but I rather walk in the footsteps of Christ rather than any men or woman on this earth.

Bob Russel (CIPA 08) Hi There; In my personal opinion by doing personal posting like this will certainly honour the life of MLK. Thank you.

Robert Bridges. Yes, perhaps the invitation is to explore the places inside where you feel uncomfortable ..... and maybe too those places inside where you feel secure and comfy and to push against that? 


Connie Shelley Robert, I have just started reading, "The New Jim Crow" and I am already confronted with my own crap. The book is required reading for a Learning Tour that I'm doing in March. We will be going to New Orleans and visiting people, jails and Angola prison. One thing I learned in the book is that the "war on drugs" was started by Reagan before there was a drug problem and, in fact, drug use was on the decline.. The CIA was involved in propping up the guerrillas in Nicaragua and the guerrillas were bringing drugs into this country and law enforcement was told to let it flow into the poor neighborhoods of color. We went from 350,000 incarcerated people in the early 1970's to over 2 million today. If you haven't seen the movie, "13th", I would recommend it. Racism is alive and well but it has been recast to look like something different.   


Connie Shelley And, since the incarceration rate for people of color is much higher than for a nice white middle class males a whole population is kept from voting, housing, jobs and any kind of social benefits. As R. Rohr points out, everything is connected in the Great Chain of Being and if I fail to see the Imago Dei in anything, I have broken the chain. It is the denial of our connectedness that allows us to feel and act superior and allows the private prisons to be a burgeoning industry in our country. Hmmm.....looking for Imago Dei in our new White House and cabinet...don't wanna break the chain.



Robert Bridges Yes, I've been reading the same book. Its very disturbing and to me one of the most disturbing aspects is that our almost exclusively white male supreme court's have gone out of their way to make justice for a black man an oxymoron.
•  
• Connie Shelley Robert Bridges have you read, "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson? His work is amazing.
  
  
• Robert Bridges nope. Perhaps I will give it a look see - thanks Connie
• 
  
• Darrell Allen I have experienced seasons of homelessness along with seasons of jail time. In fact, on July 16, 2004 I was supposed to have received 25 years without no chance of parole; but God's unconditional love, grace, and mercy showed up in the power of the Holy Spirit and I only ended up doing 6 months. I think the real question should be: "What Should We Do to Walk like or imitate Jesus?" I say this because Martin Luther King Jr showed us the unconditional love, grace, and mercy of Jesus in his every day walk of life. He was even willing to die for his belief in doing God's perfect will and becoming a ultimate sacrifice for Jesus' ministry of love for one another (John 13:3-35; 15:13).
• 
  

 

 

The Fire Down Below: Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System, By Andy Thibault - Guest Blogger

Prisonist.org: Faith & Dignity 
for the Days Ahead
Blogs, Guest Blogs & News 

The Fire Down Below:
Racial Disparity in the 
Criminal Justice System 

By Andy Thibault - Guest Blogger

Andy Thibault & Bonnie Foreshaw

Let me start with a simple definition for the question, “What is Racial Disparity?” 

The answer comes from The Sentencing Project, a national non-profit promoting sentencing reform: “Racial disparity in the criminal justice system exists when the proportion of a racial or ethnic group within the control of the system is greater than the proportion of such groups in the general population.”

In a paper entitled “Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System,” The Sentencing Project notes that in 2006, 38 percent of prison and jail inmates were African-American, compared to their 13 percent share in the overall population. The paper also asserted that a black male born in 2001 had a 32 percent chance of spending time in prison at some point in his life, a Hispanic male had a 17 percent chance and a white male had a six percent chance.

Michelle Alexander calls this situation “The New Jim Crow,” which might also be called “Apartheid, American Style.”

The writer and Union Theological Seminary Professor Cornel West, in his Foreword to Alexander’s book, says: “There is no doubt that if young white people were incarcerated at the same rates as young black people, the issue would be a national emergency … it is also true that if young black middle- and upper-class people were incarcerated at the same rates as young black poor people, black leaders would focus more on the prison industrial complex.”

Alexander characterizes “the popular narrative that emphasizes the death of slavery and Jim Crow and celebrates the nation’s ‘triumph over race’ with the election of Barack Obama” as “dangerously misguided.”

She continues:

“The colorblind public consensus that prevails in America today – i.e., the widespread belief that race no longer matters – has blinded us to the realities of race in our society and facilitated the emergence of a new caste system …

“I use the term racial caste in this book the way it is used in common parlance to denote a stigmatized racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom. Jim Crow and slavery were caste systems. So is our current system of mass incarceration …

“[Chapter 3] debunks the notion that rates of black imprisonment can be explained by crime rates and identifies the huge racial disparity at every stage of the criminal justice process – from the initial stop, search and arrest to the plea bargaining and sentencing phases. In short, the chapter explains how the legal rules that structure the system guarantee discriminatory results. These legal rules ensure that the undercaste is overwhelmingly black and brown.”

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No prisoner has served more time in the Niantic jail –  aka York “Correctional” Institution – longer than Bonnie Jean Foreshaw, a battered and sexually-abused woman who has somehow managed to survive and hold on to her humanity.

Foreshaw gave birth to her first child after being raped at age 12. She’s been a victim of violence and sexual abuse from childhood through her 27 ½ years in prison.

After she was beaten by her third husband she carried a gun for protection. She was a machinist for Wiremold Company in Hartford for 10 years, a shop steward. She bought a house in Bloomfield and cared for her children.

Her third husband continued to stalk her.

One night in 1986 Foreshaw stopped for a drink at the Jamaican Progressive League in Hartford. A man named Hector Freeman offered her a drink. She declined. Freeman pursued Foreshaw, would not leave her alone, followed her to her car. Freeman asked why Foreshaw thought she was “too good for a drink” with him. Freeman said again and again he was going to fuck her up. Freeman came toward her, he reached into his pocket. Foreshaw feared Freeman was going to pull a knife or a gun. Instead, Freeman pulled a pregnant woman in front of him.

Foreshaw, then age 38, simultaneously fired her gun. She hit the pregnant woman who died. That woman, Joyce Amos, was used as a human shield after trying to restrain Freeman. Prosecutor James Thomas grossly overcharged Foreshaw for premeditated murder of a person she had never met.

The prosecution conveniently failed to disclose that Freeman had pending charges for assault of a police officer. A judge ruled Freeman's tainted testimony was just fine. That’s the way it works when the forces of the state want a conviction for an inflated charge regardless of the facts.

The highest proper charge for Foreshaw would have been manslaughter. Justice might have been served and she would have been freed many years ago. At times like this it makes absolutely no sense that some people are in jail and others get to play golf and collect state pensions.

Foreshaw wrote of her remorse in a volume of redemptive memoirs, “Couldn’t Keep It To Myself,” edited by the novelist Wally Lamb: “I never lost sight of the fact that I still had my life and Joyce Amos, the lady who tried to help me that night, had lost hers. She had been someone's mother and someone's daughter, same as me. A powerful sadness was closing in. I began to ask myself how I could survive – or if I even wanted to ... ”

Dr. Evan Stark, a professor at Rutgers and an expert on domestic violence, has written that Foreshaw “acted in fear of her life ... and her actions constituted a self defense ... her understanding of the danger she faced and her response were drawn from an astute and experience-tested understanding of situations in which men use violence and control to hurt or dominate women.”

 __________

As “Couldn’t Keep It To Myself” was published in 2003, I began to learn about the Foreshaw case. I wrote about a dozen columns and news stories about prison conditions over the next couple years and made a pitch for Bonnie’s case on Tom Monahan’s NBC30 Sunday show: link.

I received correspondence from Bonnie periodically, then picked up the case again in 2013.

Here are some experts from an Associated Press story dated June 20, 2013 about the long-suppressed “Blue Note” which eventually led to freedom for Bonnie Foreshaw:

>A Connecticut woman convicted of murder for a 1986 shooting death has been granted a clemency hearing after a 24-year-old document questioning her trial lawyer's work resurfaced …

>The state Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Foreshaw’s application for a clemency hearing last month, but changed the ruling Monday after learning about a 1989 public defender’s memo through newspaper columns, board Chairwoman Erika Tindill said. The board didn't know about the memo when it rejected the application May 1, she said ...

>The memo was written by then-public defender Jon Blue, who said he believed Foreshaw didn’t get a fair trial because of serious mistakes made by her trial public defender, Dennis O’Toole. Blue wrote that O’Toole failed to challenge a “highly questionable” confession Foreshaw gave to police, a confession she refused to sign. He also said O’Toole failed to present an effective mental state defense.

>Tindill said a staffer in her office alerted her to the memo after it was written about in news columns by Andy Thibault, a contributing editor for Journal Register Co. newspapers in Connecticut. Thibault declined to say Thursday how he obtained the document.

>“Had it not been for the surfacing of that memo, which we had no idea about, we would not have reconsidered her case,” Tindill said Thursday.

__________

In a May 27, 2013 column entitled, “ ‘The Blue Note’ key to Bonnie Foreshaw case resolution,” I cited this key element of the memo regarding Bonnie’s status as a battered person:
“A great deal of [this] relevant material was never produced [at trial] at all,” Blue wrote. “No friends or family who knew Mrs. Foreshaw testified. A former husband had beaten Ms. Foreshaw on the head with a baseball bat ... and she had spent two weeks in the hospital. No hospital records were produced. Ms. Foreshaw had three failed marriages ending in domestic violence and divorce. No divorce or police records were produced. After she got out of the hospital, she had ‘head problems’ and went to see a neurologist. No neurologist was produced. The neurologist referred her to two different psychiatrists, who saw her a number of times. Neither of these psychiatrists was produced ... The end result was that the jury learned little or nothing about Ms. Foreshaw and what was really happening in her mind. She did not have an effective defense.”

__________

I turn now to an Aug. 5, 2013 broadcast by WNPR’s Where We Live previewing the clemency hearing that was to follow in October. WNPR’s Vice President for News John Dankosky and Managing Editor Diane Orson set the table. Following are excerpts from a transcript:

ORSON: I’d read that a woman in prison at York Correctional Institution in Niantic, named Bonnie Foreshaw, had been granted a clemency hearing and I recognized her name because years ago when I first came to Connecticut Public Radio, I worked as a co-producer for the show Open Air New England with Faith Middleton and I remembered that Faith had actually interviewed Bonnie Foreshaw. It was in the early nineties. Anyway, I contacted Faith and she got back to me and confirmed that this was the same person and I began to research the case ... March 27, 1986, Bonnie Jean Foreshaw – she was then 38 years old – a machinist at the Wire Mold Company in Hartford, she was shop steward, she was active in her union, she was supporting her children, she went to a Jamaican social club on Albany Avenue in Hartford and there she met a man who she’d never met before, named Hector Freeman, who wanted to buy her a drink. She refused him. He was persistent. She was in no mood and she left the club. At this point it’s important to mention that this is a woman who lived a very traumatic life. She is truly a battered woman. She’d been assaulted over and over again. She’d endured physical, verbal, sexual violence as a child. Later she was the victim of, as you said, horrible abuse by three husbands, stuff I don’t even want to talk about on the air. But suffice to say, I mean, she’s been beaten by a baseball bat, all kinds of horrible things. Bonnie Foreshaw made a decision to buy a .38 caliber gun for protection because her third husband was still stalking her and she felt threatened. So, back to the night of shooting, Hector Freeman follows her outside. He continues to sort of shout insults at her. And at this point I want to mention a documentary film was made in the mid-nineties about this case and it’s called The Nature of the Beast [by Ondi Timoner]. It’s quite comprehensive. And at this point I’d like to play an excerpt from that film. This is the voice of Bonnie Foreshaw from an interview in prison describing, in her words, what happened that night.  

BONNIE FORESHAW [IN FILE VIDEO]: [Indistinguishable] with his hands in his pocket and he was cursing and threatening. And all I wanted to do was get in my car. And before I could do that, he came towards me with his hands, cursing, threatening. I pulled my gun out and shot, you know, and just shot once. Next thing I know, the lady fell, the man stopped, I got in my car and left. About 20 minutes later I was pulled over and arrested and charged with murder, which I found out the next day that the lady had died and I was told in court that I was going to be charged with double murder because she was pregnant. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know her and she was just there trying to keep him from bothering me.

ORSON: ... she was tried in 1987 for murder, not for manslaughter. Murder means intentionally causing the death of someone, premeditated murder. She’d never met either Hector Freeman or this woman, Joyce Amos, until the night of the shooting. So, she was arrested, you know, as we heard, minutes after the shooting. She was taken in, she was interrogated. Around 2:00 in the morning she hand-wrote out a confession, but she did not sign it. So, Bonnie has been represented over the years by a lot of people, like 20 different lawyers or something like that. A public defender was appointed to represent her for the death of Joyce Amos, the woman who had stepped – had been used as a shield – stepped into the situation. There are numerous questions, which we’re going to hear from Andy Thibault a little bit more about, about the way her case was handled in court. But the biggest question is why the public defender did not educate the jury about Bonnie Foreshaw’s history, a history that was really critical for people judging her as jurors to understand in order to make sense of why a battered woman might be carrying a gun, why she might shoot it if she felt threatened in self-defense. None of that was part of the trial. Instead, the jury found her guilty. She was given at the time, as you said, believed to be the longest sentence ever imposed in Connecticut’s history on a woman, a 45-year prison sentence. And so she has been incarcerated since then. She was 38 when she was arrested. She’s going to be I think 66 later this month. She’s been behind bars for more than 27 years.

DANKOSKY: I want to bring in Andy Thibault now to talk a bit about this. And as we get to this new piece of evidence, maybe you can shed a little more light on something that Diane was hinting at with that piece of audio from the documentary about why exactly she was charged with murder, why she was given such a very long sentence in this case.

THIBAULT: I think her charges were jacked up to advance the careers of prosecutors and cops and these charges had no basis in reality. In fact, I believe there’s an ongoing criminal conspiracy to violate Bonnie Foreshaw’s civil rights. I base that on a fake drug raid that was designed to dismantle her defense, the suspicious withdrawal of the motion to suppress her coerced confession. There’s a five-hour gap. We don’t know what happened between 2:00 and 7:00 a.m. and the prosecutor, James Thomas, falsely stated that Bonnie was a known drug seller, though he knew no drugs had been found. So, it was a setup. Bonnie, in effect, faced three prosecutors; the judge, the prosecutor James Thomas who stepped on a black woman victim of abuse and made her a poor woman by engineering the seizure of her house and diverting 80 grand that she could have used for a good private attorney...

DANKOSKY: Andy Thibault, why after all these years, given all of this evidence, given what we hear Wally Lamb saying about a model prisoner who has done so much during her time there, why has she not gotten clemency? Why has she not gotten out of prison?

THIBAULT: Well, it’s a fixed game and it’s no question this is a gross injustice and a shame for the state of Connecticut. I’d like to read a quote from Evan Stark, who’s a social worker who’s worked a lot for the prosecution. And he said, had Bonnie not been made stuperous by medication or had her character been accurately depicted, the prosecution would have been forced to answer the question that never surfaced at her trial: Why would a deeply religious woman in the throes of separating from her abusive husband with no history of violence, a good job and a happy family life, good home and excellent future prospects, risk all by shooting a man she had never met? Now, that fake drug raid I mentioned, a key player was Detective Kumnick, who is now the right-hand man of the Hartford State’s Attorney, Gail Hardy. So, I contend that her office and her actions are tainted in this case and others by using a guy like Kumnick. The judge, the public defender, the prosecutor, they all work for the state. They’re all on the same team. The state does not admit mistakes.

DANKOSKY: When it comes to some of the connections that you’re making, what evidence do you have about this fixed game, Andy?

THIBAULT: There was a fake drug raid that was used to dismantle her defense. You’ve got cops saying, oh, there’s all these guys who look like Rastafarians with guns running around Bonnie Foreshaw’s house. They make the drug raid, they seize her house, and on the court documents, nothing found, no drugs. The confession that was coerced in which she stated, I don’t want to sign this, immediately when Detective Murdock is called to the witness stand, the quote-unquote – I hate to say it – public defender, withdraws the motion to suppress the confession. Is that not suspicious? What did the prosecutor have on this guy? Nobody’s that stupid.

DANKOSKY: So, what happens next? There is a clemency hearing now scheduled for October.  

THIBAULT: Right.

DANKOSKY: What exactly happens in the saga of Bonnie Foreshaw next?

THIBAULT: Well, you never know what’s going to happen because everybody in the system is a political appointee, however, the chairperson of the Parole and Pardons Board said that this is new and compelling evidence and that they’re taking another look because of the Blue Note. I challenge anyone to look at the Blue Note and come to any other conclusion that if Bonnie Foreshaw had been charged properly with manslaughter, she would have been free many years ago.

__________

To highlight the double-dealing by the state of Connecticut in this case, I turn again to Dr. Evan Stark, the Rutgers professor and expert witness:

Stark reported the local and federal authorities raided Foreshaw’s home, allegedly in response to reports it was a drug den, and seized her home under the federal forfeiture provision. But the $80,000 or so expended on the forfeiture proceeding and repurchasing the house exceeded the assets she needed for bail and to hire a private attorney. The court appointed an attorney who had never tried a murder case and had little criminal trial experience. In jail, she was given medications for depression that made her so drowsy she had trouble staying awake during the trial, let alone actively participating in her defense, Stark said.

In addition, Stark said, the drug raid was designed to undermine her defense and confounded the problems already faced by her inexperienced lawyer. Drug charges were still pending, when she went to trial and the state’s attorney [James Thomas] portrayed her as a “known drug seller,” though he knew no drugs had been found and that she neither had a history of drug use or any drug-related arrests, he said.

Would any reasonable or thoughtful person believe this kind of set-up is likely to happen to a white person of means? I ask this to set the table for further discussion. Certainly there are plenty of cases to cite in this historical context.

The ultimate outcome of the Foreshaw case, I contend, was a fluke, an aberration. The fortuitous surfacing of the Blue Note came after Judge Blue was embedded in the public consciousness because of his role as the presiding judge in the infamous Cheshire murders. Blue’s word was golden, even if it helped to free a person convicted unjustly. To his credit, Blue showed up at the clemency hearing to affirm his memo. And the chair of the board of Pardons and Paroles, Erika Tindill, displayed courage in affixing her signature to the clemency document.

Bonnie Foreshaw has been a free person since Nov. 15, 2013: link to YouTube.

We are very happy to continue this discussion Feb. 29 at the Willimantic and Danielson campuses of Quinebaug Valley Community College. Click here for details. Special thanks to the poet and Professor Jon Andersen for arranging this event, and to QVCC President Carlee Drummer and Associate Director of Career Services for their hospitality.

Andy Thibault, author of "more COOL JUSTICE’, covered the Boston Marathon bombing trial for NBC News and WhoWhatWhy.com.  Thibault was honored in 2014 by the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information with the Stephen Collins Award for his “many contributions to the cause of open and accountable government and a free and vigorous press.” Currently, he works as a private investigator for Integrated Security Services of Hartford. Andy's Twitter handle is @cooljustice. He can be reached at tntcomm82@cs.com. 

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Editor's full disclosure: Bonnie Foreshaw, CT Commissioner of Corrections Scott Semple and I were panelists at Ready for Freedom…? Life After Prison In Connecticut; Andy Thibault was the moderator. Also, former Chair of CT Board of Pardons & Paroles [now Superior Court Judge] Erika Tindill and I served together on the Board of Directors of Family ReEntry, a nonprofit based in Bridgeport, CT - Jeff

Posting & reprinting this column OK courtesy of the Progressive Prison Project/Innocent Spouse & Children Project.

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DONATIONS

We are grateful for all donations to our Ministries that enable us to grow, reach out and serve this community for which there is far too little understanding, compassion and empathy.  Donations can be made by credit card/PayPal here, at the "Donate" button on on our site, prisonist.org or by sending your check payable to: "Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc." P.O. Box 1232, Weston, Connecticut 06883. 

Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is a CT Religious Corp. with 501c3 status - all donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Thank you for your support and generosity.

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If you, a friend or a family member are experiencing a white-collar or nonviolent incarceration issue, please contact us and we will promptly send you an information package by mail, email or via Dropbox.

The darkest days of a person's life can be a 

time of renewal and hope

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Progressive Prison Project/ Innocent Spouse & Children Project

Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
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Lynn Springer, Founding Advocate, Innocent Spouse & Children Project
lspringer@prisonist.org 

(203) 536-5508

George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
(203) 609-5088

Jim Gabal, Development
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Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact
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Upcoming Events: Spring 2015

Progressive Prison Project

Innocent Spouse & Children Project

Greenwich I Weston I Bridgeport

Connecticut

Upcoming Events: Spring 2015

We want to bring to your attention the important line-up
of mass incarceration related events for Spring '15. We welcome your submission of others. - Jeff

Michelle Alexander at Union Theological Seminary, Weds., Mar. 4, 6:30 pm

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Institute from Women, Religion and Globalization at our alma mater, Union Theological Seminary presents: Fifth Annual Judith Davidson Moyers Women of Spirit Lecture featuring author, advocate, and civil rights lawyer, Michelle Alexander.  Alexander is the author of the best selling book The New Jim Crow. Registration is required.  RSVP to kmcgee@uts.columbia.edu or call (212) 280-1590.

Nell Bernstein, Author of Burning Down The House, Mark Twain Museum, Hartford, Mar. 5, 2015

Award-winning journalist Nell Bernstein will be interviewed by WNPR’s John Dankosky for a conversation that explores this controversial issue and discusses alternative community programs that support the child and their family. Tickets are $20 which includes a light supper reception from 5:30 p.m. Sponsored with Community Partners in Action and the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance. Click image for more info.

Fourth Annual Bridgeport Reentry Awards, Fri., Mar. 27, 2015, 5 - 7:30 pm

Presented by the Bridgeport Reentry Collaborative at Housatonic Community College. Click image for more info.

 

Children Of Incarcerated Parents Conference, East Hartford, CT, Fri., April 24, 2015

Jeff is honored to be Keynote Speaker for the 2015 Reach Healthy Kids Conference, Conference Topic, "Sounding the Siren for Children with Incarcerated Parents: Pulling Together to Break the Cycle of Generational Incarceration." Sponsored by REACH Training Healthy Children Initiative and East Hartford Youth Services. Click image for more information.

Faith Beyond Bars & Beyond Conference, Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT, Sat., April 25, 2015

 

 

 

The topic for this year's Faith Behind Bars & Beyond conference is "Re-Entry and Reunion: Adjusting to Coming Home."  This year's Keynote Speaker is Connecticut Commissioner of Corrections Scott Semple.  We were the lead-off speaker at last year's conference and found it to be a fulfilling event.  This year's conference promises to be an important and informative day.

Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine" & A White-Collar Panel in Greenwich, Sat., May 2, 2015, 4-7 pm

Christ Church Greenwich and the Progressive Prison Project/Innocent Spouse & Children Project will co-host a screening of Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine," followed by a panel of persons convicted of white-collar crimes and their families (the first time in history). A discussion about compassion & empathy toward people in our community. We are in the process of selecting panelists who will reveal their authentic struggles and successes, and be prepared to answer all your questions. Click image for more information.
 

Danny Glover in Bridgeport. Presented By Family ReEntry, Weds., May 6, 2015, 7 pm

Family ReEntry's presents Mass Incarceration & Racial Disparity, Featuring Acclaimed Actor & Leading Social Activist, Danny Glover. Danny will be interviewed by Connecticut's own WNPR radio host & commentator, Colin McEnroe. Rev. Jeff Grant will serve as Host & emcee. There will also be a panel of notable CT criminal justice experts and a media presentation. Weds. May 6, 2015, 7 pm, The Klein, Bridgeport, CT. For sponsor packet & info, contact Jeffrey Earls, jeffreyearls@familyreentry.org, (203) 290-0865. Click image for short video.

RENEW 2015: Correctional Minstry Summit, Wheaton College, IL, Fri., May 29, 2015, 10 am

We will be presenting at the CMCA Summit, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College, IL. This is a three-day conference, May 28-30, 2015.  Our workshop will be held on Fri., May 29th at 10 am. Workshop topic: "Bringing Together Communities Suffering From Incarceration Issues: Inner City, White Collar and Nonviolent. A Christian Approach." Click image for more details and to order tickets.

Hudson Link/Mercy College Graduation, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, June 3, 2015

Lynn and I are honored to be attending the graduation ceremony of inmates who have completed their college degrees behind bars! Click image for more info.

__________

Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
jg3074@columbia.edu

(o) +1203.769.1096
(m) +1203.339.5887

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Lynn Springer, Advocate, Innocent Spouses & Children
lspringer@prisonist.org
(m) +1203.536.5508

George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org

Michael Karaffa, Advocate, Disabilities
mkaraffa@prisonist.org

JustLeadershipUSA, By Glenn E. Martin - Guest Blogger

Progressive Prison Project 

Innocent Spouse & Children Project 

Greenwich, Connecticut

JustLeadershipUSA

By Glenn E. Martin - Guest Blogger

JustLeadershipUSA's big launch and benefit is
 coming up on Weds., Nov. 12th in NYC.
  We asked our friend Glenn E. Martin - 
its leader and visionary - if he would 
contribute something special to prisonist.org.  
He did not disappoint.  - Jeff

Recently, I was invited to serve as a member of NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Reentry and Reintegration Council.  I was both humbled and troubled at once:  I was humbled because as a man whose youthful past includes serving six years in a New York State correctional facility, I recognize how fortunate I am to simultaneously lead JustLeadershipUSA (www.justleadershipusa.org), serve on a number of non-profit Boards, wear various other leadership hats and speak as a member of several different communities. I was troubled because so many formerly incarcerated people—in fact the vast majority—has never had the opportunity to develop their potential.  The creation and launch of JustLeadershipUSA is my attempt to end that pattern of alienation and oppression now.

For me, exiting prison in 2000 was a rebirth.  I wanted to be great.  I knew I was developing a distinct voice that if fully realized, would become resounding enough to make a difference.  But where was my platform?  And even if such a proverbial platform existed, how would it develop?  So began my journey.

Much of what I’ve accomplished thus far can be attributed to the compassion and generosity of my friends, family and colleagues, self-education, leadership training, sound mentoring and exposure to opportunity.  Periods of reflection have allowed me to be both appreciative of my achievements and critical of the many barriers that have surfaced along the way.

JustLeadershipUSA is the culmination of such reflection. We are dedicated to cutting the US prison population in half by 2030 while reducing crime. JustLeaderhipUSA empowers people most affected by incarceration to drive policy reform.  To realize our vision and achieve our goals, we develop and support formerly incarcerated leaders, build and sustain an engaged national membership and rive policy advocacy efforts on the federal, state and local levels.  The idea that communities and individuals impacted by incarceration and our criminal justice system will now have a formal space dedicated to tapping their potential to become leaders in reform efforts brings me hope that we will finally achieve deep, sustainable change in our criminal justice system.

I carefully considered the principles that must guide such an organization. JustLeadershipUSA has learned a great deal from the vast criminal justice institutes, think tanks and social service programs that currently exist.  However, it also dares to put new and authentic drivers in the seat of the reform locomotive.  It is time for those closest to the problem to rise up and lead us all down the path out of our problems.  No community wants, or needs, true reform to occur more than the ones directly impacted by a failed criminal justice system.  Why, then, are we not seeking their advice about what needs to change, where we can improve, and what strategies do we need to implement to actually see such change?

50 years after Dr. Martin Luther King’s "I Have A Dream" speech, America has gradually expanded the definition of justice and civil rights. Led by King's vision, and the sweat of many other social engineers, many groups that were once disenfranchised and ignored now have a place behind the podium. One's sexual orientation, gender identification, ethnicity, or immigration status does not automatically preclude one from playing a significant role in one's destiny.

Yet 50 years after that emblazoned speech, many continue to selectively downplay the fact that King—the Reverend...the Doctor...the peacemaker—was also, at various points in his life, a man behind bars.  He was exposed to the brutality of prison life and relegated to a number, with no regard for his name or stature.  It was behind bars that he wrote the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” where he stated the following:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

JustLeadershipUSA is not an expansion, but a recognition of King's vision of a nation composed of equally empowered citizens.  Our incarceration system was built on the flawed thinking that "lock 'em up and throw away the key" would solve all of our public safety problems.  But as King insightfully highlighted, we are all patches in this quilt called America, woven together by both our victories and our injustices.  Repositioning the patches of the millions of Americans impacted by the criminal justice system is JustLeadershipUSA's "call to action," and an important step toward his dream being realized.

I acknowledge that my success is also tied to my failures; that I am invited to circles largely because to many of my colleagues I represent an “exception,” rather than the rule.  But my life is dedicated to changing what we have accepted as the “norm.”  JustLeadershipUSA seeks to provide a space for those for whom society has no room; time for those for whom we have no time; a voice for those whose cries have been muffled and muted.  JustLeadershipUSA aims to serve as a vehicle for millions who aim for the same rights and opportunities as their fellow Americans: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We can no longer incarcerate millions of human beings without examining ourselves and the cultural, societal and public policies that created the mass incarceration complex in the United States. Nor can we continue to claim to be the land of opportunity while implementing policies to ensure that opportunity eludes so many.    It is time for all to dare to create sustainable change in how we define and administer justice in America.  To that end, we look forward to working with you and hope you will join us by clicking here to join our membership.  United Purpose, United Voice, United Power.  #halfby2030  @glennEmartin

GLENN E. MARTIN is the Founder and Chief Risk Taker of JustLeadershipUSA. (JLUSA). Glenn is a national leader and criminal justice reform advocate who spent six years in New York State prisons. Prior to founding JLUSA, Glenn served for seven years as Vice President of Development and Public Affairs at The Fortune Society and six years as Co-Director of the National HIRE Network at the Legal Action Center.

Glenn is Co-Founder of the Education from the Inside Out Coalition, a 2014 Echoing Green Black Male Achievement Fellow, a 2012 America’s Leaders of Change National Urban Fellow, and a member of the governing boards of the College and Community Fellowship, Prisoners’ Legal Services, the Petey Greene Program, the Reset Foundation, the New York Foundation, and California Partnership for Safe Communities.

Glenn also serves on the advisory board of the Vera Institute’s Public Health and Mass Incarceration Initiative, the National Network for Safe Communities and the Executive Session on Community Corrections at Harvard Kennedy School. Glenn regularly contributes his expertise to national news outlets such as MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, Al Jazeera and CSPAN on topics such as policing, decarceration, alternatives to incarceration, and reentry issues.

________

Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org

jg3074@columbia.edu
(o) +1203.769.1096
(m) +1203.339.5887

Lynn Springer, Advocate, Innocent Spouses & Children
lspringer@prisonist.org
(m) +1203.536.5508

George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org

Michael Karaffa, Advocate, Disabilities
mkaraffa@prisonist.org

The Justice Imperative Book Review, by Kam Williams

Progressive Prison Project 

Innocent Spouse & Children Project

Greenwich, Connecticut

The Justice Imperative Book Review

By KamWilliams

The Justice Imperative:

How Hyper-Incarceration Has Hijacked the American Dream

by Brian E. Moran, Esq.  

Significance Press  

Paperback, $9.99                                                                     

186 pages, Illustrated

ISBN: 978-0-9886509-7-8 

Book Review by Kam Williams

           

“Our criminal justice system is in need of reform. [It] costs the taxpayers too much, fails at rehabilitation, exacts a life-long toll on offenders, and does not yield corresponding social benefits. 

 

The purpose of this book is three-fold: (1) to provide information about the causes and extent of the problems overwhelming the process of criminal justice… (2) to explain why reform is long overdue and in our collective best interest… (3) to suggest reforms that are supported by empirical evidence…  

 

As a society, we have become hardened toward felons… [But] it is in the public interest to have released offenders rehabilitated… By recognizing the human dignity of all offenders and enabling them to realize redemption and restore their relationships within the community, all of society is ennobled.

 

Excerpted from the Foreword by William J. Fox (pages i-iii)

The U.S. prison population exploded between 1980 and 2000, thanks primarily to the so-called “War on Drugs.” During that interim, the number of people jailed went from about 300,000 to over 2,000,000. 

 

Today, about 2% of our working-age men are behind bars, most for non-violent offenses, giving the country the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world. Unfortunately, taking this tough stance on crime has come at quite a societal cost. 

 

For, not only is it expensive to house inmates, at over $50,000/year in Connecticut, but there is plenty of evidence that it is failing miserably in its efforts to rehabilitate offenders. Consequently, the State has a high recidivism rate, with over half of its ex-cons returning to the correctional system via a virtual revolving door. 

 

            That is the contention of Brian Moran, lawyer and author of “The Justice Imperative: How Hyper-Incarceration Has Hijacked the American Dream.” Although the book’s focus is on Connecticut, what’s transpired there proves to be par for the course. 

 

This opus points out that the policy of treating juvenile delinquents like adults has been counterproductive, since “it is more likely that an African-American boy who drops out of high school will be arrested than get a job.” It further laments that “one in every three black males born today can expect to serve time in prison.” 

 

Mr. Moran, as a member of the Malta Justice Initiative, suggests a host of reforms to “The New Jim Crow,” as dubbed by Michelle Alexander, starting with making it easier for parolees to find gainful employment. And the group’s other solutions include reserving incarceration for violent offenders. 

 

The goal: to reduce Connecticut’s spending on the prison system, to reduce its prison population, to reduce its recidivism rate, and to close half its number of prisons. An admirable initiative spearheaded by a visionary attorney wise enough to seek out the bipartisan support necessary to implement the urgently-needed changes.

To learn more about the project visit: www.TheJusticeImperative.org

 

Reprinted from KamWilliams.com

 

 _________

Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org

jg3074@columbia.edu
(o) +1203.769.1096
(m) +1203.339.5887

Lynn Springer, Advocate, Innocent Spouses & Children
lspringer@prisonist.org
(m) +1203.536.5508

George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org

Michael Karaffa, Advocate, Disabilities
mkaraffa@prisonist.org