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Catherine Read

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by Catherine Read

Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women

Becoming Ms. Burton(Sept 2017) This book is extraordinary – as is the woman who wrote it. One of the great strengths of the book is how it weaves staggering facts and statistics about mass incarceration into Susan Burton’s deeply personal story. Each chapter begins with facts about different aspects of our criminal justice system, and the sprawling prison-industrial-complex, that are impacting generations of American families.

Sixty-five million Americans with a criminal record face a total of 45,000 collateral consequences that restrict everything from employment, professional licensing, child custody rights, housing, student aid, voting and even the ability to visit an incarcerated loved one. Many of these restrictions are permanent, forever preventing those who’ve already served their time from reaching their potential in the workforce, as parents, and as productive citizens.

“The result is that these collateral consequences become a life sentence harsher than whatever sentence a court actually imposed upon conviction.” American Bar Association president William C. Hubbard

While factual information like that sets up the framework for each chapter of this book, it is Susan’s narrative that breathes life into what this means for the people who are caught up in this revolving door of poverty, trauma and incarceration.

Knowing that 90% of incarcerated women have suffered some form of sexual abuse or physical violence isn’t the same as hearing what that means when it is described from the point of view of a 3 year old, a ten year and a 14 year old rape victim now a mother. This is how Susan Burton’s life began. A teenaged prostitute, she was befriended by a bail bondsman name George who would be with her for 30 years – encouraging her to be the person he knew she could be. He was there from the lowest points of her life – working the streets, drug addiction, losing her son to a police van hitting him in the streets, forgery and theft to feed her drug habit – to the point at which she decided to get sober, get clean and start over. When she was named a Top Ten CNN Hero in 2010, she called him out by name at the awards event.

In 2012, she was named Encore’s Purpose Prize winner. In 2014, she received the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, and in 2015 the Los Angeles Times named her one of the nation’s 18 New Civil Rights Leaders.

Susan’s journey is remarkable for her ability to re-invent her life as an “ex-con” at the age of 46. It was a series of happenstance and circumstance that created opportunities for her to finally divert into a drug rehab program instead of back to prison. When she finally found the program CLARE in Santa Monica that got her into AA’s 12 Step Program, she was on her way to a new life.

There were many remarkable people that helped her along the journey to what would become “A New Way of Life,” a re-entry program for formerly incarcerated women in the Watts area of Los Angeles. This part of the book resonates with me because of my work with a re-entry program for women here in Alexandria, Virginia, called Friends of Guest House. Susan forged ahead with her vision of providing other women the help they needed to start their lives over after stepping off the prison bus. She did it herself, and she was determined to do it for others.

The impact of our broken criminal justice system on generations of families is a cycle that seems to have no end. The poverty, the trauma, the lack of educational and economic opportunities, is just compounded when millions of people are saddled with a lifetime of restrictions because of a criminal record. The impact on our country cannot be overstated – it’s tearing at the fabric of our culture and our economy. Something must be done and it will only be done when more people are motivated by the injustice of our criminal justice system.

I would highly recommend this book to every reader, and it would be a particularly excellent book club choice. These are issues more people need to be talking about. Individually, we can be the voice advocating for change, and together we can move the needle on taking back our country from a broken system of justice that feeds mass incarceration and dooms future generations.

Filed Under: Good Books, Political, Women Tagged With: A New Way of Life, Addiction, Friends of Guest House, Incarcerated Women, Mass Incarceration, Poverty, Prison, Re-entry, Susan Burton, Trauma

by Catherine Read

Women Behind Bars Returning to the Community – Friends of Guest House

(July 31, 2017) Catherine Read delves into the unique challenges of women who are incarcerated in Virginia’s jails and prisons and what they face when returning to their local communities – including reconnecting with their children, finding support for addiction, and finding employment. Friends of Guest House based in Alexandria, VA, is a residential program that can accept 26 women at a time into their residential program. Founded in 1974, this program has helped about 3,000 women and their 4,000 children while accepting only 17 women at a time, until very recently when the program expanded to 26 residents and expanded from 3 months to 6 months.

Laura Jessick Friends of Guest HouseIn the first segment of the show, case worker Laura Jessick outlines some of the broad challenges these women face and how the Friends of Guest House residential program works to successfully support them through their transition. In the three segments following, Trystika, Kimberly and Alexis talk about their experiences while incarcerated and the challenges of trying to cope with life behind bars. One of the most basic challenges is managing their monthly menstrual cycles without access to adequate supplies – including underwear. We explored this topic in an earlier show with Holly Seibold of BRAWS – Bringing Resources to Aid Women’s Shelters. The lack of medical care and basic necessities for incarcerated women is an issue that the ACLU has brought forward in other states with a case in Michigan still pending.

The statistics are staggering for the growth of women in our jails and prisons. Their offenses are overwhelming low-level non-violent trangressions with many involving addiction, fraud, property damage, probation violations and theft. Many of those crimes are tied to issues of poverty. In 1970, 73 percent of counties across the United States reported zero women in their jails. Between 1970 and 2014, incarcerated women went from under 8,000 to nearly 110,000. Currently, nearly half of all jailed women are in small county jails which are funded and operated by local municipalities.*

Female Incarceration - NYTAnother key differentiating factor is that nearly 80 percent of women in jails are mothers.** Unlike incarcerated men, they are by and large single parents who are solely responsible for their young children. While much of the discussion around mass incarceration in this country has focused on the high numbers of men of color in our prisons, there has been little discussion about the explosive growth of women behind bars and the trauma that they endure there. Only Thailand incarcerates women at a higher rate than the United States. And the statistics don’t begin to show that many of these women are victims of trauma, with 86 percent reporting that they experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. Another staggering statistic is that while women make up only 13 percent of people held in local jails, they make up 67 percent of victims of staff-on-inmate sexual violence.

Traumatized when they arrive, traumatized while incarcerated, these women have major hurdles to overcome when they are no longer behind bars and must navigate their way back to a sustainable life on the outside without the support of treatment programs and services to help with affordable housing, workforce development, healthcare, transportation and support for their children. This is where the Friends of Guest House have a proven track record of helping women to get their lives together in a way that is sustainable. While national recidivism rates are around 70 percent, for those who complete the Friends of Guest House residential program, that rate is less than 10 percent.

Scant attention has been paid to the struggles of women behind bars, the explosive growth in their incarceration, and the many social-economic-racial factors that have led to this national crisis. One fact alone should give this nation pause: an estimated 2.6 million children have a parent behind bars. When that parent is their only parent, we are almost ensuring that the cycle of poverty and prison will continue and will grow. There are alternatives to incarceration and more can be done for the women who find themselves incarcerated. It’s incumbent on us to do more both nationally and locally.

* From the published research: Overlooked: Women in Jails in the Era of Reform

** From “Mothers in Prison” – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Nov. 25, 2016

Filed Under: Inside Scoop, Political, TV Shows, Virginia, Women Tagged With: Catherine Read, Friends of Guest House, Jail, Laura Jessick, Mass Incarceration, Menstrual Hygiene, ReEntry Programs, Virginia, Women in Prison

by Catherine Read

Just Mercy – A Story of Justice and Redemption

Just Mercy - Bryan Stevenson (July 2016) This book was just a great followup to Isabelle Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns.” Bryan Stevenson brings home the reality of a racially driven criminal justice system that is out of control. The headlines around mass incarceration, the executions as well as the exonerations of prisoners on death row, the investigative journalism around the blatant miscarriage of justice – it all comes together in this book. Told in the first person, it is moving beyond anything I have the ability to describe.

As I read the book I was horrified, outraged, disbelieving, sad and discouraged. How could this happen? Our narrative of America as “the greatest nation on earth” does not hold up under this examination of a justice system blatantly racist and operated with impunity by people who do not believe they will be held accountable. Because they are not held accountable.

The recent explosion of cell phone videos showing police shooting unarmed black people is the tip of the iceberg. This has gone on for generations. The excessive use of force, the disregard for black lives, a criminal justice system where accountability is simply absent – that is the true narrative of this country.

I was floored by the details of the cases Bryan Stevenson worked on. Buoyed by the cases where he managed to finally get justice for people wrongly accused and incarcerated, and devastated by case after case of people he could not save. Innocent people are being executed by the state, which makes it murder. There is no justification for “mistakenly” taking the life of those wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. What is the penalty to the judge, jury and executioner for the wrongful death of an innocent person? Read More

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Books, Political Tagged With: Capitol Punishment, Death Row, Injustice, Justice, Mass Incarceration, racism, Wrongful Conviction

by Catherine Read

Virginia’s School to Prison Pipeline

(April 18, 2016) Attorney and advocate Juliet Hiznay joins host Catherine Read for a discussion on Virginia’s status as #1 in the nation for juveniles referred to the criminal justice system. What has happened over the last several decades to bring us to a point where children as young as 8 are being charged with crimes? Juliet Hiznay describes it as “criminalizing childhood behaviors” which in our own youths were behaviors simple dealt with in an age appropriate way by school staff, administrators and our parents. Schools are increasingly turning to school resource officers and law enforcement personnel to “police” student behavior.

Data on who these students are include the unsurprising fact that race, disability and those with mental health issues are disproportionately represented in this population. Solutions must include better policies from the legislature as well as a change in school culture. The school climate varies dramatically from one county and one individual school to another. Some schools have created a safe climate without over reliance on law enforcement while other schools have disproportionately high incidents of student referrals into the criminal justice system. This issue is not on the radar of most communities in Virginia and it needs to be addressed by those in the public who see the long term danger and impact of this “school to prison pipeline.”

Filed Under: Inside Scoop, Political, TV Shows, Virginia Tagged With: criminal justice, Juliet Hiznay, juvenile justice, Mass Incarceration, school resource officers, students, Virginia Legislature

by Catherine Read

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Short Tragic Life of Robert PeaceSo I’m not black, I did not grow up in inner city poverty, my father was not incarcerated for murder and I did not attend Yale. That is Rob Peace’s world in East Orange, NJ. I cannot know that world except through the story of his life told by his Yale roommate of 4 years, author Jeff Hobbs.

I loved this book. I was drawn into Rob/Shawn’s story and wanted so much for him to realize the mythological “American Dream” that says it’s about sacrifice, hard work and a good education. But the title told me it would not be a happy ending. I’m glad the author tells us that up front. It allows us to suspend our judgments of his choices and just wait for events to unfold. By the end of the book, I cared so much about this smart, dedicated, hardworking young man who wanted so much to do right by his family and his friends. He got dealt a set of cards the day he was born. Some things he could control and some things he couldn’t – that is the story of every human life.

He made bad decisions and bad choices. We all have a personal responsibility to live with the choices we make. But it needs to be put into the context of the worlds he lived in. And there were two worlds he was straddling: the dangerous poor neighborhoods of East Orange where he grew up, where his mother lived and where he returned after Yale. Then there was his four years at Yale where he excelled academically and received a degree in molecular biophysics and bio chemistry, the tuition funded entirely by a benefactor. He also sold marijuana to fund his additional expenses at Yale and to stockpile money he would use to help support his mother Jackie and launch his future in Rio. I’m not going to delve into the sad history of marijuana in this country and how it has ruined lives for no discernible reason that makes any sense. It’s just one of the factors that played out in this tragedy.Read More

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Books Tagged With: East Orange, Inner City Crime, Jeff Hobbs, Mass Incarceration, Poverty, Racial Justice, Robert Peace, Yale

Catherine S. Read
I believe in the power of community and the ability of one person to make a difference.

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