Today is a day for reflection. And I want to share the two thoughts foremost on my mind.
The first is gratitude for the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his impact — while he was alive but also the enduring influence he has on our world, and the example he left for each of us.
The second is an affront to that legacy — the death penalty. In addition to celebrating Dr. King today, we must recognize the 45th anniversary of the first execution after the restoration of the death penalty in 1976.
Dr. King stands today as an icon for unity, nonviolence, and peace. He’s cited often when leaders are trying to find common ground. But that wasn’t the case when he was alive. True history tells us that he was a disruptor who didn’t shy away from confrontation.
One way he demonstrated that disruption was through his stance on the death penalty. In 1957, at a time when few weeks went by without an execution, Dr. King was clear: “Capital punishment is against…the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”
He knew that the death penalty was an undeniable extension of the legacy of lynching. Those acts are possible for the same reason that slavery was possible: in the words of Dr. King, to justify slavery early Americans “depersonalized” the victims, stripping them of their humanity, and they “stigmatized” Blackness.
Like our broader criminal legal system, racism is at the core of the death penalty system. Forty-one percent of death row is occupied by Black men. Of the 186 people exonerated since 1976, because of wrongful convictions, 54% were Black.
Like Dr. King, we cannot turn our heads away from this grave injustice. We cannot ignore the way this barbaric practice preys upon the vulnerable and feeds on racism. We cannot stand by while so many leaders cling to this false notion that we can achieve justice by killing, by inflicting trauma on families and communities.
Millions of Americans and 26 states have embraced Dr. King’s legacy of disruption by ending state-sponsored killings. More states will soon follow. And we need our leaders in Washington to do what is right and stop the federal death penalty, in whatever way possible.
I hope you can find time to watch this particular interview with Dr. King, just months before he was taken from us. He talks about the lasting impact of slavery at the 14-minute mark.
Kasandra Mojica earned one of two Shari Silberstein Reimagining Justice Internships in the fall 2021, working in communications. Throughout her time at EJUSA, she learned about our vision to address harm in a trauma-informed way, instead of with punishment, and she wrote this piece as a culmination of her internship. Kasandra graduated from Rutgers University in December 2021, and she plans to help transform the criminal justice system by pursuing a career in law.
All the choices I have made regarding my professional and academic career have been inspired by my cousin’s experiences with “the system.” He is just one year my elder and was raised alongside me. We even lived in the same household frequently until the age of 12. That was when he moved to an area riddled with violence and trauma. This experience inspired many of the difficult decisions that would lead to consistent interactions with the criminal legal system throughout his youth.
Throughout our childhood and into early adulthood, I assumed his experience was merely an unjust reality, an inherent threat that came with the territory of being a person of color in America.
As a criminal justice major, I learned about the implications of racial profiling, concepts relating to the school-to-prison pipeline, and racial disparities fundamental to mass incarceration in the U.S. Now, I can recognize that this system was designed to produce racist results.
This January marks the eleventh month since my cousin’s incarceration. For ten months, amid a pandemic, my cousin has awaited a trial that has been consistently rescheduled.
Throughout my undergraduate career, I pursued a variety of internships to experience the impact of criminal justice. That’s what brought me to Equal Justice USA. As a Shari Silberstein Reimagining Justice Intern in communications, I was able to interact with a multitude of content concerning the legacies of racism that continue to thrive within the criminal legal system. I absorbed new insights about effective community-based programs for violence reduction and modes of healing trauma. Despite having spent three years learning about “the system” in college, it was not until this internship that I recognized the effectiveness of community-led alternatives to policing, incarceration, and other punitive measures, across the nation.
Today, the influence of my cousin’s reality, a result of the current system, manifests itself with my deep interest in the juvenile justice system and in protecting youth with similar risk factors from a similar fate. Youth issues of the criminal legal system are related to elements including but not limited to racial disparities, trauma, and family dynamics.
I live in New Jersey where, according to sentencing data released by the Juvenile Justice Commission, 65.2% of youth involved with the juvenile justice system in the state are Black, while 11.52% are white. That means that Black youth interact with the system at 5.6 times the rate of white youth. This racial disparity exemplifies the fact that racism is the rotten core of the justice system.
When discussing the current system, we consider the consequences of equating justice with punishment. There are so many ways to punish young people. Incarceration may be the most detrimental for youth because it separates them from family, friends, and love.
A study by criminologists Jillian Turanovic and Brea Young looked at the effect of visitation on rates of recidivism among incarcerated youth and found that “for the average juvenile, visitation is associated with a marginal reduction in the likelihood of recidivism, and that the effects are more pronounced for high-risk youth.” Although such research has proven that an increase in visitation results in a decreased prospective rate of recidivism, the prison and jail system makes regular visitation with family really hard. Reports from all over the country, in states including but not limited to Louisiana, North Carolina, and New Jersey, demonstrate the consequences of limited family visitation.
There’s no question that the removal of family support causes trauma. And trauma is almost always present before a person commits a violent act. And we also must think about the intergenerational cycles of incarceration and the effect that can have on youth before they encounter the juvenile justice system.
Was their mother or father incarcerated? How did the design of the criminal legal system hinder the relationship between the youth and their parents? Did the separation of a parent from a child damage the relationship and inflict trauma? Did the young person get any healing for that trauma? These are the questions to consider.
Inside of that, we must look at the accessibility to correctional facilities. How easy was it for the young person to communicate regularly with an incarcerated parent? The location of correctional facilities — and fees associated with phone calls, transportation, parking, and more — are all factors which could make it difficult for financially dependent children to maintain a relationship with their incarcerated parent(s).
The issues and flaws discussed above are only a few of the many within the criminal legal system as it affects youth. In proper EJUSA fashion, we must consider not only the fixes to the systems we need — we must imagine and then build the new system in its place. Project Avery is a program that has already reimagined a piece of that system. This national organization supports, provides resources for, and facilitates community among children who have incarcerated parents. The organization succeeds in addressing the trauma caused by the loss of a parent to incarceration to combat intergenerational cycles of incarceration.
Ultimately, we need a system catered to youth, that prioritizes the safety, healing, and accountability necessary to repair all instances of harm. Violence is a public health crisis, and we have all the tools to address it through solutions for our communities led by our communities in the form of violence prevention, healing, and restorative justice programs.
I believe that if we had a justice system that addressed my cousin’s trauma, and actually prevented the kind of violence that introduced him to our criminal legal system, he would not be incarcerated. He would not be awaiting a trial, after 11 months, to prove his innocence. Perhaps in another life, with different circumstances, facing a different system of justice and accountability, he would have graduated college with me just a month ago.
Today I look forward to being a part of the change to ensure that another family avoids suffering the consequences of a punitive legal system when we could have a system of true justice.
Troy Williams realizes he’s had some good luck in life. Not all good luck but some.
The vast majority of people who are incarcerated suffer trauma and harm that can sustain for a lifetime. There’s little opportunity to heal or repair the broken parts of their lives inside the system to then be ready to thrive outside it.
But Troy, one of the newest members of our Trauma & Healing Network, refused to be defined by his worst moment.
At an early age, he came to understand the added vulnerability he carried because he was Black in the U.S. When he was 7, Troy and his younger brothers were playing in the parking lot of a bowling alley when police took them into custody, accusing them of breaking into cars. He said they threatened to separate him from his brothers forever.
Again, he was 7.
But the way the officers treated him wasn’t unusual in an environment where the over-policing of Black boys was completely normalized.
His great-grandmother had taught him about racism and the threat of police. So when a group of gang members later chased him across town, he ran past the precinct and into a rival gang’s territory, where he was protected and soon became a member.
The shorter version of the story is that Troy did some of the things that gang members are well known for. He ultimately spent a long stretch of his life incarcerated because of his participation in a series of robberies.
In prison, Troy ultimately earned the reputation of a thinker. “There were a lot of men on the yard teaching me,” said Troy. “I learned the truth about our history.” He remembered one man who brought an entire duffel bag filled with books on history, philosophy, and legal issues. He thought he was supposed to pick one, but the man left the bag and told him to read everything. Through those books and stories, Troy seemed to discover a new perspective of himself as a Black man.
By the time he arrived at California’s notorious San Quentin facility, Troy was ready to be newly defined. He took his love of stories and got involved in a theater program, a creative writing class, and a film project. He also found restorative justice. “I found a way to mesh these two concepts.”
Troy regained his freedom in 2014 and he’s been incredibly busy since then. He built Restorative Media, his own company that tells stories about healing and resilience. Today, he is the communications manager for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, a nonprofit organization. He serves on a variety of boards and speaks publicly about his experiences. And now he’s a part of the EJUSA family.
“To be connected with other people that have gone through the system and been impacted by it, and are working to overcome it is powerful and meaningful,” said Troy. “And it’s important for the work to be done in our community.”
He believes media can play an important role and give Black and brown youth that changed perspective he got from the duffel bag of books. “These are images I want young people to have instead of what’s in the media now. Our people need examples of people who have overcome.”
Given all that Troy has been through, the work he has invested in himself, it’s hard to imagine a person better suited to telling these stories.
“If you look at me and all the great work that I’ve done,” he said, putting air quotes around ‘great work,’ “well, I’m just getting started. There’s other people who have guided me and are doing way bigger stuff. I’m not minimizing my work, but I’m elevating the shoulders I stand on.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The past two decades have brought a steady, state-by-state dismantling of the death penalty, and 2021 proved no different. We saw the first former Confederate state repeal the death penalty when Virgina Governor George Northam signed the state’s new law into the books. That stroke of the pen ended an awful legacy for the commonwealth. Up to that point Virginia had executed more people than any state in the nation.
Meanwhile, two reliably conservative states — Ohio and Utah — took significant steps to repealing their death penalty, some of the strongest signs yet of this being a bipartisan movement. Coupled with this year’s Gallup poll, which showed the lowest approval of the death penalty since the 1970s, and it’s clear Americans’ support is eroding.
The consistency of the death penalty works in good and bad ways. Perhaps nothing is as damning of capital punishment as the fact that it consistently targets the most vulnerable — and not the “worst of the worst” as so many advocates for execution would have you believe. All but one of the people executed across 2021 suffered from chronic childhood trauma, mental illness, or some form of brain disability.
As a society, we failed them…twice. First, we didn’t give them the support they needed when they needed it most, when they had been harmed or carried some immense burden. Then, when our failure manifested in their violence, we punished them in the most ruthless way imaginable, without recognizing our own culpability.
This aspect of the death penalty process will not change, which is why we must end the practice everywhere.
And we will. That brings us to the flip side of steady nature of capital punishment.
The death penalty is dying, once again documented by our allies at the Death Penalty Information Center. The 11 executions carried out this year were the lowest total since the 1980s. New death sentences totaled just 18, a tie with 2020 for the lowest since 1976. Twenty-six states currently don’t have a functioning death penalty, either through repeal (23) or moratorium (3).
This year brought us much to celebrate, but we had higher expectations. The federal execution spree ended with the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, an immense relief. But we are waiting for the president to take further action. In his campaign, he made it clear he opposed the death penalty. Now is the time to stand behind those words and clear the federal death row and support abolition legislation in Congress.
We will aim for these goals and more in 2022 as we take our next steps toward being a nation free of the death penalty.
When Tonja Myles looked around her community and saw the people struggling with substance issues, she couldn’t help but see herself. Sharing the trauma with many of the people that she serves, Tonja is perfectly positioned to advocate for people suffering with substance abuse.
She struggled with PTSD after years of unhealed trauma related to the sexual violence she experienced as a child and physical violence in adolescence.. Throughout the years she abused substances to numb the pain of her past, while people around her told her to “go to church and get her life right.” “My issues were swept under the rug,” she said. At her lowest point, she said she looked to God and promised to use her experience to help others.
Now, almost 38 years in recovery, Tonja has used her story to place her in rooms she normally wouldn’t be in. She uses the tagline “from the crack house to the White House” to show her journey from her lowest point to her partnership years ago with the Bush Administration concerning addiction.
“Sometimes I’m the only Black person in the room, or the only woman in the room,” she said. She uses these opportunities to uplift the stories of those that aren’t in the room. “I appreciate the spaces I’m in, but I speak for the people that don’t have a voice.” She makes it a point to speak truth to power and be the most passionate person in those conversations.
Tonja started Set Free Addiction Services because people struggling with substance abuse in Baton Rouge needed “wrap around” services. Seeing a lack of support for this community, Tonja started serving on Fridays out of her own house. Now, she has the structure to support people and their families along the road to recovery. Set Free even helps to hold our justice system accountable for their role in substance abuse, by fostering relationships with police officers and faith leaders.
The city is still recovering from 2016, when three traumatic events overwhelmed the community. It started when police officers murdered Alton Sterling in the parking lot of a corner store, an incident that was caught on camera. Days later, as the city wrestled with tension, a gunman killed three police officers and wounded nine others in a horrifying response. Then, to make matters worse, a historic hurricane hit Louisiana.
Despite these awful episodes and the continued accrual of trauma that Baton Rouge citizens experience, Tonja is optimistic about the future of the city.
She has a long working relationship with the city’s mayor-president for over 30 years, and she works closely with the police chief. Tonja said they know about the importance of healing from trauma, a critical view for any city official to have.
She said, however, “we can’t police people into non-violence,” in response to the outrage and frustration that community members had from the trauma of witnessing a Black man murdered by the police. Tonja believes change in Baton Rouge starts with the community. As long as the work is being done, she is confident that they’ll make a difference.
As a Trauma and Healing Network member, Tonja said she’ll bring some much needed comedic relief. “The work we do is hard and we need a laugh,” she said. She’s excited for the comradery and the collaboration that the network will bring. She wants to bring more awareness about mental health and substance abuse. In her words, she’s thrilled about “being a part of a team to help save lives.” Tonja has been saving her own life for 38 years now, and she doesn’t want others to have to go it alone.
In this moment, I’m thinking of Ahmaud Arbery’s parents. No doubt, they are feeling relief. The men who took Ahmaud away from them and their family and community are being held responsible.
Despite an abundance of evidence, like so many, I was nervous about this verdict. Our justice system has signaled countless times throughout history that it doesn’t value Black lives. It’s not hard to understand why.
Racism is at the very foundation of our justice system beginning with the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery “except as punishment for crime.” Racist fear of Black people inspired the creation of the first police forces, then known as slave patrols. It fueled thousands of documented lynchings, the creation of countless laws designed to oppress, including Jim Crow. In this trial, it led one of the defendants’ lawyers to try to ban Black pastors from the legal proceedings because their very presence was “intimidating.”
I’m not surprised that a system rooted in racial oppression continues to bear the fruit of racial injustice. Today is an exception, a reprieve. But it didn’t come without a price. Ahmaud Arbery’s parents, family members, and loved ones had to sit through testimony and arguments that intentionally obscured his humanity to justify white fear. Their grief is further burdened by the trauma of a defense centered on devaluing the life of their beloved.
We here at Equal Justice USA are uplifted by this verdict, but certainly not distracted from the magnitude of the challenge that remains. We continue our work toward a new vision of justice rooted in healing, accountability that repairs, and safety.
In moments like this, we remind ourselves of that commitment and reaffirm our pledge to keep fighting until that vision is real. That is what true justice for Ahmaud Arbery and so many others demands.
The opportunity we must seize — building a new justice system — is as hard as it is transformational.
Yet we know we’re not alone. This work takes each and every one of us and we’re so grateful for our community of supporters who inspire us to forge ahead.
When we advocate for community-led violence prevention, bridge divides to end executions, and build a new system that fosters healing and true safety, you are at our side each step of the way. This is the kind of work that takes all of us.
We hope you take a minute to watch this short video and meet our team as we extend our deepest gratitude to you for partnering with us in the important work of change.
I recently participated in the launch of a book to which I had contributed. The book, ”When You Hear Me, You Hear Us,” is a collection of poems and essays on youth incarceration and justice. Most of the authors are brilliant young people.
The Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop put the book together and interviewed me in 2020 for my piece. Naturally, I wanted to reread it before the virtual event, and when I did, I was shocked.
The interview happened months before I’d ever heard of EJUSA, before I had talked with the team or our board. Yet in telling my story, I was already anticipating a different system and a vision for that system that redefined what justice could and must be:
There’s a lot of harm done to people before they (cause violence). So I do hope, at least, that there’s some softening around how do we really get justice, and how do we define it differently, and how do we truly center the needs of survivors and victims in ways the traditional system hasn’t? So that we can meet this moment where, as a country, we’re reckoning with issues of race in ways that we haven’t before.
Revisiting my story, I remembered the excitement I felt as I explored EJUSA’s vision for the first time. I recognized that it was the foundation for building something new and better, a system that could deliver healing and safety after harm — exactly what my family needed after my father was assaulted many years ago.
I also thought about the definition of justice. I love that EJUSA has asked and answered an essential question…What is Justice?
If you appreciate literature and need some inspiration, I encourage you to buy “When You Hear Me, You Hear Us.” Our young people have something important to say.
NAE President praises Sam Heath for his “commitments to justice”
Sam Heath of Charlottesville, Virginia, has been appointed the new manager of the EJUSA
Evangelical Network, a platform for faith leaders across the political spectrum who seek to
transform the justice system by promoting responses to violence that are rooted in the values of
racial equity, redemption and healing.
Heath, an educator by profession, is an elder at Trinity Presbytery Church (PCA) in
Charlottesville where he has been the coordinator of major educational conferences, including
Race: Unity in Diversity, which came in the wake of the so-called Unite the Right Rally in 2017.
He also founded and co-chairs a Multiethnicity Ministry Team tasked with helping move Trinity
to be an increasingly multi-ethnic organization in both its color and culture.
“I learned about the failures of the criminal justice system firsthand by visiting, over many years,
a close friend who was imprisoned,” Heath said. “That experience, combined with a growing
understanding of the true story of race in this country and the realization that the system
mistakenly values retribution over restoration, triggered an overwhelming desire to do this work.”
Heath has worked closely with Rev. Dr. Walter Kim, former Pastor for Leadership at Trinity
Presbyterian Church (PCA) who is also president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
“It is clear that Sam’s commitments to justice arise out of a deep love for Jesus and for others,”
Rev. Kim said. “He is keenly aware of the magnificent opportunities, as well as the persistent
obstacles, that some segments of evangelicalism have with matters of social justice. I trust Sam
for this work at this critical juncture in evangelicalism.”
Jamila Hodge, executive director of Equal Justice USA, the Evangelical Network’s parent
organization, also believes Heath’s arrival comes at the right time.
“Sam is a leader among the growing number of evangelicals who want a justice system that
reflects their belief that every person has immeasurable value and that every individual should
be treated with respect and dignity,” Hodge said. “Sam’s deep personal faith and commitment to
racial justice and agape love makes him the perfect person to lead this important work and
expand the Evangelical Network as a platform for those who want to build the solutions that
deliver healing and equity to all people.”
Sateria Tate-Alexander brought her project manager background into her community work in Baton Rouge. Her gift is identifying gaps within frameworks and creating strategic solutions to meet community needs.
Sateria founded A.G.I.L.E., A Galvanized and Innovative approach to Leading with Excellence, in 2016 as Baton Rouge was trying to heal from the murder of Alton Sterling, the murder of three police officers, and a local flood categorized as a 100-year flood.
After recognizing that the community at large and local organizations were struggling to effectively meet needs, she helped create an ecosystem through A.G.I.L.E. to facilitate connectedness among community, nonprofits, and service providers.
Through her connection with EJUSA Trauma & Healing Network, she is using our work in Newark as a template for the recently launched Baton Rouge Community Street Team. I sat down with her to discuss her journey.
Jaylah: How did you come to this work, from a personal perspective?
Sateria: I’m a lifelong resident of Baton Rouge. So over the years, I’ve seen every single problem. I’m also a mother, grandmother, and wife. I have two adult sons, a grandson, and a husband. It may sound cliche to hear a Black woman say she’s fearful for her Black son to leave home, but it’s a true fear. The threat doesn’t just come from a single place. They are susceptible to many facets of violence. We often focus on violence from law enforcement when the truth is violence can be experienced anywhere at any time by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our city has experienced an uptick in violence, as many have globally. This is unfortunate and has been contributing to increased trauma experienced by ALL of us. To be honest, what made me really become active was Alton Sterling’s death. I saw and felt what his family and we as a community went through. It moved me to do more after seeing how hurt the community was. It motivated me to engage on a new level. I started to see those gaps. The day I became firmly engaged was July 7, 2016. My family went to a demonstration, and I realized that there was no one there to deal with the heightened emotions. As a community we were hurting, and there was no space for us to deal with that.
Jaylah: As someone coming into this work as a project manager, what were the gaps that you saw that made you found A.G.I.L.E.?
Sateria: Cohesiveness and long-term vision and strategy. In Baton Rouge people seem to work in silos. There’s a lot of redundancy in services, and collaboration could make those services and efforts stronger. A part of A.G.I.L.E.’s framework is to help develop this ecosystem in the community and make those connections.
Another gap was funding. Most of, if not all of the grassroots in Baton Rouge were self-funded or not funded at all. So, it’s “sweat of the brow” work. AGILE’s approach allows us to be more proactive with funding solutions to our community’s needs.
Jaylah: Tell us about the ecosystem that surrounds the Baton Rouge Community Street Team (B.R.C.S.T.)?
Sateria: It’s a part of a larger coalition initiative that our mayor-president has spearheaded. The project at large is Safe, Hopeful, Healthy. There are a lot of major components that feed into this initiative. We have a community roundtable, My Brother’s Keeper initiative, and several other organizations that are feeding into this project. Our mission and goals interconnect with each other and with some of the local resources that we have in the city.
The street team is being managed by A.G.I.LE. Our team is currently comprised of eight members who are intimately connected to the communities that we operate within. We currently have a program director, three community navigators that manage caseloads, and four high-risk interventionists that provide boots-on-the-ground violence intervention/prevention services. We are expecting this impact of this ecosystem to influence growth that will allow our outreach to expand to additional areas.
The funding comes from a combination of places. Our current mayor-president’s administration is one of them, along with a small network of contributors to this initiative.
Jaylah: How was your experience visiting Newark, NJ, seeing our Violence Reduction Initiative (VRI) work there, and using it as inspiration to form a team in Baton Rouge?
Sateria: That visit put a lot of things in context and in perspective. It showed us a blueprint. We were able to see the outcomes of the [VRI] work. We were able to see how solutions to violence could truly be developed from within the community and managed by the community. When you’re in that trauma space [referring to the trauma of 2016], you can’t see what solutions look like or feel like. And that’s where we were, here in Baton Rouge. That experience allowed us to find that space to transition.
We’ve seen, just like everyone else, the uptick in violent crimes and homicides. The time is right for this project. It engages the community to have ownership and accountability. It encourages the community to come up with solutions. I know if we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come to Newark, and meet Mayor Baraka, the street team, and the police department, we wouldn’t have been able to formulate what we’re doing now.
Jaylah: What excites you about being involved with the Trauma & Healing Network?
Sateria: Everything! For starters, even before it was officially called a network, EJUSA was already supporting people in this way. I just want to let you know how phenomenal you all have been to us and how much you’re brought to us. I can’t even describe it.
I remember when we were first trying to figure out how we wanted to structure A.G.I.L.E. EJUSA introduced us to other organizations that were already doing similar work. It just helped to have a network of people that have walked the path that you’re walking. It helps to bring new ideas to the table that no one has ever thought of. Having a network like this in place allows people to interchange information. It’s extremely valuable to us. Not to mention, the connection to resources has been great.
This network strengthens how the members are connected with each other. And it reinforces the work that we do. There’s so many of us out here, and before now I hadn’t worked with them yet. Now, I constantly work with these organizations.
As time goes on, this network is only going to grow. It’s going to strengthen and get better
Jaylah: How does it feel to now have funding and opportunities to make your work even more possible?
Sateria: Wow. It gives a sense of hope. The reason I say that is because I feel less confined to the limits of funding and the politics of nonprofits. I feel like this work can happen. Capacity can be built. We’re now in a position to have access to resources. And quite frankly, these were resources we didn’t even know existed before now. So, if I had to pick a work it would be — empowering. That’s how it feels.
