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To fight crime, build an ecosystem of safety

repair protest sign

Reimagining Justice This Month: February

Reimagining Justice This Month highlights stories about effective responses to violence — responses that disrupt cycles of violence, heal trauma, and address structural racism.

To fight crime, build an ecosystem of safety, The Advocate

In Baton Rouge, like cities around the country, the current public safety system’s focus on enforcement and incarceration has not addressed the needs of communities experiencing rising violence. But people in these same communities know that models that are locally led can heal trauma, create accountability, and build safety. Nicole Scott, Sateria Tate, and Elizabeth Robinson — members of EJUSA’s Trauma & Healing Network — have all been failed by the system before and after violence, and have responded with programs that are part of an ecosystem of safety capable of staunching the rise in violence and creating thriving communities. Imagine what would be possible if these programs were the norm.  

One Million Experiments: MASK, with Tamar Manasseh, Podcast Episode

Tamar Manasseh and others in Chicago have been building Mothers & Men Against Senseless Killings (MASK) for seven years. Together, they interrupt the violence that policing and prisons have been unable to address, while transforming responses to harm in their neighborhood in ways that are making punishment obsolete. Even as our airwaves and newsfeeds continue to be full of stories that ignore the true causes of violence, innovative approaches like MASK are evolving in communities around the country — with much room to grow and thrive.  

Much Like the Victims they Try to Help, Gun Violence Prevention Workers Have Scars, Time

Last year, our country suffered over 44,000 deaths due to gun violence, with 40,000 more injuries. Despite the surge, anti-violence workers bravely intervened to break cycles of trauma. These workers are increasingly seen as integral parts of the public safety ecosystem because their programs are effective and because the communities facing violence receive them as credible and trusted. Yet our society undervalues their work, which takes a personal toll. Together, we can change that. (Bonus: learn more about the recent report on what anti-violence workers need to be whole and healthy as they create safety here.)

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A Step Forward for True Justice

US Supreme Court

Today my heart is beyond full because of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Her nomination to the Supreme Court is historic and groundbreaking on so many levels. And for me, as the sister of a man deeply harmed by our criminal legal system, and as the leader of an organization committed to healing as a cornerstone of a new vision for justice, I see Judge Jackson as a beacon of inspiration for the perspective she will bring on criminal legal issues. It is incredibly important for our highest court to now have the experience she will bring as a former public defender who understands the power the government wields to take away someone’s life and liberty, and the way that power has disproportionately harmed Black communities. Reimagining justice requires a deep understanding of the damage brought by what exists, and Judge Jackson will deliver that at the most consequential level. 

This nomination is deeply personal for me, too. I decided, at age 9, to be a lawyer and knew that there had never been a Black woman on the Supreme Court. When I imagine Judge Jackson behind the bench, a descendant of enslaved people, a Black woman who had to work harder and fight through bias and discrimination, I — like millions of other Black women and girls — see myself. And I feel confident we have someone who will keep in the center of her mind the poor, marginalized people who have felt the sweeping harm of this system. Judge Jackson is exactly who we need.

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God’s Law and Order Book Review

Hands holding bible behind bars

Historian Aaron Griffith’s book God’s Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America meets evangelicals at the intersection of the two vocal camps: those calling for more law and order as well as those wanting to build a justice system that heals. 

This book has been rightly praised, including being honored as Christianity Today’s 2022 Best Book Award for History & Biography. A “religious history of mass incarceration,” this book is a work of both analysis and admonition.

Griffith — a member of the Advisors Group for Equal Justice USA’s Evangelical Network — argues that one “cannot understand the creation, maintenance, or reform of modern American prisons…without understanding the impact of evangelicalism.” Prisons and evangelicals intertwined themselves to both shape culture while simultaneously showing our culture for what it is, because of a belief in evangelical circles that 1) “rising crime reflected growing secularity” and 2) “state power was ultimately responsible for addressing the problem.”  

The early twentieth-century progressive movement “insisted on making crime (not poverty or other social ills) the primary problem to solve.” Rather than simply criminalizing certain sins, evangelicals said that any broken law is a sin, regardless of personal trauma or systemic barriers to flourishing. Therefore, a seemingly biblical response to lawlessness is more law enforcement, something the book references and that Griffith expounds on in a separate article. 

Put another way, control of behavior and conversion of the soul was prized over a compassionate consideration of what the law breaker, victims, and communities need. 

Griffith calls on evangelicals to repent of “past punitive sins,” a form of conversion, since “conversions are what evangelicals do best.” This is not a cheeky turn of phrase but a genuine call for reform through repentance. 

The book accurately centers the complicity of evangelicals in the development of the modern justice system while also acknowledging how evangelicals have been “pioneers in humanitarian engagement with modern prison life” through efforts like prison ministry. 

Griffith’s call is for evangelicals to take that individuals-focused fervor and turn it toward a systems-focused zeal to convert a prison system into one that heals rather than one that harms.

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Transformation in a Reform World

Image of legislation

EJUSA’s vision is a world where violence is rare and every community is safe and healthy. That means that we have a criminal legal system that doesn't cause more harm. 

A full scale transformation of the criminal legal system and all the systems that connect to it is work that will take generations. We need to both rehab the mess we have now and build a new public safety ecosystem. 

Today — and since forever —  our criminal legal system focuses on one outcome: who caused harm and how do we punish them? There’s little to no concern for the survivor of that harm or the way the community recovers. 

The policies that cities, states, and our federal government have put into place for over two centuries rely on the idea that we must center the person who caused harm. This punishment strategy is a failure and often causes more harm to families and communities. We must break this cycle of harm as we also work to transform the justice system. 

From where I sit at EJUSA, there are two questions I ask myself nearly every day. 

First, what is a policy landscape that both tears down what’s not working (pretty much everything) and puts the structures and procedures in place that prevent violence and deliver healing to everyone affected by violence without causing further harm to anyone? 

And second, what does transformation even mean when we’re talking about changing policy in an environment, such as a legislative body, whose job is to steward and tweak the existing laws? Laws created by our state legislatures, arguably, impact the day-to-day lives of our communities in ways we don’t even know.

State legislatures have already started opening their doors to begin legislating policy that is both big and full of minutiae — all of it impacting people in every state across the country. It’s a funny time of year where the words of dead language light our path through the legislature. We — lawmakers, activists, my teammates and coalition partners — say words like sine die, cloture, and germane like it’s a lunch order. It’s a terrible, critically important, and utterly opaque process filled with high drama that is also incredibly boring. They don’t teach us Sun Tzu in political science because they think it only informs strategy to fight actual wars.  

In my mind, it’s possible to support policy change that lessens the harm of the current legal system as we work to pass legislation that builds a foundation that embraces new and transformational strategies to interrupt and prevent violence. 

I wish I was here to tell you I have it all figured out, but it’s hella complicated. 

I know it is possible to go from a punishment based system to one that prioritizes healing and violence prevention while building a world where violence is rare, but it’s no small job. We definitely can’t do it all in one legislative season, we definitely can’t do it all in one legislative session, but as you’ll read below critical bills are being introduced that can be the foundation for transformation. 

Every piece of legislation is an opportunity to arrest the harm the current system causes and, at the same time, plant seeds for a transformed future. I’m excited to share a few ways we will support our whole vision in the 2022 legislative season:

What are we working on?

What trends am I watching this legislative cycle?

  • State legislative postures toward criminal justice reform — In the last five years we’ve seen state legislators and voters across the country be narrowly reform-minded. I say narrowly because many, though not all, of those reforms are centered on nonviolent offenses. But no matter how narrow or specific, every action has a reaction. Anecdotally, I’ve started to notice legislators lean away from reforms and solutions that are not centered on punishment.
  • Distribution of federal stimulus and COVID relief money at the state and local level — States, counties, and cities are receiving billions of dollars in relief that is available to be spent on community-based violence prevention.  
  • Republican sponsorship of death penalty repeal bills — Over the last decade, we’ve seen an increase in the number of republican co-sponsors. In just the last two legislative cycles, Republican are listed as sponsors on bills to abolish the death penalty in 11 states plus the Federal Government.

Why am I hopeful?

Recognition of the need to transform our criminal legal system and the business of public safety continues to grow in our collective imagination. Dreaming about what’s possible is the first step to imagining the structures we need to tear down and build to get to a world where violence is rare. 

Efforts to reform can contribute to transformation but we must continually make sure to excise the devil from the details - not falling back on lesser punishment, insisting that we offer new ways of doing business as we tear down the most terrible parts of existing policy in an effort to clear the way for transformational change. It’s a double edged sword and we must always be bold in our choices. 

May your legislative sessions bring good policy to your state.

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Dr. King’s Vision on the Death Penalty

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.

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Reflections from an EJUSA Intern

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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.

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Restoring Through Storytelling

headshot of troy williams

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.”

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The Momentum Continues

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, the cases of Julius Jones and Pervis Payne brought an especially glaring light on the corruption of the death penalty system. There is abundant evidence of Jones’s innocence. Millions of people rallied to prevent his execution, barely. Payne, who also has strong claims of innocence, was spared because of his intellectual disabilities.

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.

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Healing While Helping

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.

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Relieved…but we have far to go

People protesting for Ahmaud Arbery

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.

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