NY/NJ Healing Justice Workshop Notes

NY/NJ Healing Justice "From the Inside Out" Workshop

  • Northeast Region
  • Opening silent reflection/worship.
  • Meeting is gathering.

Welcome

  • Name, where you are from - Town/city state.
  • Monthly or Yearly meeting.

Healing Justice Ice Breaker

  • Questions to answer in chat or swag:
    1. Who was “Big Black”
      • a. Black Panther activist
      • b. a famous rescue dog
      • c. Lead organizer at Attica Prison
      • d. Notorious Prison guard
    2. What year did the Attica uprising happen?
      • a. 1978
      • b. 1969
      • c. 1972
      • d. 1958
    3. Where did the 1st Criminal Justice program in AFSC begin?
      • a. Oakland, California
      • b. Newark, New Jersey
      • c. Syracuse, New York
      • d. Cambridge, Massachusetts

Healing Justice Ice Breaker (continued)

  • More questions:
    1. The AFSC moved from criminal Justice to Healing Justice to change the pardine criminal Justice and Punishment to a pardine of support and healing. True or False
    2. Important January 1978 Minute from the old Community Relations Division approved by the AFSC national Board of directors – what in the minute was approved?
      • a. Moratorium on Building new prison
      • b. Vison of prison abolition
      • c. revision of the 13th amendment
      • d. All of the above

Healing and Transformative Justice Prison Watch

  • Background and history.
  • Coalition building/participation legislative work.
  • Human rights monitoring, witness and advocacy in NJ prisons.
  • Youth.
  • Efforts to share the art of people inside.

Locations

Maps showing locations in NY, Wayne, Sullivan, PA, Pike, Dutchess, Putnam, Orange, Westchester, Monroe, Sussex Passaic, Rockland, Berger, Warren, NJ, Morris, Essex, Na, Northampton, Union, Queens, nigh, Hunterdon Somerset, Kings, Richmond, Middlesex, PA Bucks, Mercer, Monmouth, Montgomery, Philadelenia, Ocean

Bonnie Kerness

  • Introduction of Bonnie Kerness

Urban Redevelopment in Elizabeth, NJ (1960s)

  • Housing crisis as an early factor in AFSC establishing itself in NJ.

AFSC’S Profound Long-Term Impact in New Jersey HISTORY

  • The Elizabeth Housing and Urban Affairs Program opened in 1968 to deal with housing and tenant issues. Mostly volunteers and students.
  • Built tenant unions, block clubs with the goal of a city-wide housing coalition – CUE – Coalition for a United Elizabeth.
  • Ultimately put half a dozen families in homes, also leading to tearing down two of the 3 projects and granting money to community non-profit to build affordable housing.
  • Each family organized had a criminal justice issue.
  • AFSC devolved in 1975-76, leaving that office to the community.
  • Asked AFSC if we could pivot to criminal justice related programming. Prison Watch -Background

Community Relations and Board actions

  • Concern with abuses of the criminal justice system expressed in:
    • 1971 publication, Struggle for Justice
    • AFSC 1976 Report of the Task Force on Justice of the National Community Relations Division Committee
    • Minute of the AFSC Board of Directors in 1976 opposing the death penalty
    • Perspectives on AFSC Criminal Justice Programs is one of the most important position paper Adapted by the National Community Relations Committee – December 1977.

Newark Justice Program

  • Opened in 75-76 with 15 VISTA volunteers.
  • Organized families of people in prison and facilitated their advocacy.
  • Funding for the New Direction Youth Project, a curriculum based program for young people with a first time brush with the law (Our Children’s House).
  • Family Stabilization Project (a model for working with the whole family when a person returns).
  • Current AFSC Prison Watch in the 90’s.
  • This Program has put AFSC in the forefront in NJ in Human Rights Monitoring and advocacy. Prison Watch -Background

New Jersey in the 70's NYMRO

  • Ramsey Clark, former United States Attorney-General, was making a point against the S.1 during this talk at the AFSC meeting.
  • A short bill to create a commission to draft a model criminal justice code was written and passed.
  • The study commission was established, and former Governor Pat Brown of California was made chairman.
  • The report from the group that became known as the Brown Commission was submitted in January 1971.
  • There would have been no death penalty provided for any offense.
  • It essentially would have abolished the use of wiretapping at least in domestic crime.
  • It would have substantially reduced prison sentences.
  • The president to whom this report was submitted was Richard; He rejected it and urged his Attorney-General John Mitchell and Assistant Attorney-General Richard Kleindeinst to amend it. Leading Senators have also changed it.

Prisoners Eat Home-Cooked Food, Thanks to AFSC Justice Program

  • For forty prisoners at Leesburg, N.J., the high point of the recent holiday season was eating home-cooked food again.
  • Members of 26 families began the event at a HANDS meeting in early December. That group, sponsored by AFSC's Newark Justice Program, is an organization of family and friends of persons in New Jersey prisons.

New Jersey in the 70’s NYMRO

  • 1973 – Proposal for a Criminal Justice Program in Newark
  • 1974 – Newark Criminal Justice program is
  • 1977 – Twelve Vista volunteers join the program. Worked on visitation issues in the prisons
  • 1978 -79 Family support group for every prison in Jersey
  • Family stabilization project 15 yrs (free social services and therapy funded by united way M F

New Jersey in the 70's NYMRO Star Ledger - 2/11/76

  • Fred Wall, center, is met by Wray Bailey of the American Friends Services Committee and his mother, Mrs. Mary Wall, after his release from Essex County Jail.
  • 'Friends' gain release of man wrongfully jailed.
  • The pain of incarceration falls heavily upon prisoners. Even in the best of institutions, their lives are crammed with indignities.
  • AFSC's Newark Justice Program has laid emphasis on such visits because it knows that they will keep strong the ties between those inside and those outside the walls.
  • The Newark Justice Program has recently organized a group of families among those who visit prisoners at Rahway and another among those who go to Trenton.

Newark Justice Program

  • The staff of the Newark Justice Program posed for this photo on a cool fall morning. In the first row are VISTA Fred Wall, VISTA supervisor Bonnie Kerness, and VISTAS Inez Pasher and Cassandra Norman. Standing behind are community specialists Pedro Hernandez and Cynthia Hagans, VISTA Rita Hazelwood, volunteer Dennis Otto, VISTAS Anita Hicks, Gil Gillis, and Carrie O'Faire, program director Wray Bailey, and VISTA Shirley Thompson.
  • Twelve Volunteers In Service To America -VISTAS-have found their place for service at the Newark Justice Program of AFSC.

New Jersey in the 80’s/90’s NYMRO

  • New Direction youth project-(court sent youth to our CJ youth program
  • Testimonies from our Children’s House project (made into a theater play).
  • Began Developing a number of publications for the region and for the AFSC National office. Operated like an info service.
  • Copies of the publications –Survival manual for folk in Solidary, the Women’s Manual

New Jersey in the 80's/90's NYMRO

  • Wray Bailey, left, executive director, American Friends Service Committee, and Denis Johnston, AFSC's Immigrant rights project coordinator, sit in their Newark office, where they help prison inmates and their families, Immigrants and others in need.
  • AFSC office aids prison inmates, immigrants.
  • AFSC, located at 972 Broad St., Newark, is now working with inmates in New Jersey state prisons.
  • AFSC staff members provide these inmates and their families with free legal assistance and counseling.
  • Through vigils, forums and petitions, AFSC works to improve the conditions of those now in prison, especially people incarcerated in management control units isolation units.

New Jersey 2000-2010

  • Northeast Region

New Jersey 2010-Present Prison Watch In NJ

  • The Prison Watch Program began in the mid-1990s with a plan to support people who face long-term isolation in solitary confinement
  • Prison Watch worked with people inside to create a Survivors Manual, written by and for people who had been in control units.
  • That resource has been mailed to thousands of people in prison for over 20 years.
  • That publication was followed up by “From Her Mouth to Your Ears—a manual by and for women living in prison.
  • Bonnie Kerness has testified at state legislative hearings, been interviewed by the media, supported academic studies, and mentored young people who are now working to abolish solitary confinement.
  • In 2019, New Jersey passed legislation that is a first step on the path to ending the use of the practice completely.

Prison Watch Components

  • Coalition building/participation legislative work
  • Human rights monitoring, witness and advocacy in NJ prisons
  • Youth
  • Efforts to share the art of people inside

Youth

  • Internship Program. Been taking student interns (social work, political science, urban education, criminal justice) since 1978.
  • Each of the publications you see was a collective effort with students, people inside and returned citizens.
  • Have produced “life-savers” for 30 years. Manuals, Shadow Report to UN, Aging in Prison (became a priority for Second Look Coalition, Our Children’s House (used at Columbia High School), From the Inside Out, people in prison choose topics.
  • An amazing way for students and prisoners to interact in collective advocacy effort. Transportation issue used in recent reporting. Students become lawyers, union organizers, teachers.

Decarceration Efforts

  • Keeping in mind that the AFSC is an abolitionist organization, our efforts have often been in the arena of decarceration.
  • Coalition efforts during Covid resulted in the Public Health Emergency Act which freed over 8000 people within a year of released; and the push towards the Governor using his power of Clemency in his final months.
  • So far, 3 women have received clemency, and 36 other people have been pardoned. The releases will be rolling until the November elections.
  • Coalition recommendations that the Governor focus on freeing women who harmed their abusers and youth who took a plea bargain and were waved up to adults was adopted.

Second Look Coalition

  • Contributed to the current legislation giving those who are 55 years old and have spent 20 years imprisoned a second change before the court for resentencing.
  • The Worth Rises Coalition is pushing for free video and telephone access to loved ones.
  • Perhaps the most exciting thing for AFSC is seeing all of our recommendations from our Report on Technical Parole Violations being include in the pending legislation.

Isolated Confinement Restriction Act

  • In 2019, our coalition work led to the successful passage of the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act which limited the use of solitary confinement.
  • That original coalition re-formed two years ago to monitor the lack of compliance with the law in everyone prison except the women’s prison.
  • The appointment of a Board of Trustees at that prison has profoundly worked to the benefit of the women housed there.

Focus on Women in NJ Prisons

  • More recently, focus turned to the abusive conditions faced by women in New Jersey’s prisons.
  • AFSC worked to successfully bring in the Department of Justice to provide monitoring of conditions there and helped build a coalition to engage in public oversight.
  • Bonnie was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Women’s prison.
  • Work continues producing legislation concerning presumptive release of the elderly, and issues concerning parenting in prison.
  • Program staff disseminate public information on human rights abuses and healing opportunities; respond to needs of incarcerated people and those harmed by criminal acts; influence individual administrators and policy makers; and provide expertise to coalitions, advocacy groups, community organizations, students, writers, and the media.
  • Our Prison Watch Program monitors human rights abuses in U.S. federal and state prisons. In particular, the program promotes national and international attention to the practices of isolation, torture, and other conditions of confinement.

From Her Mouth to Your Ears

  • A SURVIVOR'S MANUAL by AND for WOMEN IN PRISON

Advocate Lectures on Justice System

  • Bonnie Kerness discussed violation of human rights of prisoners for students and faculty last week.

Human Rights Monitoring, Witness, and Advocacy

  • HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY AND MONITORING: Prison Watch received hundreds of letters each year requesting one or more of the publications we have, thanks to interns and volunteers, produced over the years.
  • Sometimes it’s for issues of “From the Inside Out newsletter; sometimes for one of our survival manuals, or other resource information which we have been told are lifesaving.
  • Much of our mail from New Jersey is complaints about conditions of confinement in the state prisons. Medical care – physical and mental health, quality of nutrition, treatment by staff, commissary, etc.

Manuals

  • Survivor Manual City Oversight

Resource Guide

  • LGBTQ+ PRISONER RESOURCE GUIDE. Prison Watch Program of the American Friends Service Committee

Applying international human rights standards

  • Applying international human rights standards to the U.S. criminal justice system

Prison Art

  • AFSC has contributed historically to the movement of “Marking Time – Art in the Age of Incarceration