Former women prisoners face longer odds staying out after aid programs slashed

By Mineko Brand

 
Rehabilitation taking backseat to punishment

 

Sunshine Schmidt photo by Mineko Brand/SF Public Press

By the time Sunshine Schmidt was 19, her rebellious streak led her to prison in Wisconsin for violating probation on a forgery charge. But it was just the beginning of her troubled young adulthood. As she tells it, the uncaring reaction from a criminal justice system on autopilot put her back in prison for minor violations, only driving her further into the life of small-time crime as she racked up drug and theft-related charges. “Every time, I was released back into homelessness or an abusive partner,” she said. “I didn’t have the resources or tools to get back on my feet.” It was only three years ago, after leaving a California prison at age 27, that Schmidt was able to pursue legitimate jobs and an education. After living in transitional housing, she became a client of Way-Pass, a City College of San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that helps female ex-prison inmates adjust to everyday life.



Sunshine Schmidt takes classes and counsels other formerly incarcerated women. "This is not an issue that a lot of people think about," Schmidt said of the rights of the incarcerated and the recently released. "The system is incarcerating people and it's not helping."

By the time Sunshine Schmidt was 19, her rebellious streak led her to prison in Wisconsin for violating probation on a forgery charge. But it was just the beginning of her troubled young adulthood. As she tells it, the uncaring reaction from a criminal justice system on autopilot put her back in prison for minor violations, only driving her further into the life of small-time crime as she racked up drug and theft-related charges.

“Every time, I was released back into homelessness or an abusive partner,” she said. “I didn’t have the resources or tools to get back on my feet.”

It was only three years ago, after leaving a California prison at age 27, that Schmidt was able to pursue legitimate jobs and an education. After living in transitional housing, she became a client of Way-Pass, a City College of San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that helps female ex-prison inmates adjust to everyday life.

But young women in Schmidt’s situation now may have a harder time getting on their feet. Leaders of re-entry programs in San Francisco say state budget cuts in 2010 drastically reduced their ability to help parolees.

Collectively, California’s prison rehabilitation programs took a nearly 45 percent cut — $250 million — in fiscal year 2009-10 as legislators and the governor grappled with the state’s budget crisis.

The 2010-11 budget, passed in October after a 100-day delay, cuts $1.1 billion from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. State officials said they expected most of this to come from staff cuts, reductions in medical care and early release of prisoners. The previous year’s cuts are not expected to be reversed anytime soon.

Way-Pass lost two of its four paid positions and no longer has funds to provide scholarships, schoolbooks or cash stipends to clients.

Karen Shain, policy adviser at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, said life in California’s female prisons is worse than ever. The reduction in education and drug treatment programs has led to violence and unrest.

The female prison population soared eightfold nationwide between 1977 and 2007, double the rate of increase for men. Mounting evidence points to economic factors, addiction and abuse as the primary causes of criminal behavior among women. Women respond much better to rehabilitation and drug treatment programs than men do, according to a corrections department study.

Schmidt said programs such as the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and City College’s Second Chance Program, both operated by and for the formerly incarcerated, are particularly effective. “We empower each other to lift each other up,” Schmidt said.

Women in prison struggle with issues distinct from those affecting men, including reuniting with parents and children, sexual abuse and trauma, gender-specific health needs and the social stigma of a felony record, said Edith Guillén-Núñez, an adviser to the Way-Pass program. But because 90 percent of released prisoners are male, many rehabilitation programs target men only.


FRAYING NETWORK OF SERVICES


San Francisco’s Walden House — Schmidt’s first stop after prison — saw a huge reduction this year in the number of female ex-inmates it was able to serve.

“That cut happened essentially overnight,” said Vitka Eisen, the nonprofit group’s chief executive officer. They were given little more than a month to prepare for a major decrease of staff and services at the beginning of 2010.


Walden House offers rehabilitation for substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual trauma, mental health services and family reunification at locations scattered around San Francisco. The organization also offers treatment inside prisons throughout California.


Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla and the adjacent Central California Women’s Facility together house most of the state’s 10,000 female prisoners and are often mentioned as the world’s most populous women’s prison complex.


Walden House this year had to reduce the number of women it serves in these prisons by more than 75 percent. “There were 750 women that we saw in the Central Valley,” Eisen said. “Now we have 175.”


The last year and a half also saw the San Francisco treatment centers downsize to 427 employees from 689 last year. Of those, 125 were laid off one day in January.


FAILED REFORM EFFORTS


A state law that had made the transition out of prison easier for offenders with drug problems was undermined by another bill three years later.


Senate Bill 1453, introduced by then-state Sen. Jackie Speier in 2006, allowed prisoners to reduce their sentence by one day for every two days spent in drug treatment in prison, provided that they also completed 150 days of an “aftercare” program upon release.


When Schmidt got out of prison, this law mandated her release to Walden House, where she completed a four-month residential treatment program.


Parolees were guaranteed a spot in a treatment program and a place to stay, rather than being given a phone number, a bus ticket and a “good luck getting in.” “That was huge,” Schmidt said. “They would actually transport you to the program.” She added, “Senate Bill 1453 saved my life.”


But this year, on top of the budget cuts, another reform added to the complications for programs offering rehabilitation to women. State Sen. Denise Ducheny’s SB 18 implemented a non-revocable parole policy in January. Those who qualify are, in effect, on parole in name only. They have no parole officers and no drug tests, and can’t violate their terms of parole. Any new offenses are treated as crimes, not parole violations.


California enacted SB 18 to comply with a federal mandate to reduce the state’s prison population to 137 percent of design capacity by 2012. Prisons have nearly double the number of inmates they were built to contain. This order is being contested before the U.S. Supreme Court.


Eisen said the reform is a step forward because it spares people from returning to prison repeatedly for minor offenses. At 70 percent, California has the highest recidivism rate in the country.


But those who have not committed sexual, violent or serious felonies, and who would be aided by the support services and early release that SB 1453 provides also qualify for non-revocable parole. This “unsupervised community release” blocks access to services provided by the parole system, such as housing, education funding and job opportunities.


CUTTING TIES TO CRIME


Schmidt’s story testifies to a system designed for punishment, not necessarily rehabilitation.


When Schmidt turned 12, she took her birthday money and ran away from home in a Wisconsin suburb. She wasn’t having any real trouble at home, but her best friend had an abusive step-father, so they took an early jump at independence.


Schmidt didn’t think it amounted to much at the time. She was just rebelling. Her mother felt differently. After she was picked up by the police and returned home, she was placed in a mental institution.


“I’ve been going through the incarceration system my whole life,” Schmidt said. “I was institutionalized in one form or another from a young age.”


At age 24, having been in and out of prison in Wisconsin, she moved to San Francisco, looking for a fresh start. Her only job experience as an adult was doing make-up in a Wisconsin beauty shop. She applied for jobs at local department stores with no success.


Unable to find work, she sold drugs again to pay her rent. One offense led to another, she got evicted, went to jail a few times, then found herself homeless and pregnant on the streets of San Francisco. In 2007, she lost custody of her 2-year-old daughter the day before her release from Valley State Prison for Women.


Schmidt knows from experience and from talking to people on both sides of the walls that once you’re in the system, it can be very difficult to get out.


Upon release, Central Valley prisons’ female inmates without family to pick them up receive $200, a pair of flip-flops and a muumuu. The downtown Fresno bus station is said to be crawling with pimps and drug dealers on the lookout for those cheap, flowered dresses.


“They’re going to do what’s comfortable and what they know,” Schmidt said. “A lot of people end up right back in the system.”


For her, the turning point was access to treatment programs, and a place to stay once she was free.
 Way-Pass offered her case management, peer counseling and referral services for clothing, food vouchers, health care and housing. Schmidt is now a case manager there.


She is getting A’s in school as she counsels other formerly incarcerated women and works toward a bachelor’s degree in legal studies or public policy. She wants to work to change legislation regarding incarceration.


When she has time to talk between five classes and her jobs at the college and an environmental non-profit, she speaks somberly about her experiences and the challenges facing incarcerated women. Though talking about these things is part of her job and her studies, it never gets easy, she said.

It was the night before Christmas

By Youth Justice Coalition


It was the night before Christmas, when all through the block

Not a gangsta was stirring, not even a cop
Our old kicks were hung over telephone lines
In hopes that the County would come through on time


The shorties were knocked out in the back of the truck
No money for a mo-mo, we were clean outta luck
But moms had her braids done, and also her tips
Thugs said she was fly - all the Eses, Bloods and Crips


We was broke and cold, but our bellies were full
And we thought Santa might show if he could get bail
Plus we had each other - that made it all right
So we all fell asleep on a cold desert night


But the quiet ended when someone got caught slippin’
Out in the street, the cops’ sirens were straight trippin’
I was up at the windshield, but my sis pulled me to the floor
"Boy, do you wanna get shot? Don't you know where you are?"


And shining its light into our little bucket
Was it Santa? - Nah just the LAPD's ghetto bird. Ahhhh, fuck it.
Still, I stayed peeping over palm trees and trash
And saw someone running toward where moms kept her stash


I was worried they'd take the small money we had
I had to be brave, I was mom’s little man
So, I leapt from the truck in my red-footed jumper
And I covered the box hidden beneath the truck bumper

Round the corner came the two drivers, coming at me so quick
But it wasn't a angel and it wasn't St Nick
They were chasing that fool, as he flew past my neck
They were driving too crazy. They was gonna cause a wreck!


And they whistled, and shouted, and called him by name!
"Fuck ya hood!" I'll kill ya!” I heard one proclaim.
Some others I now saw were in a squad car
"Hold up or we'll shoot. You won't make it that far

Whether Eses, Bloods or Crips, I couldn't quite say
But they were looking to kill, and I was right in the way
And just as they fired, the cops fired too
Little missiles of death from AKs, ninas and 22s


I ducked, but the bullets were faster than me
I felt something warm as I fell to one knee
The concrete was cold and the lights they were glaring
I heard my moms scream and saw my sisters staring


"Oh, God save this baby," I heard someone cry
But, I saw my brothers and cousins as I looked to the sky
They had all passed before me and were lighting the way
A long road of death from the streets of L.A.


Whether it was a cop or a gangsta, I still can't be sure
All I know is that guns offer only one kind of cure
I ain't mad or bitter, I got no one to blame
It ain't the corrupt system or the homies looking for fame

It's not as simple as that, not that black and white
Not good guys and bad guys mixed up in a fight
And prisons won't solve it, this war on the streets
To silence the violence ya can't do it with heat
(I realized this as they covered my face with a sheet)

Bring love to the hood, and a legit way to make ends
Recognize that the gangstas are first sons and friends
And all the homies and shorties, we're not a disease
We're just little kids trying hard to break free


To the top of the fence on top of juvenile hall
"Break away! Break away! Break away all!"
To the top of the dome above city hall
Fly Little Homie, and never fear that you'll fall

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky
So up to the roof-tops of L.A. we all flew
The black and brown angels who died before they grew


Ever wonder why Christmas in the hood isn't so merry?
It’s not just the money that lacking, it's the lost kids that's so scary
Every holiday reminds people of someone they miss
Not a grandma or uncle, but some youngster's kiss


We could stop the killing and bring peace to the block
But not with a an injunction or another cell block
Not with a blue rag or red rag at the end of a glock
Or by surrounding our houses like prisons with gates and padlocks

Not with cheap drugs that fill our veins up with doubt
Not with new lofts and Starbucks forcing poor people out
You know what to do, or I hope that you do
It's not nothing mysterious or nothing new


You just have to do it - set aside all your greed
And take time to give the homies all that we need
Schools that are decent and prepare us for college
A safe place to play that will give us some knowledge


Hush to the police and the people who lead
Hush to the gangstas too angry to bleed
Listen instead to the innocents caught in the streets
And make sure to leave justice under our Christmas trees

Food Justice is Environmental Justice is Social Justice

By Zoe Hollomon, Green For All Academy Fellow


Most people don't understand how Food Justice and Food Security relate to Social Justice and Environmental Justice. I'd like to tell you a story to about a family from my community which I hope will shed some light on these critical issues and their interconnections.

"Kimmy is a single mom living in extreme poverty with her three small children on the west side of Buffalo. She works two jobs just to pay for the basics and to keep her family afloat.


Everyday after school her three children play outside until she gets home; she quickly cooks dinner for them and the next door neighbor's two kids in exchange for her kids' evening care while she goes to her night job. Each week she tries to go to the grocery store but must take two buses and her small children with her as well as a small cart for her groceries. The trip usually takes about four hours and she can only get what she can carry in her cart.

Most weeks, because of her busy work schedule, she must get food from the corner store, which is mainly Mac-n-Cheese, microwave dinners, packaged noodles or canned foods. Otherwise her choices are one of the five fast food restaurants in her neighborhood. She knows the options aren't good but they allow her to get by, given her hectic schedule. Her kids usually come home from school hungry and go to the corner store for chips and soda since they are cheap and readily available."

This is the story of millions of people in low-income neighborhoods across the nation. Food security, or the availability of fresh, healthy and culturally appropriate food, is commonly perceived only as an issue in countries overrun with civil war or facing extreme poverty.

It is however, a fact of life and a major health and economic issue for many Americans living in low-income communities. In Buffalo alone, over two-thirds of low-income communities are "food deserts", meaning that there are none or too few healthy food options that meet basic nutritional needs. In my community the ratio of corner stores that don't offer healthy food versus stores that do is an outstanding 18:1!

What's more, the industrialized food complex, producing the bulk of the food available for consumption is also having devastating effects on the environment and our health. Globally, the food sector is the number one contributor of carbon emissions, heating our atmosphere to levels that are unfit to sustain life on earth.


Organizations like Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) in Buffalo and others across the country are taking these issues head on, creating innovative solutions like Aquaponics, Urban Composting, and Mobile Farmers Markets. They are connecting farmers and school districts, as well as identifying policy changes that will make food production more equitable and sustainable.



I am deeply inspired by the young people I am currently working with and those who have come before us and fought against giant odds to put people and planet over greed and profit.


For my term of service as a Green For All Academy Fellow Candidate, I am bringing together local and national organizations to integrate the pressing issues of food justice and food security into the environmental and social justice movements. We cannot put the health of people and planet and the health of the economy on opposite ends of the scale.

If you are interested in joining us in the effort to create a new vision of the food system and healthy food for all please visit the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) - http://www.mass-ave.org/.


Food Justice is Environmental Justice is Social Justice.

A Moment for Movement-Building: Statement of Solidarity with Georgia Prisoner

Online Petition


On December 9, 2010, thousands of prisoners in at least six Georgia state prisons initiated the largest prisoner strike in U.S. history, uniting across racial boundaries to demand an immediate end to the cruel and dehumanizing conditions that damage prisoners, their families, and the communities they return to.



Prisoners are demanding a living wage for work, increased educational opportunities, decent health care, an end to cruel and unusual punishment, decent living conditions, nutritional meals, vocational and self-improvement opportunities, access to families, and just parole decisions. These demands are not only fair and just, but mandatory under international human rights law and the U.S. Constitution.


And it is not just Georgia where these conditions exist. Prisoners throughout this country are subject to routine dehumanization, violence, denial of basic medical care, separated from their families, exposed to illnesses, and obstructed from accessing the court. Jails and prisons throughout the U.S. are routinely in violation of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.


It is imperative that members of the legal community, human rights advocates, social justice activists, faith communities, and concerned members of the general public mobilize in support of prisoners and their families in this urgent moment. Georgia prison authorities have reportedly reacted to the peaceful strike with violence. The threat of retaliation will remain for the foreseeable future, and we must rise to the occasion with increased vigilance and action.


We are especially asking that members of the legal community recognize their unique role and serious responsibility in working to support prisoners and communities targeted by policies of mass incarceration.


We must also seize this opportunity to support and strengthen those forces fighting against race and class-based policies of mass incarceration. Under the cover of a cynical drug war, the U.S. has constructed the largest prison economy in the history of the planet, incarcerating more of its own people than any other nation in the world. And when evidence of the pervasive targeting of communities of color at every level of the criminal legal system is recognized for what it is, there is only one conclusion to arrive at: mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow.


Like the old Jim Crow, this system serves to perpetuate institutionalized racism, economic inequality, and political disenfranchisement. It seeks to pit poor whites and people of color against each other in order to keep working and middle class communities subordinate to a political and economic order that prioritizes profit at the expense of our communities and our democracy.


The transcending of the politics of racial antagonism by the prisoners in Georgia striking for their human rights and human dignity is a profound call for the renewal of visionary mass movements for social justice and freedom in this country. Our communities outside of these walls are in dire need of human rights as well: health care, educational opportunities, jobs, food, housing, peace, and a livable planet.


In building an integrated, mass movement for human rights inside and outside the prisons we are also working to undermine the conditions of social, economic, and political inequalities that fuel crime and violence.


We are asking that others sign onto this statement of solidarity and make a commitment to take action in support of the prisoners in Georgia, to take action in support of prisoners’ rights, and to help build a historic mass movement against mass incarceration and for universal human rights and dignity.



Add your name to the cause

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

A Message From President Barack Obama
 
 Moments ago, the Senate voted to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

When that bill reaches my desk, I will sign it, and this discriminatory law will be repealed.

Gay and lesbian service members -- brave Americans who enable our freedoms -- will no longer have to hide who they are.


The fight for civil rights, a struggle that continues, will no longer include this one.


This victory belongs to you. Without your commitment, the promise I made as a candidate would have remained just that.


Instead, you helped prove again that no one should underestimate this movement. Every phone call to a senator on the fence, every letter to the editor in a local paper, and every message in a congressional inbox makes it clear to those who would stand in the way of justice: We will not quit.


This victory also belongs to Senator Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and our many allies in Congress who refused to let politics get in the way of what was right.


Like you, they never gave up, and I want them to know how grateful we are for that commitment.


Will you join me in thanking them by adding your name to Organizing for America's letter?


I will make sure these messages are delivered -- you can also add a comment about what the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" means to you.


As Commander in Chief, I fought to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" because it weakens our national security and military readiness. It violates the fundamental American principles of equality and fairness.


But this victory is also personal.

I will never know what it feels like to be discriminated against because of my sexual orientation.


But I know my story would not be possible without the sacrifice and struggle of those who came before me -- many I will never meet, and can never thank.

I know this repeal is a crucial step for civil rights, and that it strengthens our military and national security. I know it is the right thing to do.

But the rightness of our cause does not guarantee success, and today, celebration of this historic step forward is tempered by the defeat of another -- the DREAM Act. I am incredibly disappointed that a minority of senators refused to move forward on this important, commonsense reform that most Americans understand is the right thing for our country. On this issue, our work must continue.

Today, I'm proud that we took these fights on.

Please join me in thanking those in Congress who helped make "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal possible:

http://my.barackobama.com/Repealed

Thank you,


Barack

Oakland plans to become an environmental leader

By Dara Kerr


One of the City of Oakland's goals is to become a model green city, according to its sustainability program. For the past year and a half, the city has been hashing out an Energy and Climate Action Plan (ECAP) to identify and prioritize what it can do to lower its greenhouse gas emissions and reduce energy use. The first draft of the plan was launched on Earth Day 2010 in April, and focused on reducing the city's greenhouse gas emissions by more than a third of what they were in 2005 by the year 2020.

Since April, the plan has since gone through different reviews, iterations and workshops, and on Tuesday, the City Council Public Works Committee reviewed and discussed the newest draft of the action plan and heard from members of local nonprofits about their take on it. During the morning meeting in the council chambers, members of the committee-District 3 councilmember Nancy Nadel, councilmember at large Rebecca Kaplan, District 6 councilmember Desley Brooks and Patricia Kernighan of District 2-started by listening to Garrett Fitzgerald, the sustainability coordinator for the city, outline the plan.

"Success on the 36 percent reduction by 2020 project depends on all of the Oakland community," Fitzgerald said. This project has enlisted hundreds of local residents to contribute their ideas and participate. "Community input is critical to the development of this plan," he said.


The plan identifies the primary sources of Oakland's greenhouse gas emissions-including transportation, electricity and waste-along with a list of 150 actions that the city can take to achieve its emissions reduction goal, like adopting a green building ordinance for private development, developing regulations to more easily enable urban food production, planning for electric vehicle infrastructure and applying zero waste practices in city operations, facilities, capital improvement and maintenance.


As Fitzgerald concluded his presentation, representatives from nonprofits got ready to present their views on the plan. The majority of these non-profits are members of the Oakland Climate Action Coalition, which is a committee tasked with giving the city input on the proposed plan. Speakers included representatives from Urban Habitat, a environmental, economic and social justice group based in Oakland, who talked about transportation related pollution, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a group that works to empower low-income Asian Pacific Islander communities in the Bay Area, who talked about gentrification near transit hubs like the Lake Merritt BART station, and the Local Clean Energy Alliance, a coalition of Bay Area non-profits working on climate protection and green jobs, who talked about the need for Oakland to diversify its financing options.


"What's rationally needed is bold and creative action," said Ian Kim, director of the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign at the Ella Baker Center, which is an Oakland-based group that works on environmental, economic and social justice campaigns. "Oakland has the potential to lead many cities in the U.S." He said that in order for the plan to succeed, changes needed to be made to better consider "green collar" jobs, which create work opportunities-like green building, habitat restoration and sustainable agriculture-for low-income communities.

Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan, strategy initiatives director for the Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project, an Oakland-based group that provides information and analysis about food, agriculture and the environment, spoke about the importance of food production and transportation and water treatment and transportation in reducing emissions. "Food is globally responsible for a third of green house emissions," she said. Although the plan has several provisions addressing local food production and waste management, Mascarenhas-Swan says it could go even further by supporting more local food production. "Food prices are going up," she said. "A climate plan needs to incorporate a long range adaptation." She then handed out maps to the council members showing where there is farmable land in the city.

Emissions produced by the Port of Oakland were also brought up during the meeting, even though the port is specifically mentioned in the current draft of the plan. "The port is responsible for 10 percent of the greenhouse gases committed to the city," said Al Weinrub, who is on the conservation committee for the local Sierra Club chapter. "The ECAP has no expectations for the port." He was referring to the fact that emission standards have not yet been set for the port-the plan only says that the port must set goals in alliance with the 36 percent reduction objective. Weinrub said that the port is not taking enough responsibility in lowering its emissions and that the city should pay more attention to it. "The port has missed the boat and the city is missing the boat with it," he concluded.


While each speaker had criticisms and recommendations, they all said they were glad the city is working on the plan. Once the open forum finished, council members addressed the audience. Kaplan focused on coming up with actions the city could undertake for little money, like prohibiting fuel-powered leaf blowers and easing restrictions on residential greywater systems. "We can have a lot of impact with little money spent," she said. She also said it was important for the city to work on getting the plan implemented, rather than just focusing on discussion. "We don't want to spend all this time and come up with a lovely plan that just sits on the shelf," she said.

Brooks said she was worried about how the city would manage to finance such an extensive plan. The estimated cost to the city to fulfill the ECAP's list is $9 million a year but according to Brooks there's only available funding for $2.5 million a year. "That gives me pause," she said. "We have to look at the total picture and figure out how it's going to get implemented."

Kernighan echoed Kaplan's focus on low-cost solutions and Brooks' concern that the city is in a financial crisis. "It seems like we can definitely make some progress," she said. "Some of these issues are going to continue to be debated. We aren't going to resolve them in one more meeting or two more meetings."

Nadel concluded the meeting by saying that the committee will work on a list of what could be done in the short term for less money. The next committee meeting will be scheduled in February.


Courtesy the Ella Baker Center News Room

COLLEGE PREP, NOT PRISON PREP!

By Danae Tapia & Gregory Holmes

Youth March 50-Miles Across L.A. County for An End to the School-to-Jail Track December 14 News Event To Be Held In Front of Los Angeles Unified School District

What: Young people, some dressed in Jail uniforms, are organizing a week of activities including a 4-day, 50 mile march from Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar to the California Youth Authority/Department of Juvenile Justice in Norwalk to call for an end to the push-out of students from schools into the streets and an eventual end for far too many in either incarceration or death. The march will begin on Monday, December 13th at noon and end at 8pm on Thursday, December 16th. Each day, youth will stop at key locations including juvenile halls, courts, the County Department of Probation, and schools, and meeting with city, county and state legislators along the way. As part of the YJC’s effort to gather experiences and opinions we will survey about 500 Los Angeles residents along the march route.

Who: The YOUTH JUSTICE COALITION is a growing movement led by the young people formerly or currently incarcerated on Probation or Parole. For most youth, their push out of school was a push toward underemployment and incarceration. To most people, we are invisible and forgotten, locked away in dusty corners of LA County, behind barbed wire and concrete -- in juvenile halls, county jails, camps and youth authorities. We represent thousands of youth. Some of us are as young as 7; almost all of us are poor; almost all of us are people of color. No one wants gang violence to stop more than we do. We have dedicated our lives to that cause. We know that violence won’t be ended by “declaring a war on youth”, but through community schools that are open to young people and their families as resource centers. We need community and school-based intervention, and job opportunities. Just 1% of the County’s law enforcement budget would provide 100 million dollars a year for positive youth development.

When: March Begins: Monday, December 13, 2010 at noon at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar (16350 Filbert St, Sylmar 91342). Tuesday December 14th, at 2pm: Rally at Los Angeles Unified School District Headquarters. Thursday, December 16th at 8pm: Candlelight vigil at Norwalk CYA/DJJ Southern Reception Center


Where: Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar is located on 16350 Filbert St, Sylmar 91342. The LAUSD is located on 333 South Beaudry Ave., Los Angeles, California 90017 (Just south of 2nd Street in Downtown Los Angeles). A full schedule of activities throughout the march is available.


Why: Four decades ago, California led the nation and the world in operating a quality K-12 and university education system. However, with the rush to incarcerate youth – particularly youth of color, for less and less serious offenses, the state and county transferred larger and larger funds toward police – including school police – and lock-ups. California now leads the nation and the world in prison spending, and is #50 in education spending, despite our ranking as the richest nation in the world and the 5th riches economy in the world. Most schools in poor and working class communities look and operate more like prisons, and Los Angeles now leads the nation in school push-outs, low test scores and school overcrowding. The YJC is urging an end to the School-to-Jail Track, and a re-investment in positive youth opportunities and school safety and success plans that prepare youth for college and living-wage careers rather than incarceration and death.





Clock Running Out On Child Care For 55,000 Children

By Chris Levister



As promised, Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles), introduced an emergency bill to reinstate CalWorks Stage 3 funds for welfare-to- work child care subsidies through the rest of fiscal year ending June 30. The bill, AB 1, requests the restoration of $233 million in state funds, and was the first item of business to be taken up Monday by the new Legislature.



Perez and others are pinning their funding reinstatement hopes on incoming Democratic Governor Jerry Brown whose father (former Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown) worked on the early versions of the founding legislation for CalWorks. With the state facing upwards of a $25 billion deficit for the current fiscal year, and predictions from the Legislative Analyst’s Office that the deficit will continue to grow “into 2016” there are no historical or partisan guarantees.

Estella Johnson, 56 (left) a San Bernardino child care provider 20 years, says Governor Schwarzenegger's final attack on state child care cements his legacy of betraying children and working parents like Estelle Nelson, 43 (middle) now forced to pay for care out of pocket.



Meanwhile, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his last acts as governor proposed Monday to close $9.9 billion of the state budget shortfall mostly through additional cuts in health and social programs like CalWorks.


Parents of 55,000 children in California will lose childcare support at the end of January if the state legislature does not reinstate the funds Schwarzenegger line-itemvetoed from the CalWorks program in October.

The program, stage 3, subsidizes low-income families who have successfully worked themselves off welfare and have not received state aid for at least two years.


Early this October, working families across the state were blindsided.


Parents were given nineteen days to change childcare. Children were abruptly pulled out of daycare and after school programs. At the start of November, an Alameda district judge granted temporary relief by ordering a reprieve.

The County Welfare Directors Association of California called Republican Schwarzenegger a “hypocrite”.


A spokeswoman for Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) likened the governor’s veto to an act of cruelty.


San Bernardino child provider Estella Johnson says years of budget cuts combined with constant threats and political manipulation has placed parents and their child care providers in a Catch 22: “They can’t work without child care, but if they can’t afford child care, they can’t work and we don’t get paid.”


Johnson a licensed provider for more than 20 years says CalWorks once a bridge out of poverty for thousands of welfare recipients has been decimated by Schwarzenegger’s insistence that the state budget be balanced on the backs of children.

“Throughout the entire span of his time in Sacramento, Schwarzenegger has seemed intent on both raiding child care funding and weakening the security of that funding,” said Johnson.


Child-care providers are confused, many aren’t being paid, and some have stopped providing care. This has left some parents scrambling for alternatives and perhaps losing their jobs or only working part-time.


Some parents are getting unemployment benefits or public assistance for the first time now because they cannot afford child care.


Meanwhile, Johnson will try to manage. Giving financial breaks to families like Estelle Nelson now forced to pay for child care out of pocket.


Nelson, a community resource worker for the San Bernardino School District laid off for more than a year was turned down for child care assistance when she returned to work recently.


“First they put me on a waiting list then they said I didn’t qualify because I had to be receiving cash aid. Then they put me on Stage Two for child care assistance. A short time later they sent me a letter informing me that my income was too high.”


The result says Nelson is “my husband and I are struggling to pay out of pocket.”


Johnson said parents, some of whom now work several jobs continue to bring their children to her home, meanwhile there’s plenty of confusion and frustration surrounding provider reimbursement.


“You end up getting paid at the state’s whim,” she said. “Child care is local small business -- it not only assists families to work, but payments to child care providers and centers feed the economy because we immediately turn around and use the income to pay mortgages, buy food and support other local services.”

Johnson refuses to turn away existing clients who can’t pay.


“Many of them are on the brink of returning to welfare,” she said.

Ending state support for child care would also end the much-heralded and generally successful, social contract that was part of the national and state commitment to restructuring welfare programs.

The 1996 federal welfare law and its 1997 California counterpart ended adults’ lifetime “entitlement” to cash assistance and required adults receiving assistance to work. In return, families received a commitment from policymakers ensuring they had access to job training and child care.

The governor’s action sets aside provisions to the state welfare-towork program made famous by Ronald Reagan. During his bid for Governor of California, in 1966 Reagan campaigned successfully on the theme, “send the welfare bums back to work.”

Johnson says the program’s uncertain future won’t change her passion for caring.


“By the grace of God, I’ve had a hand in caring for generations of children who’ve grown up to become productive citizens. Quality care helps ensure that children will be ready for success in school.”


“How can we expect positive outcomes from our students if we eliminate the foundation of education?” she said. “As much as I would like to provide services for free or at reduced cost, I don’t have the resources. It’s very frustrating.”

Area First 5 agencies have approved millions to provide transitional funding to ensure ongoing access to child care for children through age 5. The funds if needed will grant up to three months of services to qualified families.


Whether the governor’s actions on the budget are indeed cruel and hypocritical will likely be debated in the annals of history.


Schwarzenegger leaves office Jan. 3 after a tumultuous tenure marred by the state’s fiscal mess and fights with Republicans who decried tax increases and with Democrats who resisted his spending cuts.


Courtesy Black Voice News

By HHS Newtork of California

Governor-elect Jerry Brown is convening a special budget forum in the Capitol on Wednesday to discuss the tough choices California will have to make to address the state’s $25.4 billion budget deficit over the next year and a half.


We’ve made billions in cuts to health and human services over the last few years, and it hasn’t fixed the deficit. If anything, it’s put our state in a far more vulnerable position as thousands of people have been forced out of work during the worst economic recession since the 1930s.


That’s why a new approach is needed.


Governor-elect Brown’s forum is an opportunity to start a new dialogue and pave the way for a new, more sustainable approach to how we budget for our priorities in California.
 
 
Save the Date: CAP Budget Forum

California Partnership is hosting a post-election forum in OAKLAND on FRIDAY December 10th and you’re invited to participate! To learn how you can get involved, and more for details, please contact HHS Network Field Coordinator Astrid Campos at acampos@communitychange.org.


Event Details:

Post-Election Forum
St. Mary's Center, 925 Brockhurst Street, Oakland, CA
Friday, December 10th, 10am – 11.30am


More of the Same: Gov. Schwarzenegger unveils special session budget


On Monday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled his special session budget calling for devastating cuts to California’s health and human services infrastructure – including the proposed elimination of CalWORKS, steep cuts to cash grants for seniors and people with disabilities, and substantial cuts to health care services and programs, including the elimination of vision coverage for kids.


If the Governor’s special session budget proposals seem familiar, that’s because they are. Assembly Speaker John Perez called the Governor’s latest package of deep cuts a “rehash of proposals we have already considered and rejected,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.


Click here to read more about Gov. Schwarzenegger’s latest “cuts-only” solution to the state budget.


Courtesy of HHS Network of California

Congress Food safety regs past due date

San Bernardino Sun Editorial


Federal lawmakers are poised to take action on long-awaited legislation that would better protect the public from tainted food.


It's about time.


It is unconscionable that consumers have had to endure a disgusting litany of contamination incidents - spinach, peanut butter and eggs, to name a few - before Congress was prompted to action.


The bill that the Senate is set to vote on today calls for more frequent inspections of processing plants. It also would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates 80 percent of the country's food supply, the ability to order recalls of contaminated products.


Currently, the government can only ask that companies pull tainted goods off shelves; it cannot require it.


The measure would require food processors to have plans in place to identify and address contamination risks. These plans would be available for inspection by the FDA.


And it would mandate that food importers verify the safety of all foods they bring into the country. It gives the FDA authority to require certification for imported foods at a high risk of contamination.


One of the raps against the Senate's earlier version of the bill was that it would impose too harsh a burden on small farmers in an attempt to address problems caused by large agribusiness companies.


A sensible agreement pushed by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., addresses those concerns. It would give small, local farms a less costly way of meeting certain planning requirements.



A small farm is defined as one that sells at least half its products to stores, restaurants and consumers within its state or within 275 miles of the farm, and has a gross annual income of less than $500,000.


Food production regulation should not be a one-size-fits-all proposition, and it makes sense to us to make accommodations for smaller producers so long as safety is not compromised. The FDA could revoke the exemption for any small farm involved in a contamination outbreak.


The House passed a version of the bill last year with broad bipartisan support. Given today's climate on government spending, lawmakers must find a way to pay for increased government inspections called for in the food safety act.


But there is already a large cost: A report by the Produce, under the auspices of the Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University, estimates annual costs at $152 billion for health-related foodborne illness.


The FDA is operating under laws written more than seven decades ago, at a time when food contamination didn't present the same sort of complications it does now. It is time to update these laws to better match the way food is produced and consumed today.



Courtesy of SB Sun

HIV Prevention Breakthrough Electrifies Movement to End Epidemic

By Linda Villarosa



HIV patients prepare to take medicine. Photo: Getty Images/Ulet Ifansasti

 A version of this article originally appeared in the Black AIDS Institute’s Black AIDS Weekly e-mail. ColorLines joins other black community media in co-publishing content from the Black AIDS Weekly.


Years ago, when scientists predicted that some day you would be able to take a pill once a day to keep from contracting HIV, that idea sounded more Orwellian than real.

But the future is now.

The results of a large, international clinical trial published online this week in The New England Journal of Medicine found that a daily dose of an anti-retroviral pill reduced the risk of contracting HIV by 43.8 percent among gay and bisexual men and transgender women. The study, known as iPrEx, found even higher rates—72.8 percent effectiveness—in participants who adhered most closely to their daily drug regimen. Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP as it’s known, uses tenofovir, a medication that is already effective in treating HIV infection.

In the scientific world, these findings signal a major coup. Those in the field say that this is the best news since this summer’s breakthrough results of a microbicide gel that proved highly effective for preventing HIV in women. That news electrified both the scientific community and the media last summer—Christmas in July in a 30-year pandemic that has offered up few wins.

“The need for new HIV prevention methods is critical,” says Robert Grant, M.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who chaired the study. “PrEP, in combination with other prevention methods, such as HIV testing, counseling and consistent condom use, could represent a major step forward for efforts to control the global epidemic.”

The finding holds particular promise for black Americans, who account for 45 percent of the over 56,000 new HIV infections that occur in the United States each year—particularly for Black gay and bisexual men, who comprise 18 percent of new annual infections. “Black communities need as many weapons in our efforts to fight HIV and AIDS as possible,” says Phill Wilson, president and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute. “This study shows that there is a possibility to develop a new weapon. That is extremely important.”

The iPrEx study involved 2,499 men who have sex with men—called MSM in public health circles—and transgender women who have sex with men at 11 sites in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, South Africa, Thailand and the United States in San Francisco and Boston. Between 8 and 9 percent of study participants described themselves as black, either from the U.S. or South Africa. Over half of participants were from the Andean region and described themselves as mixed race. No difference in efficacy was observed by race. Around the world, including in Africa and Asia, gay and bisexual men are often at highest risk. IPrEx is one of the largest HIV prevention trials to focus on men who have sex with men, the first HIV prevention study looking at men in either Africa or Asia and the first time a method using medication has been shown to prevent infection in MSM.

MSM account for nearly half of the people living with HIV in the U.S. and 53 percent of of all new infections.

Launched in 2007, the research was sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) through a grant from the David Gladstone Institutes, a non-profit group in San Francisco. In the study, participants were randomly assigned to receive either a daily antiretroviral tablet containing tenofovir and emtricitabine (brand name Truvada) or a placebo. This kind of study, known as double blind, since neither the researchers administering the study nor the participants knew who was receiving medication and who was receiving a placebo, is considered the gold standard of research. In the end, 36 HIV infections occurred among the 1,251 participants who received the antiretroviral therapy compared with 64 HIV infections among the 1,248 participants who received the placebo. The study also found this method to be safe.

“We now have strong evidence that pre-exposure prophylaxis with an antiretroviral drug…can reduce the risk of HIV acquisition among men who have sex with men, a segment of the population disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS,” says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of NIAID. “Additional research is needed, but certainly this is an important finding that provides the basis for further investigating, developing and employing this prevention strategy.”

Fauci and others are careful to temper joy with caution. Forty percent or even 70 percent effectiveness isn’t the same as 100 percent. “No single HIV prevention strategy is going to be effective for everyone,” adds Fauci, “and it is important to note that the new findings pertain only to the effectiveness of PrEP among men who have sex with men and cannot at this point be extrapolated to other populations.”

Before today’s results, the general concept of PrEP has had its critics. Some worry that PrEP could turn into a party pill, something you take before a night of unprotected fun—especially since it works best in HIV-negative people whose sexual practices place them at high risk of becoming infected.

“I can hear in my head people saying, ‘This is just another way to let those irresponsible homosexuals have sex,’” Jeffrey Crowley, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, once remarked during a hearing about PrEP. “We have to be conscious of the political risk.”

However, in the iPrEx study, participants, who were provided with HIV prevention counseling and testing, showed a significant decrease in HIV risk behavior. The reported numbers of partners decreased and condom use increased whether the subjects were taking the placebo or the antiretroviral pill.

Access to treatment has also been part of the PrEP debate. Around the world, 33 million people live with HIV/AIDS—over 1 million in this country—and the majority of those infected don’t have access to lifesaving treatment. So is it fair to use desperately needed medication for prevention rather than to save lives—especially when anyone can walk into a drugstore and buy a package of condoms? Also, scientists worry that people could become resistant to the drug. Tenofovir, the researchers noted, is less likely to create resistance than many other antiretroviral medications.

In the wake of today’s research, scientists are already working to figure out how best these finding will translate into real life, for real people.

“It’s critical for black people to be engaged as this research unfolds and this strategy is developed. We have to be at the table,” Wilson notes.

Meanwhile, correct and consistent condom use and a reduced number of sexual partners remain the most effective ways for gay and bisexual men—and everyone—to protect against HIV infection.


Courtesy Colorlines

Proof once again tax breaks DON’T prevent job loss

By HHS Network of California


In the weeks leading up to the November 2 midterm election, corporate interest groups poured millions of dollars into a campaign to defeat Proposition 24 (which would have repealed the $1.3 billion in tax breaks to corporations secretly passed in 2008), claiming that losing these tax breaks would cost California thousands of jobs.



Last week, however, Genentech, one of the top contributors to the anti-Proposition 24 campaign, announced plans to layoff 800 California workers.


According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Genentech spent an estimated $1.6 million to defeat Prop 24 – only to waste no time in eliminating hundreds of California jobs while still qualifying for the tax breaks.


Jean Ross, Executive Director of the California Budget Project, aptly summarized Genentech’s actions as “payoffs for layoffs” - observing that the tax breaks are costing California “over a billion dollars a year in tax revenues that could have gone to support schools, health care, and other public structures essential to the state’s future,” but don’t require wealthy companies like Genentech to add jobs in California or even maintain current employment. Click here to read more from Jean Ross.


Given California’s severely strained economic situation, the time has come to stop blindly spending billions on tax breaks that don’t create jobs. Just as health and human services programs have been scrutinized and pared for years to eliminate waste and inefficiency, corporate tax breaks that fail to provide (or at the very least – maintain) jobs for Californians should be scrutinized and pared back; while those that have a proven track record of producing private & public sector jobs (such as investments in health and human services) and business activity should be given serious consideration.


Federal unemployment benefits set to expire Nov. 30


Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of struggling California families could find themselves in an even more disastrous situation if federally supported unemployment insurance benefits are allowed to expire at the end of this month.


By allowing these critical benefits to expire, Congress would also be jeopardizing California’s economic & family recovery – according to a new report from the California Budget Project. The report shows how, “without UI, these jobless workers would be forced to scale back their spending, which means businesses would have fewer customers and weaker sales – and that could ultimately cost jobs.”

Among the ways in which California would be harmed by the loss of federal unemployment insurance benefits include:


• Hurts small businesses by depriving families of much-needed spending power.


• Cutting benefits right before the holiday season hurts California by inflicting a heavy blow on retailers – one of the largest employers in all of California.


• Abandons one of the most effective means of economic recovery – models show that for every dollar towards unemployment insurance boosts California’s economic activity by $1.56.

Click here to read the report.

And be sure to check back at the HHS Network website for more actions, updates & resources at www.hhsnetworkca.org.

Twenty days after Election Day and California is still counting

By Shonda Hutton




http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/


Enough is enough it’s time for the Cooley camp to face the music, Kamala Harris is California’s Attorney General and she is the right person for the job.


As the pinnacle of California’s law enforcement authority, her innovative approach and passion for justice is exactly what the state needs in an official. Her credentials have proven to not only be tough on crime, but invested in reducing recidivism. Re-entry initiatives and the Back on Track program are great examples of her commitment to the cause.


As San Francisco’s District Attorney, she combated gun violence by doubling gun felony convictions by 90 percent, while using the current laws on the books and not adding new ones. She expanded victim services, created new prosecution divisions focused on child assault, fought gang violence, and developed innovative alternatives to handling narcotics and quality-of-life crimes. Under her leadership, Harris has tripled misdemeanor cases taken to trail, established free legal clinics to immigrant neighborhoods, fought public integrity and environmental crimes, and boosted the overall felony conviction rates in San Francisco reaching its highest point in 15 years.


Surely she can be trusted to defend California’s interests.


When it comes to issues that matter most to everyday citizens, Kamala Harris will be the voice for the people as she fights corporate fraud, environmental injustice, consumer protection, and stronger public safety. She recognizes that California needs more from an attorney general than someone who is apt to overlook the law to fulfill a personal agenda, unlike her opponent Harris does not believe in the effectiveness and power of the death penalty as a deterrent. But has a strong willingness to follow the law in the quest to make a better California.


It’s time to end the charade. The people of California have made their decision that’s why Harris continues to hold the lead by roughly 42,500 votes. She is intelligent, results-driven, and California’s first Afro-Asian Attorney General.

I Am HIV Positive and I Don’t Blame Anybody—Including Myself

By Kirk Grisham

Photo: istock/Les Byerley

I am HIV positive, and I don’t blame anybody for it—not myself or anybody else.



He didn’t rape me and he did not trick me. It was through our unprotected sex that I became HIV positive. Since seroconverting, I have been very conscious of the language I use to discuss transmission, particularly my own. To say “he gave me HIV” obscures the truth, it was through a mutual act, consensual sex, that I became HIV positive. When speaking to him a couple months after my diagnosis I gathered that he knew he was positive when we had sex. But that is beside the point; my sexual health is mine to control, not his.


We are encouraged to think about prevention and transmission in terms of responsibility. Someone must be at fault. Culturally, we hunt for secret villains. Today’s “down low” black man is but the latest boogeyman at which we’ve pointed our fingers—the latest of the so-often racialized monsters at which we can direct HIV blame rather than have honest conversations about sex and relationships.


In recent weeks, another recurring villain has re-emerged: the HIV-positive criminal who callously infects others. Last month, long-standing accusations that baseball legend Roberto Alomar hid an alleged HIV infection from his wife and girlfriends returned to the news. This summer, German pop star Nadja Benaissa made international headlines as she was tried for failing to disclose her HIV status to sex partners. These stories rarely fail to steal the news spotlight, and often throw local communities into HIV panics.


There must be a reason they are so resonant, right? They are evidence that HIV transmission from knowingly positive persons is rampant, right? Wrong. The reality is that the vast majority of HIV infections occur between two consenting people who believe they are doing nothing more risky than making love—or, at least getting laid.


People who know their HIV status are actually more likely to use condoms than not. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports one snapshot study that found 95 percent of those living with HIV infection in 2006 did not transmit the virus to others that year. Another CDC study, released in September, found that while one in five “men who have sex with men”—public health jargon for gay and bisexual men—in 21 major cities has HIV, nearly half of those men (44 percent) don’t know it. The agency estimates that the majority of new infections each year result from sexual contact in which the positive person does not know he or she has HIV.


HIV disproportionately affects African Americans, regardless of sexuality. They account for half of the people living with HIV/AIDS, but just 13 percent of the overall U.S. population. Studies also suggest African Americans are least likely to know their HIV status, with the younger being less aware. Similar patterns exist among men who have sex with men, of all races. No talking and no testing, just finger pointing.


The communication problems that help drive these trends don’t stop with finding monsters to blame. People I love and talk to about my status do not always have the language or tools to express their grief and worry. They ask things like, “How could you be so irresponsible?” Or, “How could you fuck up like this?”


This language hurts, but more importantly it shifts the discussion from meaningful conversation about risk and vulnerability to simplistic directives: if only people used condoms, transmission would cease. But this idea relies on a complicated array of misconceptions and idealistic assumptions of equality, equal access to information, and how to use that information to stay HIV negative.


It is irresponsible to just tell people to use condoms without acknowledging that conditions like poverty, patriarchy and homophobia play roles in the so-called risks we all take. Even with people who have seemingly escaped these broader contexts—say, a working-middle class white man such as myself—stigma can prevail. Stigma that is produced by homophobia and general ignorance, yes, but also by American society’s desperate need to discipline and punish, to affix blame on individuals rather than confront the systems in which individuals live. So the AIDS epidemic becomes a challenge of personal responsibility rather than a damning indictment of global public health. That personal responsibility, however, is tricky: I bore no responsibility for the epidemic, until I had HIV, when it became entirely my problem.


When I used to get tested at the city clinic, they would tell me that people stay negative by disclosing their negative status. Having a conversation is paramount—negotiating whether and how you want to use protection, talking about the last time you were tested and asking the same of your partner. This dialogue cannot be taken for granted, but for many, before these conversations can happen, we need the tools to do so. So here, we lead by example. Three people of varying HIV status offer their own testimonies on how they think about their sexual health, and what it means.


Go to Colorlines to read the dialogue amount three people who agreed to share their status.


Courtesy Colorlines.com

Resisting Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex

An interview with Victoria Law

By Angola 3 News

By Denverabc

Victoria Law is a longtime prison activist and the author of the 2009 book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press). Law’s essay “Sick of the Abuse: Feminist Responses to Sexual Assault, Battering, and Self Defense,” is featured in the new book, entitled The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism, edited by Dan Berger.

In this interview, Law discusses her new article, which provides a history of radical feminist resistance to the criminalization of women who have defended themselves from gender violence. Furthermore, Law presents a prison abolitionist critique of how the mainstream women’s movement has embraced the US criminal justice system as a solution for combating violence against women.


Previously interviewed by Angola 3 News about the torture of women in US prisons, Law is now on the road with the Community and Resistance Tour.


Angola 3 News: In your essay “Sick of the Abuse,” you write that “a woman’s right to defend herself (and her children) from assault became a feminist rallying point throughout the 1970s.” You focus on the four separate stories of Yvonne Wanrow, Inez Garcia, Joan Little, and Dessie Woods. All four women were arrested for self-defense and their cases received national attention with the support of the radical women’s movement. Can you briefly explain their cases and why they were so important for the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s?


Victoria Law: Yvonne Wanrow was an American Indian mother of two living in Washington State in the 1970s. In 1972, her 11-year-old son was grabbed from his bike by William Wesler, a known child molester. He escaped and fled to the house of a family friend named Shirley Hooper, whose 7-year-old daughter had been raped by Wesler earlier that year. When Hooper called the police, they refused to arrest Wesler.


Understandably shaken, Hooper called Yvonne Wanrow and asked her to spend the night. Wanrow, who was 5 foot, 4 inches, and had recently broken her leg, brought her gun. At five in the morning, Wesler came to their house. When he refused to leave, Wanrow went to the front door to yell for help. She turned around to find Wesler, who, at 6 foot 2, was towering over her. She shot and killed him.


At her first trial, the judge instructed the jury only to consider what had happened at or immediately before the killing. This omitted (1) Wesler’s record as a sex offender; (2) Wesler’s assault on Hooper’s 7 year old; (3) His attempted assault on Yvonne’s son


Wanrow was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years.


However, various groups and people involved in the women’s movement and the American Indian movement had taken up her cause. They recognized that a woman had the right to defend herself and her family from assault. They held events that raised awareness, educated people, and tied her case into issues of violence against women and the systemic violence against Native people in the US. They also raised funds for her legal defense, which enabled her to have a better defense than she might have been afforded otherwise.


As a result, in 1977, the Washington State Supreme Court granted her a new trial, partially on the basis that the jury should have considered ALL relevant facts when considering self-defense. At her new trial in 1979, Wanrow pled guilty to reduced charges & received a suspended sentence, 5 years’ probation and 1 year of community service. The court decision also established that that women’s lack of access to self-defense training and to the “skills necessary to effectively repel a male assailant without resorting to the use of deadly weapons” made their circumstances different from those of men.


Two years later, in 1974, Inez Garcia shot and killed the man who had blocked her escape from rape. She was arrested and charged with 1st degree (or premeditated) murder. Like Wanrow, her cause was taken up by the women’s movement, which organized teach-ins and fundraisers and galvanized popular support with the recognition that women had the right to defend themselves against rape.


During her first trial, the judge did not allow testimony about the rape as part of the evidence. After her conviction, the women’s movement continued to rally on her behalf and hired feminist attorney Susan Jordan to take over her defense.


Two years later, an appeals court reversed her conviction because the trial judge had instructed the jury not to consider the rape


During the re-trial, Susan Jordan challenged potential jurors about their preconceptions of rape, making the assault an integral part of the case from the beginning. Garcia was acquitted. The entire jury agreed that the rape and threat of further harm were adequate provocation for Garcia’s action.


That same year, Joan Little, a black woman and the only female prisoner in North Carolina’s Beaufort County Jail, killed Clarence Alligood, a sixty-two-year-old white male guard, after he had entered her cell, threatened her with an ice pick and forced her to perform oral sex. Little was charged with first-degree murder which, in North Carolina, carried a mandatory death sentence.


Again, there was a HUGE outpouring of support from various movements, including people and groups in the women’s liberation and Black Liberation movements as well as more mainstream groups. During her trial, Little’s defense exposed the chronic sexual abuse and harassment endured by women in the jail and prison system. Countering the prosecution’s argument that Little had enticed Alligood into her cell with promises of sex, the defense team called on women who had previously been held at the jail. They testified that Alligood had a history of sexually abusing women in his custody.


Little herself testified about Alligood’s assault.


After seventy-eight minutes of deliberation, a jury acquitted Little, establishing a precedent for killing as a justified self-defense against rape.


Dessie Woods was a Black woman in Georgia who shot and killed a man who tried to rape her and her friend while they were hitchhiking. She was sentenced to 22 years. Black nationalist women took up the case of Dessie Woods, framing it as a case of colonial violence. Radical (White) feminists also took up her cause and used it as a way to challenge white feminists to examine not only sexism and patriarchy but also racism and colonialism.


However, unlike the cases of Little, Wanrow and Garcia, the larger White feminist movement(s) did not rally to her cause.


Even though she did not have the massive outpouring of support as the other three women, the prolonged support that she did have eventually won Woods her freedom in July 1981. A lawyer from the People’s Law Center challenged the use of circumstantial evidence and the use of a special prosecutor (hired by the dead man’s family). The U.S. Court of Appeals determined that there had been insufficient evidence to convict and imprison her.


The first three cases were groundbreaking in that they established legal precedents stating that women had a right to defend themselves (and their children) from sexual assault. In the case of Inez Garcia, her lawyer Susan Jordan extended the legal interpretation of “imminent danger” beyond the immediate time period, thus laying the groundwork for battered women’s defense—that a woman who kills her abuser is acting in self-defense even if she is not under attack at that time.


A3N: What impact did activism have in these four cases?


VL: The activism and organizing around those four cases enabled the women to have better legal defenses than they would have otherwise been afforded. For example, $250,000 was raised for Joan Little’s defense. Almost $39,000 was spent on social scientists who devised an “attitude profile survey:” designed to detect patterns of (racial) prejudice. The defense used their findings to win a change of venue from conservative/racist Beaufort County to Raleigh, which was key in her acquittal. Without the money garnered by supporters, Joan Little, a poor Black woman, would never have been able to have that kind of legal support. Instead, she would have been convicted and executed.


A3N: How are things different today, in 2010?


VL: We don’t see the same outpouring of support for women arrested for self-defense today. We can look at the case of the New Jersey Four, who are four Black lesbians arrested and incarcerated for defending themselves against a homophobic attack on the street. Their case has garnered support from groups working around incarcerated women’s issues and queer issues, but it hasn’t been taken up as widely as, say, the case of Joan Little or even Dessie Woods. Women who are incarcerated for defending themselves against partner violence receive even less public attention and support.


A3N: Shifting our focus to the issue of domestic violence, you write that the early women’s shelters formed by the radical women’s movement in the 1970s “utilized the self-help methods, egalitarian philosophies, and collective structures that had developed within the women’s liberation movement, striving to be democratic alternatives in which women had the space to safely communicate, share experiences, examine the root causes of the violence against them, and begin to articulate a response. However, these efforts received nowhere near the amount of attention, publicity, and support that the women’s movement paid to Wanrow, Garcia, Little, and Woods.”


Why do you think these projects, as well as court cases where women defended themselves from intimates, did not receive the attention they deserved?


VL: Then (and now), people saw battering as a “personal” issue and were reluctant to get involved. Some felt that marriage (or partnership) somehow condoned abuse. Others felt that this was not an issue that a movement could be built on. Perhaps it was also recognized that the issue could divide a movement. After all, when reading histories of revolutionary groups during the 1960s and 1970s, we see that abuse and misogyny often went unaddressed.


A3N: What did these radical activists identify as the “root causes” of violence against women were? What is your personal opinion regarding these root causes?


VL: Radical activists identified society’s misogyny and patriarchy as root causes of violence against women. They pointed out that women are most often the ones who are attacked and abused because they are often the ones with less power (both physically and in terms of resources).


I strongly agree with this analysis and feel that only when we radically transform societal attitudes around gender and power will we be able to have a world without gendered violence.


A3N: The number of battered women’s shelters grew (by 1982, there were an estimated 300-700 shelters nationally), but you write that “the increased interest in the issue by those who did not identify with the women’s liberation movement resulted in a watering down of the radical feminist analyses that led to the first refuges for battered women. These emerging institutions emphasized providing services without analyzing the political context in which abuse occurred. There was a shift from calling for broad social transformation to focusing on individual problems and demanding greater state intervention.”


How do you think this watering down and shift towards greater state intervention has since played out in later decades, leading up to today?


VL: Today, abuse is treated as an individual pathology rather than a broader social issue rooted in centuries of patriarchy and misogyny. Viewing abuse as an individual problem has meant that the solution becomes intervening in and punishing individual abusers without looking at the overall conditions that allow abuse to go unchallenged and also allows the state to begin to co-opt concerns about gendered violence.


For example, 29 states have some form of mandatory arrest policy in a DV call. There is also the possibility of dual arrests (in which both parties are arrested). In addition, many states now have “no-drop prosecution” in which the District Attorney subpoenas the battered spouse to testify with threats of prosecution if she recants or refuses.


The shift towards greater state intervention has also resulted in resources such as battered women’s shelters mirroring some of these same abusive practices (such as isolating the survivor). It also ignores ways in which the state inflicts violence upon women. I would greatly recommend the INCITE! anthology, entitled The Color of Violence, which explores various aspects of violence against women.

A3N: If you were dialoguing with those sectors of today’s anti-violence movement that embrace the criminalization approach, what are the key points you would make in arguing that prisons are not the answer? What do you think is the best way to reduce and prevent violence against women both inside and outside prisons?


VL: The threat of imprisonment does not deter abuse; it simply drives it further underground. Remember that there are many forms of abuse and violence and not all are illegal. It also sets up a false dichotomy in which the survivor has to choose between personal safety and criminalizing/imprisoning a loved one.


Arrest/imprisonment does not reduce, let alone prevent, violence. Building structures and networks to address the lack of options and resources available to women is more effective. Challenging patriarchy and male supremacy is a much more effective solution (although not one that funders and the state want to see).


A3N: Can you please tell us about recent cases of women who are facing charges or have been wrongly convicted for defending themselves?


VL: There’s the case of the New Jersey Four, whom I mentioned above.

http://www.amyewinter.net/nj4/


There’s also Sara Kruzan,(http://www.freesarakruzan.org/) a 31-year-old woman incarcerated at the California Institution for Women. When Sara was 11, she met a 31-year-old man named G.G. who molested her and began grooming her to become a prostitute. By the age 13, she began working as a child prostitute for G.G. and was repeatedly molested by him. At age 16, Sara was convicted of killing him. She was sentenced to prison for the rest of her life despite her background and a finding by the California Youth Authority that she was amendable to treatment offered in the juvenile system.


There’s been a letter-writing campaign to the governor urging clemency. Sara is also up for resentencing and needs letters of support. The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) are working on publicizing and garnering support for her case. However, we’re not seeing a fraction of the support from women’s or other non-prison groups that the cases of Wanrow, Garcia and Little received in the 1970s even though you would think that her story would provoke widespread outrage and calls for release.


I recently received an e-mail from CCWP about Mary Shields, a domestic violence survivor incarcerated for nineteen years on a seven-to-life sentence for attempted murder. This past September, Mary was found suitable for release by the Board of Parole Hearings. In 2006, the Parole Board had also found Mary “suitable for release” but rescinded its decision after Governor Schwarzenegger recommended against release. This time around, the governor has until January (when his term will be up) to either let the Board's decision stand or recommend that it be reversed and so CCWP is calling for people to send letters supporting Mary’s release.


A3N: Anything else to add?


VL: I want to remind readers that if we’re not coming up with solutions to gender violence, then the fall-back becomes relying on prisons and policing to keep women (and other vulnerable people) safe. It is also imperative to support women incarcerated for killing their abusers as well as to support battered women on the outside and to remember that abuse isolates people.


We should be working to end violence against women without strengthening government control over women’s lives or promoting incarceration as a solution to social problems.


--Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.



This and other news about women and organizing can be found at www.realcostofprisons.org/blog/

Big government laments protections for taxpayers

Lawyers, lobbyists, politicians scramble to determine impact of Prop. 26

By Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times




prop26.dirtyenergymoney.com

 From the Capitol in Sacramento to the boardrooms of county supervisors and city councils, lawmakers and lobbyists are scrambling to assess the fiscal and political effects of the measure, one of the most sweeping ballot-box initiatives in decades. Proposition 26 reclassifies most regulatory fees on industry as "taxes" requiring a two-thirds vote in government bodies or in public referendums, rather than a simple majority. Approved by voters 53% to 47% on Nov. 2, it is aimed at multibillion-dollar statewide issues such as a per-barrel severance fee on oil and a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. It's also aimed at local ordinances that add fees on cigarettes to pay for trash pickup and on alcohol to fund education and law enforcement programs. Last week, the American Chemistry Council warned Los Angeles County supervisors that a proposed ordinance banning plastic grocery sacks and imposing a 10-cent fee on paper bags falls under the voting requirements of Proposition 26. "We think it was a fair way to go," said Allan Zaremberg, chief executive of the California Chamber of Commerce, the biggest contributor to the Proposition 26 campaign. "It clarifies what is a tax and what is a fee. Right now, the public doesn't want any taxes." In addition to its fee-to-tax redefinition, Proposition 26 contains a provision imposing a two-thirds vote on "revenue-neutral" tax swaps — a complex legislative maneuver that balances a tax increase with a tax decrease.

Governor Schwarzenegger calls special budget session

By Torey Van Oot


Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday he will call legislators into a special session to attempt to close the current-year budget deficit in his final month in office.

"I know this will be difficult, but as we know from experience, putting off the hard decisions to bring spending in line with our revenues only makes solving the problem more difficult," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.


The announcement came one day after the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office projected that the deficit will climb to $25.4 billion by June 30, 2012. The estimate included a $6.1 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year, attributed in part to overly optimistic assumptions for spending reductions and federal aid included in the record-late spending plan passed last month.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/11/12/3179201/schwarzenegger-calls-special-session.html#ixzz156KqWhrv