From last night, here is Susan Burton from A New Way of Life who really has imaginative ideas about reentry because she began with experience. Here son was shot “accidentally” by a cop in LA and that led to years of drugs and alcohol and incarceration. But eventually she developed this program that has offered home to 750 women coming out of prison, A New Way of Life, featured here. Here she is:

First speaker, Friday, October 10, is Rob Granite, a formerly incarcerated person, who told a moving story about watching a mother bird giving birth to babies. He saw a bird struggling after it fell out of the nest, and Rob never got to know what happened to him. He searched, wondered, discovered it had flown away. He tells the story because he identifies with building a nest inside of a precarious place. Rob said that often times, in prison, guys try to ignore that need but others get it. He said that you don’t really attach yourselves to people but he got attached to learning.

The Education Justice Program(EJP) promotes learning in a circle. The circle diffuses the power, he said, discussing his experience in prison with EJP. He has been out only weeks. Also said that in terms of those of us who teach behind bars: No way can the focus be to save people. Being conscious of what perspective a person brings to prison teaching is important. A person is the audience commented that “Everybody has a vibration rate,” and after years in a California prison realizes he needed to understand that and slow down his vibration rate.

Session Two: An incarcerated person from prison said that being an educator is activism. His words came to us through tape and audio. His name is Kemuyah and he feels he has had things withheld because of security. He said “I am unaware of any research” that goes against DOC, indicating that research and education should allowed to him. But it is. This makes it impossible for educational Justice to really exist. Most important info from him talks about how fraternization, punishment, fear, the prison reality that compromises the educational environment. “Educating incarcerated students is serious business.” And prison officials should not be able to use security to resist education or free exchange of ideas. Security must be detrimental I.e. Let’s take the shackles off educators.

When we were able to go into Danville Prison that evening, where papers were given to and by prisoners in the program. I quoted Angela Davis’s words to Kemuyah: “Prisons are an incubator of outdated ideologies,” I said, and asked him to comment on that in relationship to his paper and to all the barriers he had experienced. Isn’t that common, to be expected, I wondered? A discussion ensued where the most interesting comment came from another prisoner  who said that it was up to prisoners to open up those barriers and essentially be the change: “As citizens we need to update outdated measures.” It was an incredibly powerful moment that showed more than any other to me what EJP fostered in its program.

I was also impressed earlier in the day by Haneed Shakur, a former student who told us the impact on himself in taking the program where he was in school in prison from 8:30am to 2:30pm. He said education gave him power; and he learned to write. He began reacting to quotes that made sense to him: Ghandi, Martin Luther King Etc. and these he  was exposed to first by a teacher when he was in Cook County Jail. Most crucial for him about EJP is that he never felt like an incarcerated person but always was treated as a student.

EJP also presented Barbara Lawrence who was a former prosecutor and police officer—not your average combination to become an activist. She teaches CJ students and said “We are talking about cops, courts, and corrections.”  The standard low level criminal pursued by cops, in the so-called War on Drugs, she gradually got to know was false. But financial incentive to arrest and only arresting people of color did exist. She uses the Michelle Alexander discussion to point out why police do not go to rich neighborhoods to get drug users there. When she questioned things, she was transferred. Ultimately she became a prosecutor and hated the fact that she didn’t believe in some of the laws that she had to convict people of breaking. Then she became a public defender and now teaches in a community and Justice program at Guillford College. She left us asking us to think about what is going on in all aspects of this system. And lie Susan Burton, the night before said that the next big fight will be against police brutality.

Today, I’ll leave  you with the words of Michael Brawn, another student from EJP who said “Humanities-based education can help us to be better men.” It wasn’t until freedom was taken away that he realized the freedom in education.” While there is a weekend of resistance in Ferguson Missouri, where the name “Michael Brown” resonated for me as I looked at so many of the men of color who live at Danville, it was almost appalling to think they were safer growing up with an EJP education than to grow up on the streets.

That is a fascinating bit of information when you consider what the Massachusetts Governor’s Council must decide next week on Wednesday, October 8, at 12 noon, when they vote on whether or not Parole Board Chair Josh Wall will or will not take up the gavel. His judge creds were praised by a few more attorneys who came to testify for him on this second day, standing by his ability to give people a fair shake. But this was a day where his Parole Board behavior was also mightily challenged.

“I saw myself as a public servant,” Josh Wall said Wednesday, September 24, speaking about why he accepted the position of Prole Board Chair. “And therefore [I] considered it my duty to say, yes, if the Governor of Massachusetts says, as he did, that we have a problem with public safety and you can help.” Wall told this to members of the Governor’s Council at the second day-long controversial hearing. “Let’s parole the right people who are likely to succeed,” the governor told him, and Wall, admitting he knew nothing about parole when he came on, said he adopted the Governor’s philosophy, although he did not exactly mention what that was besides that sound bite. My sense has always been, at the time, it was “Don’t Make Any Mistakes.”

While it was never crystal clear if he took the Chair position because his real goal was to become a superior court judge, Wall certainly went to work to make no mistakes. The result was parole rates declined substantially and some felt this was against everything we know that indicates good policy and public safety. Wall holds that he has “reformed” the Board, in part, because of his commitment to fairness and equity. He feels he has regained public confidence in parole. Wall declared that recidivism is down for parolees and that the Board has redrafted every policy about parole supervision. As an example, he said was “murderers now get more supervision than shoplifters.”

Of course, he did not say that since he took over, parolees can be violated for a litany of technical infractions that are sending people back to prison needlessly. As I wrote in Boston Magazine” studies have demonstrated that enforcing graduated sanctions if parolees violate their [parole] terms works better than returning them to prison.” Wall didn’t mention the long delays getting decisions to parolees or the intimidation that has caused many parolees not to speak out against him or come anywhere near these  hearings before the Governor’s Council. They fear retribution. But Wall will face questions from the Governors Councilors on Friday, October 3, at 10:30am when they resume for Part 3.

Wall was again roundly criticized for his temperament and his behavior on the Board. And in an interesting moment Councilor Iannella said that anyone who wants Wall to recuse himself will get that privilege–if Mr. Wall becomes judge.

Parolee Donald Perry, the only parolee who testified in person against Wall, said he stood for those who were afraid to speak out. He told of his circus experience with Parole. He had served his time and had been living in the community on parole for many years. He was in his car and stopped because the person he had picked up hitch-hiking was carrying stolen property. When Perry was revoked for this supposed-crime about which he says he knew nothing and was found not guilty of in a court of law, he served an excessive 19 months. He mentioned how Wall had been interviewed by a crew filming his story, and he told them:”I don’t know what he[Perry] did but I know he did something,” Perry still wears a bracelet and has a curfew of 10:00 pm and said Wall is hypocritical and does not treat people fairly. “I don’t believe in double standards,” said Perry, and then playing on the horrendous 5 year setback that has become au courant during the Wall Board (used to be 2 year) he said, “So that in 5 years, if he has demonstrated he can treat people fairly, he should be renominated.”

Patti Garin, a criminal defense attorney and co-director of the Northeastern University Law School Prisoners Assistance Program, said that only 42 lifers have actually walked out the door in 3 1/2 years during Wall’s tenure as Board chair. And there are approximately 130 hearings a year, said Garin. That’s only 10.8% who have actually gotten through their required step-down programs to be on the street. The length of time waiting for a decision now is 7.5 months, and before the Wall board, it was 60 days. She mentioned what disrespect this seems to show for the people waiting and their families.

Joel Thompson, a Prisoner Legal Services attorney told a compelling story of how Wall had commented on a very difficult parolee. Wall said sarcastically, “What a proud day for this family,” meaning the family of the man seeking parole. “Very fine people.”

But it is not only the words, witnesses said, but the tone. Wall is nasty sometimes and when you read these words, you have to hear the tone with which they were spoken,

I testified how I had heard him demean witnesses who came to testify for their loved ones seeking parole. At a hearing for Luis Cosme’ in 2011, Wall spent an inordinate amount of time criticizing how the lawyer had been duped by Cosme’:
“Were you given the opportunity to plead guilty before the trial?
“The offer was to plead guilty to second-degree murder?”
“What were the arguments your lawyer tried to put forth?”
“What did you think when you heard your lawyer putting forth false arguments?”
“Did you ever tell your lawyer why don’t we go with some of the truth?”
“How do you think they [the victim’s family] felt when they had to listen to an
attempt to create lies for the jury?”
“Were there any family members sitting in the courtroom for this spectacle?”

These are the kinds of disrespect and disregard for the people who seek parole that Joel Thompson called “gratuitous comments.” They just don’t show respect. Reverend Jason Lydon also pointed out how demeaning Chairman Wall was at a hearing for Frank Soffen,a sick and elderly prisoner who will now die behind bars.

Over and over, one thing seemed to be clear: people who came to speak against Josh Wall had never opposed a judgeship. I wonder if any other hearing for someone nominated to be judge has taken twelve hours even before the councilors begin their questioning?

Stay tuned.