GUEST BLOGGER: Stacy Bell McQuaide

GUEST BLOGGER: Stacy Bell McQuaide is a  Senior Lecturer in English at Oxford College of Emory University. She volunteers at Lee Arrendale State Prison and has been leading classes for incarcerated women on reading and writing memoir since 2010.

                               What Does Auschwitz Have to Do with Mass Incarceration?

 

Earlier this summer I attended a conference about prisons in Prague; afterwards I spent several weeks traveling in Eastern Europe and visited two concentration camps.  Stutthoff is an hour from Gdansk, formerly the German city of Danzig, where WW2 began on September 1, 1939.  The barracks that remain in that eerie museum feature art installations reminding us that while the majority of souls exterminated there were Jews murdered in the Holocaust, many others were incarcerated and killed for “crimes” ranging from resistance against the Germans to homosexuality to being an intellectual. Next I visited Auschwitz, arguably the most heinous prison conceived by humans, but I was so numb from Stutthoff that not even the scale of Auschwitz II could move me.  I passed through as quickly as I could and did not allow my eyes to rest on the exhibits—thousands of pounds of human hair, rows of immaculate tallits—designed to underscore not just the horror of the Nazis, but the scale of that horror.

 

I was thinking about crime and how we define it, and incarceration and how we use it, both as a means to a socially-sanctioned end. Let me stress that I am not drawing a parallel between the mass incarceration of Americans in 2013 and the extermination of Europe’s Jews by the Nazis. But visiting the camps forced me to reflect deeply on my experiences since I began going into prisons as a volunteer in 2010, and to consider what it means to be complicit in a system that concentrates the ostracized other.

 

Today, when we consider the Holocaust and the murder of so many millions, we decry the extermination of innocents; but as I walked through the camps I was struck by the terrifying realization that the people interred there were not innocent.  Indeed, they had been defined as “criminals” by the Nazi machine, and when you visit these places, you have to confront the fact that the Nazi effort was made possible by the complicity of many people.  I’m not a historian, and I don’t want to go into detail about that period of history.  I want to focus on the fact that every social group throughout history has defined deviance and then has struggled to deal with deviance collectively.  “Crime” is any behavior proscribed by the state. Definitions of crime are socially negotiated and vary across time and place—the definitions are largely created by those holding greater agency. “Citizens” accept the definitions that have been created for them, as they unconsciously maintain the privilege of the elite—a group that represents the central aspirations of the culture.

 

In the superb documentary The House I Live in, historian Richard Miller explains how elite groups preserve their power and status through the process of identification, ostracism, confiscation, concentration, and finally annihilation. He makes an explicit analogy between the Holocaust and the practice of mass incarceration in the U.S. In response, David Simon, journalist and renowned director of The Wire, asserts, “The drug war is a holocaust in slow motion.”

 

When I am inside prison, I always think about confiscation:  everything that has been taken away from the women in my classes, not just their property and their freedom, but in so many cases the opportunities and options that might have prevented them from ever going to prison. But when it comes to rallying the public against the terrible costly failure that is our incarceration system, those of us who witness from inside have a lot of work to do around identification….working to change the way “crime” is defined, working to change the way criminal behaviors are associated with certain groups, and working to change the way people inside are perceived by those outside. I hate when people say the incarcerated have made “bad choices”—it is the most othering language imaginable, as it pretends that everyone chooses from the same palette.

 

It is very easy now to believe that the Nazi reign of terror was a sad anomaly in human history.  “Never again, “ we say. Miller and Simon have a point.  The U.S. has the world’s largest prison population, a system that concentrates and in many cases annihilates disproportionately minority populations of ostracized others whose choices were narrowly circumscribed on the day they were born.  How do we shake our national complicity in this broken system?

GUEST BLOGGER: Dr. V, Staff member of Reforming Arts at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Georgia

GUEST BLOGGER: Dr. V, Instructor at Reforming Arts at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Georgia

This entry comes  from a staff member at Reforming Arts located at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Georgia, reminding us how often we may take things in our life for granted and encourages us not only to take a minute to reflect but to embrace the view from another's perspective.

www.reformingarts.org 




Perspective

There is nothing like a healthy dose of perspective. What do I mean by that? Let me explain. It is so easy for me to take for granted all of the privileges that make up my daily life. For example, I have endless choices of what to eat at restaurants or buy at the grocery store; the freedom to decide where I want to live, work, and visit; and the right to keep all of my skeletons in the privacy of my own personal closet. I often fall into the routine of forgetting just how fortunate I am and just how challenging my life would be if I had gotten caught making certain mistakes that could have easily landed me behind bars. After paying a few visits to the Reforming Arts class at Lee Arrendale State Prison (LASP), I learned three powerful lessons that stuck like glue to the walls of my heart:

It was lunchtime when I learned a lesson in sharing. Most of the women in the Reforming Arts class went off to the cafeteria while a few stayed behind for handmade “spring rolls.” This innovative meal consisted of a flour tortilla shell filled with Ramen Noodles and ground beef, topped with a savory sweet-and-sour sauce made from blending cherry Kool-Aid powder, water, and crushed Cheetos. Once the spring rolls were formed, they were carefully placed between a hot flat iron to give them a warm, toasty crunch. These delicacies aren’t easy to come by with costly commissary prices and when there is only one woman who has the culinary skills to make them “just right.” Still, when it came time to eat, the first thing this one student did, without hesitation, was offer her spring roll to me. I could feel my eyes well up and a lump begin to form in my throat. How could she, in an environment that is devoid of decent food, be so generous with what little she had? As it turns out, spring rolls are just too delicious not to share. I had come face-to-face with a kind of raw selflessness that cracked me wide open.

On another visit, I was reminded of my freedom. It being holiday season, like many people, my thoughts were crowded with travel plans and gift ideas. In the midst of all these distractions and after having so much fun watching the students’ improv performances, I found myself a little disconnected with the reality that I was a free person inside of a prison. After class, I asked one of the students, a young, hilarious, bright woman, “So when are you getting out?” I watched as her playful look became heavy and sad. She answered, “Not for a while. I have 4 years to go.” I was speechless. Damn. Four years? An entire college career? 48 months? For four years this incredible spirit, with all of her potential, all of her light, and all of her talent, would be trapped in prison? It was a hard pill to swallow. In that moment, as I remembered my freedom, I was reminded that she, and so many others like her, are trapped in cages for years and years to come.

“Good morning, class. I want to ask everyone to share your name and something fun and interesting about yourself.” My third lesson reminded me of the enormous privilege that comes with having a clean criminal record. In addition to numerous housing, employment, and other social advantages that are mine to take for granted, I became deeply aware of my unexamined right to conceal my wrongdoings, my skeletons, and my shadows. As we went around the room, some of the women were speechless, unsure of how to talk about themselves without including some explanation, some account of how they got to be locked up. One woman began talking about some of the events that led to her incarceration and I interrupted her, “You don’t have to explain any crimes here. Did I start out my introduction with my laundry list of past crimes? Of course not, because I know I can keep those skeletons in my own personal closet. And in this space, you can do that too.”

Incarceration dehumanizes people on many levels, but this instance was a perfect illustration of how prison can make people feel like all of who they are boils down to a crime they did or did not commit. Human beings are so intricate, so multifaceted, and so diverse that it is simply impossible to define them according to a few moments in time. To me, it is a crime to limit complex, ever-changing people to one or a few past actions. Yet, these incarcerated students, and many others like them, are constantly being told, explicitly and subtly, that they are not people—they are criminals. Incarcerated people deserve to know in their heart of hearts that they are not their crimes. They are people. Interesting, complicated, ever-evolving, clusters of mind, body, and spirit, just like everyone else. Just like me. Just like you. I was reminded of my right to decide who gets to know the darkest corners of my past and I saw one of the ways incarceration and criminal records deny people the right to be an imperfect person just like everyone else.

Three lessons. Three opportunities to confront my otherwise invisible privilege and expand my limited perspective. Three reasons to be forever grateful to the incredible women imprisoned at LASP and to Wende Ballew of Reforming Arts for making all of this possible..

Dr. V

GUEST BLOGGER: Victor M. Vincent, Jr.

GUEST BLOGGER: Victor M. Vincent, Jr.

I am pleased to share this heartfelt entry from Victor, a fellow Guilford College Alumn. He shares his thoughts as someone who has been formerly incarcerated and transformed by his educational attainment. Victor is the Founder of The Re-Entry Expert, an organization that "reaches out to those who have been incarcerated; raising the bar and allowing them to be successful after incarceration."

Victor M. Vincent, Jr.
The Re-Entry Expert
www.there-entryexpert.com

As someone formerly incarcerated, I was asked what higher education could afford someone who is or who has been incarcerated. As an ex-offender it would only be fair to speak first about the journey during and after incarceration.

Many people in prison ponder life after incarceration. Offenders dream of getting their lives together and having a successful life once they are released. However, when inmates get close to their release date fear sets in. Not a strong fear, just fear of the reality that life will be harder. Many ex-offenders build themselves up by saying “I can wash dishes or sweep floors and make it” because these are the jobs that sustain them while incarcerated. Life is so different once an inmate is released. Coming out of a downward spiraling economy an inmate realizes he has to compete for these lower wage positions to only be paid minimum wage. Higher education offers an environment which aids in the development of someone who is or has been incarcerated, offering the opportunity to live above the poverty line.

Speaking as an ex-offender I have often felt stuck, limited and coheres into low wage paying jobs. College has given me the opportunity to once again dream of a successful life and allowed me to understand my walk in life.  I was able to understand why I turned to crime at a young age and how I had to change my methods of thinking.  History gave understanding, law classes gave explanations, and business classes taught me how to conduct myself in the work environment. My professors took time to listen to me, believe in me and encourage me to make a positive difference in the world.

In 2011 I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice and created a re-entry Program to assist and aid in the development of ex-offenders. Higher education has given me the skills to give back to the community and is a much needed resource for inmates and those who have been released.    

Victor M Vincent Jr.

Guilford Alum 2011

Victor M Vincent Jr. The Re-Entry Expert

GUEST BLOGGER Joe Coyle

GUEST BLOGGER: Joe Coyle
Another amazing spirit who is the project manager of Mix IT UP!, Joe brings the voices of incarcerated youth from behind bars and cement walls; empowering them through creative writing, connecting all of us through written word. I have had the opportunity to read and review some of these works and they are absolutely astonishing, beautiful, heart-breaking and inspiring.

Joe Coyle

Project Manager- Mix IT Up!
http://mixituplis.wordpress.com/

 

 Adults rarely listen to the voices of young people when it comes to important social issues, policy, or art. Young people in detention centers are especially ignored. Of course, young folks in custody have a lot to say and are producing important work on these topics everyday. There are many writing programs across the country serving young people in detention centers that bring these voices into the public.

I run a writing program out of the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center in Urbana, IL.  Each week, the writers and I hang out, talk about social issues and our lives, and write.  We also read and discuss literature, essays, and poetry together. The general structure of each meeting tends to be pretty loose because each writer has a different purpose and project. Currently, two of the young people I work with are busy editing a collection of poems and prose on parenting and DCFS, one is working on a zine about the education system, some are writing poems to help process their relationships to family members, and others are producing visual art and entering their work into contests.

            Every two weeks, the writers who are interested publish their work in The Beat Within, a magazine that features the writings and art of young people in custody across the United States. This magazine is always a high circulating item in the detention center library. For some, reading other writers’ words in The Beat Within can help them process their own experiences. For others, reading their own published words can bring a sense of validation of their experiences and is a step in the process of developing an identity as a writer.

            One of the most exciting parts of the writing program is the communication that happens between the writers and their readers. Every week, I digitize the writings and e-mail them to a group of volunteers who provide feedback to the writers. The volunteers come from a variety of backgrounds. Some of them have never known anyone who has been in a detention center. Others are incarcerated, serving prison sentences. The reviewers are yoga instructors, preschool teachers, city council members, activists, stay at home parents, lawyers, counselors, high school students, and so on. The writers at the detention center highly value these reviewers’ feedback. Every day that I run a writing program or provide library services, writers ask me how many pieces of feedback have arrived for them. However, it is not only the writers who benefit from this kind of communication. The reviewers are often receive an education, and are inspired or changed as a result of participating in this program. Plus, they get to read great writing.

            To me, one of the greatest values of this kind of collaboration is that it facilitates intercultural, interclass, and intergenerational connection through the act of writing. It is through these kinds of connections that the voices of young people in custody can continue to be brought from margin to center.

           

 

If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, or just reading weekly writings from the writers at the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center, e-mail Joe Coyle at

Joe.a.coyle@gmail.com

UPCOMING GUEST BLOGGERS

UPCOMING GUEST BLOGGERS!



Rebecca Ginsburg, Executive Director of Education Justice Project--Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Barbara Lawrence, Associate Professor in the Justice and Policy Department at Guilford College

Joe Coyle, Project Manager of Mix IT UP!

Amanda Berger, Prison University Project (PUP) volunteer at San Quentin State Correctional Facility in California

Victor M. Vincent Jr., Guilford College Alum and Founder of The Re-Entry Expert Program

Sara Inman, Education Portal at Oregon Youth Authority

Stacy Bell McQuaide, Senior Lecturer in English at Oxford College of Emory University. 
 

Christopher Beasley, Founding President of Returning Student Support Group 

Tzipporah Gerson-Miller, Dr. V, and Jessika Gurule, Staff and participants at Reforming Arts at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Georgia

 

MORE TO FOLLOW, STAY TUNED!!!

GUEST BLOGGER Kenneth L. Parker

GUEST BLOGGER: Kenneth L. Parker is an Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Saint Louis University who has worked on developments to establish a college-in-prison program at the University. I had the privilege of meeting and gaining Kenneth's support for our efforts during the National Higher Education in Prisons Conference this spring. I am grateful for his participation in this guest blogger series where he highlights profound memories and experiences about his time teaching within prison.

 



 

 

“What I Learned about Learning in Prison”

Kenneth L. Parker

Associate Professor of Historical Theology

Saint Louis University

Saint Louis, MO

parkerk@slu.edu

314-977-2861

The title is misleading … I have never served time in prison. But last semester I had the

privilege of teaching in one. I say “privilege” because the experience became without

question the best classroom experience of my twenty years as a teacher. Don’t get me

wrong—teaching Ph.D. candidates, theology majors, and undergraduates in our honors

program has been stimulating and engaging—but never before have I taught the

intellectually-starved. It is hard to write about this because the experience evoked so

much pleasure. Would I feel the same way if I had spent the past semester feeding the

physically emaciated?

Yet that is the intellectual equivalent of what I did. Teachers crave, even long for the

experience of students who walk into their classrooms with eager smiles and open minds.

Imagine assigning texts that baffle the brightest undergraduates on the main campus and

find a room filled with students who have read the text three and four times, outlined the

argument and struggled until they had conquered the riddle of words and syntax. Try to

picture fifteen students sitting for almost three hours engaging in intense discussion and

debate on topics that you have posed and who are eager for your instructional guidance.

Conjure up the image of a student returning his paper to you … because he wants more

correction and guidance as a writer. Consider what it feels like to have a group of

students in the final assessment tell you that the experience in your classroom has given

them hope—a sense that life has purpose. What I have described is just a pale reflection

of my experience of teaching in prison. What I learned in prison is that the privilege to

learn, when withdrawn, creates desperation and despair, a loss of hope that is hard to

revive and a smoldering anger that is difficult to extinguish.

America’s prisons were not always an intellectual wasteland. Between the mid-1970s and

the mid-1990s a network of over 350 college-in-prison programs existed in forty-five

states. Numerous studies confirmed that college education in prison dramatically reduced

recidivism rates. The more undergraduate education received while in prison, the less

likely an inmate would re-offend once released. When recidivism rates nationwide

averaged around 65%, college-in-prison programs produced results in the 15% to 0%

range.

Yet in 1994 a Republican senator from North Carolina and a Democratic representative

from Missouri helped champion a campaign to bar inmates from access to Pell grants.

They argued that if hard-working, law-abiding citizens struggled to educate their

children, why should the government subsidize criminals in pursuit of college degrees?

Jesse Helms and Dick Gephardt succeeded. Their legislation effectively shut down

undergraduate education in American prisons. In many states even vocational training

and GED programs were treated as luxuries that prisoners did not deserve.

The results for the United States have been devastating. In an atmosphere that shifted

from rehabilitation to retribution, the last fourteen years has seen our prison population

explode. Although we are 5% of the earth’s population, we house and feed 25% of the

world’s inmates. One in every one hundred adult Americans is behind bars. The

construction and operation of prisons has become such a burden that states have slashed

funding of state-run universities and colleges. This has resulted in higher tuition at these

institutions and reduced access to higher education for the country’s working poor—

further exacerbating the cycles of behavior and despair that result in criminal behavior

and more prisoners.

When the Saint Louis University Prison Initiative, funded in part by the Incarnate Word

Foundation, solicited applications from the prison population we serve, over 300 men

applied for fifteen places. The applications were compelling and often heartrending. Most

of the men came from impoverished backgrounds, with little parental guidance (often

because one or both parents were in prison), and found affirmation and nurturing for a

criminal life on the street. In prison they now have time to think and reconsider their

priorities in life. They long for guidance. Yet the recurring theme in applications was that

programs did not exist to address this constructive desire. Many described the SLU

Prison Initiative as their first opportunity to pursue post-secondary education after

years—sometimes decades—of incarceration. In the end, selection of students focused on

those who were using what they had to make a difference inside. The students in our

program are GED tutors, facilitators in restorative justice groups, and several are

autodidacts—one reads his New Testament in Greek. Another has become an award

winning script writer. There are self-taught musicians and artists. One student’s academic

skills are so advanced that he could easily pursue graduate studies. In prison I learned

there is great talent and extraordinary ability behind prison walls—human potential that

we as a nation are wasting because we chose not to redirect and reshape it toward

productive and positive purposes.

College education offers a key. I have long known that students will live up to my

expectations. If I create demanding goals in a course, those who persevere tend to excel

and achieve beyond their ordinary patterns in other settings. This is what I did in the

prison course. Assignments that are selections from a book on the main campus became

book assignments for my prison students. I marked their essays severely, but added notes

of encouragement at signs of progress. While this practice often is met with grumbling

and complaints on the main campus, prison students rose to the occasion and spoke in

triumphant terms about their struggles to understand a text and how they conquered it.

They discussed the pain of writing four and five drafts of essays assigned until they

achieved the desired result. The passion and commitment astounded me.

What I learned in prison is that there are men and women aching for the opportunity to be

pushed to their limit and receive praise for achieving hard won goals. These are human

beings—like us—who crave respect and restoration of their dignity. I learned that despite

their crimes, often heinous, there is a core of humanity that responds when respect is

given and judgment is suspended. When I consider that 95% of the women and men in

prison will one day be back on the streets, it is only prudent to ensure that they will leave

with their dignity and sense of self-worth intact. College education on the inside is the

only proven way to achieve that goal.

I learned in prison that the best students and most fervent learners are to be found behind

bars. If you would like to experience the guilty pleasure of teaching the intellectuallystarved,

develop a college-in-prison program in your area. You may be surprised, as I

was, that the help to do this is waiting for your call. While others may praise your

altruism and commitment to serve a despised population, your greatest challenge may be

living with the guilt of knowing that you are enjoying the best teaching experience of

your life!


Please visit Kenneth's Profile Page: https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/kenneth-l-parker/
SLU College-in-Prison Program: http://www.slu.edu/school-for-professional-studies-home/prison-program

Medical Facility at Butner Federal Correctional

Friday, April 12, 2013

4:19 a.m.

In four hours I will be on my way to Butner Correctional Medical Facility (BCMF), in Durham, North Carolina

Usually, and surprising to most people, I have very little anxiety about entering a correctional facility, but this one is different.  My mind has been racing all evening into the early morning hours.  I can’t sleep and the thought of entering the facility brings me to the brink of tears.

I can pretty honestly say, I have been a wreck most of night.

BCMF will be an all around different experience.

Here, is where many of the inmates at Butner Federal Correctional will relocate if they become seriously ill or are dying.

The thought of someone spending their last days slowing dying in a cold, lonely place is incredibly disheartening.  There are some inmates who might qualify for medical parole, but that is not the majority of cases.

I have read several articles written by nurses who care for terminally ill inmates and the overwhelming consensus is that while they are undoubtedly compassionate for the victim’s of the offender’s crime, the inhumane way of dying alone, without a loved one, without the very basic need of our human element: connection is a very sad reality. (Note: most nurses who wrote about the conflicting compassion expressed intense guilt for such compassion towards the inmates. (This shaming is sad and unfortunate.).)

This may be a touchy subject for some. Some will have little sympathy for these terminally ill patients.

Let us dare to ask though, how we would want our loved one: our son, daughter, father or mother to spend their last moments before dying? Alone? Scared?

Absolutely not.

Can we not afford incarcerated patients  equal worth?

I ask that we all try to be mindful and carry a compassionate, open heart.