 I am thrilled that we are here and I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Elizabeth Sackler and I want to begin, I think, just very quickly by saying that we are living in perilous times. We have been for a very long time, perhaps always, and I suppose the starker things get, the more opportunity there seems to be. And Black Lives Matter, their power and the power of Standing Rock, Sioux, and the power of communities coming to protect people who are being deported all speak to the absolute essentialness of all of our participation in fighting for justice and for freedom and for equality and equity. And that's part of what the Sackler Center has been about since we opened in 2010. And it's been a privilege for me to, this is the 20th program actually of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, ongoing serious states of denial, the illegal incarceration of women, children, and people of color. I learned very early from Gloria Steinem that the best way to start when you're standing up is by telling a joke, because when people laugh, they open themselves up. And I was trying to think of a joke this morning, I'm over here. I couldn't think of one because there doesn't seem to be anything very funny going on in the world these days. So welcome. The series began in March of 2014 and all of the programs have been videoed and they are available to be seen online. And if you go on to www.brooklynmuseum.org slash E-A-S-C-F-A slash video, you will be able to go back and see our 19 programs, which, as I said, go back to March 2014. And they include the Brooklyn, they include the Bard College, we've had extraordinary programs, women incarcerated, programming about pregnant women and birthing behind bars and so on and so forth. And we've done some very important as well programming, individual programming, Susan Rosenberg who was incarcerated for many years as a political prisoner and so on and so forth. So I think you'll find an array of programming many of which might be important for you to see or not and which you might enjoy. I'd like to thank the Novo Foundation. The Novo Foundation has been supporting our program for the last two and a half years and without them we couldn't be doing this and I'm very appreciative of it. I'm excited for today's program Families Fighting for Justice and very excited that Sophia Elijah who is my partner in peace and partner in agitation and a dear friend and a sister has put this panel together for us. I'd like to introduce her. I'd like to read to you her full biography because it's marvelous and I'd like it to go on the record. Sophia Elijah, Executive Director of the Alliance of Families for Justice, established in 2016 in New York. The mission of the Alliance of Families for Justice is to support families of incarcerated people and people with criminal records and power them as advocates and mobilize them to marshal their voting power to achieve systemic change. Prior to founding the Alliance for Families for Justice, Sophia was the Executive Director of the Correctional Association of New York where she was the first woman and the first woman of color to lead the 170 year old organization. Ms. Elijah has dedicated her life to human rights and social justice. She is a frequent presenter at national and international forums on criminal justice policy and human rights issues. Prior to leading the Correctional Association, Sophia served as Deputy Director and Clinical Instructor at the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and before moving to Harvard, she was a member of the faculty and director and supervising attorney of the Defender Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law. Ms. Elijah has also worked as a supervising attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, a staff attorney at the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society and in private practice. Sophia will introduce her panel to you, her panelist Kevin Barron, Tiffany McFadden, Angel Solis and Jackie Winbush. So please join me in welcoming Sophia Elijah who is one fabulous human being and I'm delighted to have her here. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you so much for coming. I know the weather is really nice outside so then you have to opt whether you want to go inside or outside, right? This is a very special day for us. It is a debut for our panelists, none of whom have ever spoken publicly, and particularly not in a beautiful space like this, about their experiences. I'm not going to preview for you their experiences because they'll speak to them when they take the stage. But I want to give you a little backdrop. Back in 2011, actually a little bit before I met Elizabeth, I was, as she explained, the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York. And that organization has a very unique posture in the state in that it is the only organization in this state and one of only two in the country that has a legislative mandate to monitor the conditions in the prisons and jails throughout this state. And it has been doing that since 1846. And so when I joined the organization, my focus was on unearthing and getting to the bottom of what was going on inside these prisons and these places, these isolated places and trying to do something about it. And almost daily, I would receive letters and phone calls from family members who were saying, you have to help me. You have to do something about what has happened to my loved one inside one of these places. And as good as the work was that the Correctional Association was doing, we didn't have a mechanism to address those needs, those very human, painful stories and realities of what was going on inside. We got the media to cover some of the things that were going on inside, like the New York Times, the Marshall Project, but still, we didn't have enough. And there was no organization that was focused on working with supporting, empowering, and mobilizing family members so that they could take the pain that they were suffering in silence and transform that into power. And so that's what the Alliance of Families for Justice is created to do, to support people through a variety of different needs based on what their individual needs are, give them the tools to empower them, and then mobilize them so they can be on the front lines to change what's happening inside our prisons and jails. And so we just started in September and celebrated our six-month anniversary, just on the 15th of this month. And with that, we've done so much in a little bit of time. And so I'm really proud to introduce our panelists to you today so that they can talk firsthand about what their experience has been and why the work that we're doing is so very, very important. And then of course, at the end, we're going to try to get you involved. But one of the things that I want to speak to before I introduce our panelists is some help that we need from you, some immediate help. Just a few weeks ago, Governor Cuomo announced that he was going to restrict visiting at maximum security prisons, which currently are seven days a week. And our panelists will speak about why that's so very important. He wants to restrict that visiting from seven days a week to three days a week. There are over 22,000 people incarcerated in our state's maximum security facilities. Over seven days, those 22,000 people's families try to visit. If we restrict the visiting to three days a week, that means that people will travel for hours and hours and hours to go to these isolated facilities, only to be allowed to visit for one or two hours on a weekend. That's going to create havoc for the men and women inside and havoc and further destroy families who rely on those relationships with their loved ones to try to hold their family together. All the research has shown that recidivism rates drop when strong family ties and strong community ties have been maintained. So to restrict these visits, it's going to tear further at the family ties that are already stretched by the fact that a loved one is incarcerated. There's an online petition. If you go to our website, you can sign it. We need everybody to sign it. Outside on the information table, there was a small piece of paper that had details about the governor's email address, phone number. Basically, we need to make it very clear to him that this can't go forward. New York state's 51,000 people who are incarcerated overwhelmingly come from the borough of Brooklyn. There are seven key communities that are the primary feeder communities in New York City for the bulk of the prison population and more than half of those communities come from Brooklyn. So the impact of this policy on the borough of Brooklyn, or what I like to say proudly, the People's Republic of Brooklyn, is stark. So we have to do something about it. And I'm hoping that as you hear our panelists' presentations, you will understand even more why it's important for you to take action. And that's just a small thing. Of course, there's other things we're going to ask you to do later on, but I wanted to plant that seed with you right now. Okay. With no further ado, I'm going to introduce our panelists. First, I'm going to invite Tiffany McFadden to come up. Tiffany is a Master of Social Work student. Behind her is Angel Solis, who's a student at Columbia University. Behind Angel is Jackie Winbush. She's going to tell you her story. And last but not least is our own Kevin Darring. Okay. We're going to get started. Thanks again to my panelists. I know we're going to have an informative and an emotional conversation. We're going to start, I think, Jackie. I'm going to pose this question to all of you, but I want to start with you, Jackie. What impact has mass incarceration had on you personally or your family? I am a mother of a son who is incarcerated at the moment, as well as other family members. So this is something that's very important to me because not only has it affected me and my family psychologically, but emotionally as well. And that takes up two of the most greatest things when you're incarcerated is that the time that you need to spend with them and the time that you spend away from them all connects together. So if they tend to take that time away, that's where all the other issues fit in psychologically and emotionally, it starts to be a really big strain on family members such as myself and as well as others. Angel, same question. What impact personally and wondering your family has mass incarceration had? Well, on my family, I would say that upon my incarceration, I was always with my daughter prior to my incarceration, but once I was incarcerated, prison acted like a cleaver that just severed me from my daughter, my family, my grandmother. And it was like, it was difficult to cope. It was difficult to like, you didn't have the emotional support that one usually has in freedom. And I think that the suffering that one's family just feels when one is incarcerated, because you're not there, just it leaves an open wound. And until this day, I must say that I don't think it ever heals properly. Tiffany, would you address the same question? Can you give me the question again, please? What impact has mass incarceration had on you personally and or your family? So without getting too deep into detail, mass incarceration has impacted three generations of my family, being my mother's mother, my mother, and my younger brother. Pertained into the relationship between my mother and I, it was her being incarcerated was or has a lot to do with the reason why she was absent in our lives. And the type of impact I think if I had to use a word to describe the feeling that I felt because of her absence, and even my brother's absence is void, misunderstanding, emptiness, disconnection. And sometimes, as Angel said, shattered bonds. Kevin, the same question. What impact has mass incarceration had on you and or your family? Mass incarceration had a devastating effect on me and my family. When my wife went to trial, and she was convicted, I had the task of coming home to my five children, ages two, four, seven, ten, and 20. And telling them that their mother wasn't going to be home for a very long time. So right away, I had the way of the parents, I had to be Mr. Mom. You know, all the things that my wife did that I didn't really appreciate, and I took for granted, I had to now do. And that was really where my focus was at supporting her while she was in there, but taking care of my children. And so just telling them that and seeing their reaction, you know, the younger kids, they didn't understand what was going on. But they did know that their mother wasn't going to be around for a while. And, you know, daddy had to take care of everything. So in addition to, we had to sell our house that we had worked very hard for, for years and years, saving our money and clearing all the debt and everything to work on getting this house. Now we had one salary, so there's no way we were going to be able to keep this house. So in addition to telling my children that their mother wasn't going to be around, you know, now I had to also tell him that this nice house that you've been enjoying is we're going to have to, we have to sell a house. But my main focus is on my kids' welfare and how they were going to handle things emotionally. The stigma, the stigma that you go through, the kids go through when they're in school, you know, people in the neighborhood knew what was going on. So there was, you know, there was some of that kind of tension going on. Parents would tell their kids this and that and the other, and then the kids would come to school and talk to my kids and tease them about their mother. So I really, my kids are so strong to have, to have gone through all of that and to come out emotionally well. Because it was really a lot to handle. And we had to move several times. We moved to my mother-in-law's home and it wasn't the best of conditions, but we thank her for just opening up her home for us. And we had to deal with that. And for the children to keep moving, you know, you're changing schools, you know, you're changing your friends, you know, you're in a whole new area. You've got to meet new friends, you know, even as far as the doctor that you got familiar with, now you've got a new doctor. And, you know, it's just a whole lot of changes for children at that age to endure. And so, you know, everywhere we go, we moved several times and not good conditions. There's crowded conditions or whatever, but you know, appreciate the fact that people open up their homes to us. The other thing that had to be dealt with is, you know, visiting my wife. And the stress that that causes, the travel time just to get there, you know, there was one, at one facility, they had scheduled a trailer visit. It was when we were able, the family was able to finally spend the night and be with their mother. And one week before that trailer visit was to take place, they shipped her to a place to a facility that was closer to Canada than was close to our home. One week before that trailer visit. And so, you know, it's the kind of thing of the disappointments that we both had to deal with. I stayed strong because it was about my children. You know, I, you know, I wasn't, my wife was in there for nine and a half years and I had to tend to them. So, due to math, you got a two-year-old that's, when she comes out, he's 11, you know, and so on. Four, you know, to 13 and my daughter was seven. And when my wife came out, she's 16. So, all of this that she's missing, birthdays, you know, graduations, you know, sporting events, you know, Christmas, you know, all the holidays. So, my kids are real strong, but they had to endure all of that. And they came out pretty good. I love my kids because they're very strong. But, and then there's the financial burden. Let me know when I'm going too long. Okay. The financial burden of having one person, you know, trying to support a family. And the things they were used to having, they could no longer have. And the places we used to go, they could no longer go. And so, then on top of all of that, I had lost my job after 13 years. So, fortunately, we had money from selling the house that would carry us over. But it wasn't the best of conditions wherever we went. But, you know, we did what we had to do. So, incarceration had a, thank you, my wife's incarceration had a real serious impact. I mean, the place where she went to upstate, it was ridiculous because we had to travel, we had to leave like at midnight or one or two in the morning to get there for when they opened up. You know, that's a long drive at night. But, you know, we had my minivan, we hunkered down, we had our music going, food and snacks and, you know, we did what we had to do. So, we were resilient. But it was a very difficult thing. I just want to add one thing that we had a tremendous amount of support from family members, from my church and friends. And it was still difficult. But I can only imagine what people who did not have that, don't have that support or didn't have that support, what they've gone, what they're going through or have gone through. And, you know, financially, you know, we were able to make bail. It was tough, but we were able to make bail. We scrapped up stuff and a lot of people, you know, but how many people can't afford bail? You know, everybody knows about the Khalif Browder story, you know, what happened to him and how long he had to wait, you know. And so, you know, if you poor, you got to wait. You stay in jail, you know. And we were fortunate we were able to scrap up some money. But, you know, the lawyer we had, we had to come out of our pocket, you know, for him. How many people are able to afford a good lawyer? So, you know, from my personal experience, what we went through, people are dealing with tougher situations. And, you know, I feel for them. And that's one of the reasons why I got involved in the Alliance of Families for Justice, because of that, and because the emphasis on supporting families that are outside. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you. Angel, I'm going to come to you. Jack, did you want to add something? Yes, I did. Just reiterating on what he has said about going to visit. That's one of the reasons also how I got involved into being where I'm at now, because that's a very challenging thing to go and visit your loved one and take a six or seven-hour drive somewhere where you have to get processed for another hour or two and then stay another six or seven hours to know that during that process, you're going to have to leave that loved one or take your siblings or family members, such as myself, have to do to where your family member or sibling who's never been in jail, who know about and have the knowledge, but now they have to be subjected to going up there and visit. That's also an emotional strain on them to have to leave their loved one. So, not only are they taking away a lot of things from half of a, you know, seven days a week or three, but it's also separating us even more so because we are the part, we're the glue as a family member that goes up there and give them the support that they need to stay stabilized in some kind of form or fashion. So, if they take that away and minimize it, not only would open up doors for other things, for maybe another act of criminology issues that may go on, it could cause a real big, you know, like a war because a lot of people don't understand how important it is to have that loved one, even though it's a challenge, but we do it because we know that they need that support. We visit them and we support them because that's all they have is whoever is like behind the scenes, like how we're doing it now, we give them a sense of hope, a sense of encouragement to know that there's somebody out there that really cares despite of what they've done or whatever reason that they are, you know, incarcerated, that they are human beings and what they need is very important to us. Thank you, Jackie. Angel, you've been on the other side, the recipient of the visit. So, speak to us, please, about how important those visits are, what they mean and how you would anticipate it and what would it mean to have visits restricted? Well, your visits, when your family come in, your family becomes a nexus to your humanity. Prison is an extremely dehumanizing place. It's a dehumanizing experience. Every day you walk around, you're a number, you wear, everyone wears the same clothing, you're brutalized in every way by officers and by others. And the opportunity to see your family or your friends, which are synonymous with family, it's your connection to society, that brings you, that reminds you that you are still human. It reminds you that you're still loved. It reminds you that there's a reason, there's still a purpose to restrain oneself. But from my observations while I was incarcerated, I've noted what happens to individuals when they don't have that contact with the outside world, when their family, for whatever reasons, whether they're economic or just any other ones, just don't come to see them, it destroys them. They walk around dejected, they're more prone to violence. They don't see themselves as human. They embrace the fact that whatever no one wants me, I'm an animal, it doesn't matter. They don't hold themselves to the same standards as those that have visits to restrain oneself. One of the things that the institution uses to punish one, if one commits an infraction, is that they will take away your visits, your right to see your family. If you don't have, if no one sees you, then there's no deterrent. That's just one less deterrent. You don't care because why should you care if no one cares about you? On another note, even when your family sees you, which is a beautiful thing, it reminds you of your humanity. The institution still has things in place to make you forget it right afterwards because as soon as they go through them doors and you go through that heartbreaking moment in which who knows when the next time you're going to be able to see them, you hear the CO's voices once again, everyone in line on this side, this block, walk in, then you're stripped naked. And in that stripping, it's almost symbolic. You're re-stripped off that contact, that humanity, and you're once again back inside of that institution. That's very, very, very powerful. So I want to switch a little bit. Each of you shared a really personal reason or a personal experience to how mass incarceration has impacted you. I want to now know, since you, I'm assuming none of you knew each other before the Alliance of Families for Justice, right? We didn't just show up at a club and grab you. So let's start with you, Tiffany. What is it about the Alliance of Families for Justice that resonates enough with you to take time after work, after your, all your other responsibilities show up here on a Saturday to get involved with what we're doing? Oh yeah, most definitely would love to talk about that. I am a family justice advocate. I believe in fighting for families. I believe in fighting and pushing for families to be reconnected. That's where a lot of my advocacy work comes from, where I started at an internship. My passion stems from being impacted by the child protection system. I was in the system from the time, I believe, I was four years old, up until when I aged out at 21. And so because of that system and what it did to my family, how it, how the system showed no empathy, no care, no need, no desire to work with my mother in any capacity to rebuild those bonds, I knew that I had to get myself to a place where I had to do the work. Because throughout life, I kept coming into contact with other former foster youth that were going through the same thing. And folks were aging out of the system with no connection. And it, you know, the image that would come to mind was, you know, kind of a lone animal, just roaming. And I know just based on science, based on biology, our design is that we're social beings. We thrive in connection. We do not thrive in isolation. We don't thrive when we're not a part of a healthy support system. So that, that connection, I, I believe, I see when I came to the first community meeting at AFJ. And, you know, Sophia, your outreach to folks is no, is nothing soft, you know? You, when you, when you put out that arm, when you, when you reach out, it's a, it's a call. It's a, it's a call to action. It means something. And so when I, when I saw that, and when I sat in the space, I knew, I said, this is where, where I can start the next chapter of family justice work. And so that's, that's a little bit of how I got into the work and what I saw at AFJ. Hey, Kevin, you, you navigated your journey with the support of family, fortunately. So, and your wife is home now, right? Beautiful. So that's quote unquote in the past. So why does AFJ's work resonate with you? Because I think what's going on in the prison system has had a tremendous impact on our communities. And I don't think it's in the forefront of too many people, enough people's minds. We have like an abundance of issues raised the age. We've got the situation going on in Rikers. We've got recidivism, you know, we've got the mental health situation going on, you know, now they're reducing visits, you know, solitary confinement, parole reform. It's just a long list of issues that are having a serious impact on our communities and not enough is being done. So when I heard about your organization, and particularly for me, when you emphasize the support for all the families of those incarcerated, you know, that piqued my interest right away. And there's just so many issues that need to be addressed. So much organization that needs to be done. So many resources that need to be, you know, directed in that, you know, because this, I mean, it has to be a systemic change, because all of these things that add up and there's other things adds up to a systemic problem. And we got off, you know, our work cut out for us. But something's got to be done. We can't just sit home and text or watch TV and shake our heads. Like, oh, that's awful. Isn't that terrible? People got to get involved if they want things to change. And it's affecting your community where you live, you know, when people come out of incarceration, what do they have to do if they don't have a support system? Where are they going to live? They're making it harder for them to find places to live, excuse me, places to live. You know, affordable housing is no longer affordable. You know, they make it harder for them to go to college. You know, so you're making, do you really want these people to be a valuable part of, you know, society? Because what's out here for them is not helping them at all. So there's not enough services, there's not enough help for people that are coming out, you know, mental health issues, counseling, financial issues, employment, even though we got the ban in the box thing taken care of, there's still employment issues. They're going to have to go on interviews. And where were you the last nine years? You know, how do you answer that? You know, so there's still a lot of issues that need to be taken care of. And people need to join an organization. I hope you join this organization. But if not Alliance of Family and For Justice, you need to join some kind of organization and do something. Jackie, you shared with us that your son is inside. How does the Alliance of Families for Justice work, resonate with you? When I first met one of the advocates for AFJ, I just knew when I spoke with Kachia, I said God had answered my prayers because I always wanted to do something for families that was incarcerated before my son even became incarcerated. That was just my passion because I'm also firsthand have experience on different things with children being mentally challenged, so to speak, with mental health. And I'm also working in a mental facility right now. That's the type of job that I'm dealing with. So it was not just the type of job that I'm doing. It's something I always wanted to do because I found myself in the courthouse behind the scenes advocating for different people asking for other family members when I'm supposed to be there for my family members. So I'm like, well, why am I going to different courtrooms or looking at people and seeing how can I help them to do research and go online and also network for other people? I'm like, well, this is something that's important for me deep inside that now I don't have a way of opening up that void that was filled. So I'm very excited and grateful that I'm able to be a part and advocate and do whatever it is I need to do in all areas because this is something that's very, very important. And we need to really get the ball rolling because if we don't do this now, it's also going to impact the newer generation who are now subjected to being incarcerated. What is that going to do for them? What type of services can we give them if they happen to go into the system, which they will be because there are so many of them now, teenagers that will be in the until the adults or maybe they won't ever get out if we don't ever take that step forward to making a difference. Angel, you're bringing us the other perspective. Why is the work important to you? Well, I've noticed that FJ tackles two very important obstacles that I've seen that are major obstacles in this war because make no mistake this is a war and the first casualty is the family. The first objective being family in which when one is born the first institution when comes in contact with that ties one to society is the family. And the truth of the matter is like when I was released from incarceration, luckily I still had my family and I had my now fiance, but I still had to go due to legal restrictions through the shelter system. And when I was in that shelter system, I noted that most of the individuals in that shelter system were also individuals that were just released and the shelter system, interestingly enough, has the same blueprint of a prison. It's set up just like a prison. There's count just like a prison. There's NYPD offices right in the front. You're still dehumanized and it was so difficult to like travel because I had to become reclimatized to technology. Even getting on the train was a problem. Running up steps was a problem because there ain't no steps in the prisons I've been in. And if I wouldn't have had the ties that I had, I know I wouldn't have made it because if you don't have your family, you will seek that family somewhere else. It will become a gang. It will become a group of other individuals and unfortunately the only other individuals you surround the world are those that are living in the very despair that you are. Two is the raised-to-age thing. I was incarcerated in green and most of green are adolescents. And I'm telling you right now, everyone makes a big deal about torture overseas. We make a big deal about what happens to foreign prisoners. But I was in a place that's not too far from here in which kids that are 17 years old are placed in a corner, bags over their head, teeth broken by steel-toed boots, dreadlocks ripped out of their heads, right in plain sight in the yard and no one can say nothing. Most of them have no contact with their family so there's no one to talk to. The grievance process is broken so there's no defense. There's nothing. The only shield that you have, the only support you can have is family and the only organization that I see that tackles family and the raised-to-age thing has been AFJ. Well that's a tall order but we're trying to do it. We're trying to do it. So let's see. I'm going to ask this question to Kevin and Tiffany together because I think you've been with us longer a little bit in our veteran six months. So tell us a little bit about what you have gotten out of your involvement with AFJ so far. Well what I've got out of it is being able, even though I'm nervous here today, being able I've gotten out of my little solitary bag because I want to communicate to people what's going on. I'm glad you said that because the first time I met you you hardly talked and I'm like today I got to get him to stop. So go ahead. Yeah so you know now that I'm social because I was in kind of a little cell you know just me and my kids and that was that with my whole world but you know when you see all the things that are going on you know you know we have to we have to advocate and we have to educate people as to what's going on. So for me it's not only speaking on issues but it's a lot of personal development which I'll be using again to speak to issues that are going on. So it's a training process for me you know every time I speak I get a little more comfortable so you know in a few months you might have to shut me up a lot. So I guess I'll just piggyback off of Kevin and speak to some of the things that we're involved in right now. Kevin and I just recently attended the Advocacy Institute training where we got tons of information as to how we target specific state and city officials in order to get them on board with some of the things that we are advocating or campaigning around as well as we'll I'll be going to the opportunity agenda and being a part of that fellowship in June which will help me build on this advocacy skill set that I have but I think the the important part for me is not not necessarily what I'm doing but the position that I'm being put in so that I could share that with others. I shared that with Sophia that I know I'm here to help to be in a position to help others shed that shame that guilt that stigma that hurt that pain that one feels when you're impacted by a system and helping others develop healing maps in their lives as well as with their families so that they can become powerful advocates as well and so those are some of the things that that are happening besides besides that AFJ has a has a tall a tall order and a great agenda of things that they're tackling for 2017 headed into 2018 and I'm just happy to be here and and help develop this this advocacy arm that this organization needs to to really take on this machine. Okay now let's see who who I'm amongst you is doing the communication skills next month okay Jackie you want to speak about what's going to happen Kevin. Well as I said um I'm this is all like a training process for me so the more I learn about how to communicate you know the more people that can be reached the more people can join the organization you know the more people can help in the things that we we stand for and that we're fighting against so any kind of training um I'm just a sponge I'm ready to you know soak it all up and try to be the best person I could be so I can help others you know be the best person they can be. I'm going to do one more question and then we're going to where's Claire I've lost her is it time almost okay I'm going to do one more question and then we're going to watch a short video clip before we do questions and answers oh this is my favorite question of course okay so I don't know who wants to go first but why should our folks folks in the audience and those who didn't know they were supposed to be here today get involved with the Alliance of Families for Justice well to me I told you we can't get any stop talking go ahead if you care about you know all the issues we've been discussing you know you need to get involved what about people who don't have a loved one in prison or who've never been incarcerated why should they care why should they get involved because everything that we talked about impacts everybody in one way or another the financially or what's going on in their community so it impacts everybody whether you have someone incarcerated or not you you're going to feel you know the pain or of what's happening in society if it's not if it's not going to be addressed Jackie for one I think that um well actually I'm 100% sure that whoever do not have a family member if you just look deep inside of yourselves and look beyond the fact that yes they are people who are in prison and yes they have done certain things to have themselves there but they are still at the end of the day a human being and if they have human rights are being taken away it's just like it's someone give injustice you and you're not incarcerated but you live in the same world but you're just not behind bars that you can help them still be able to be put a productive person when they come out so that you can have services so they don't have another reentry of going back into the system because it is a revolving door it's set up for that way it's designed for them to come back because there's no there's no services there's not enough assistance for us as us the people who hasn't been involved so if you just look beyond that and say what can I do to make a difference to help someone to get back to being a productive individual in the world then this is the reason why it's now to get involved because what we got ahead of us is so much bigger than what what reason that they became behind bars because it could be a numerous of different reasons that they're there so it's very important to get involved because their future still matters when they come out they still have an opportunity to do something with their life angel this is everyone's problem because it affects everyone when a citizen falls through the craps and commits an act of malefaction it isn't because a criminal just just happened to just oh i'm just going to be a criminal today it is a process in which society has failed that individual every there's not a single individual in here that is himself because of himself but we are constructed by our context when it it is our duty as citizens as brothers to lift someone out of that crack when he falls because when we ignore that individual that falls to the crack ultimately it will affect us if it doesn't affect us directly by us have living in that context having our children see these acts and whatnot and then ultimately becoming perpetrators of these acts then we are the victims of those acts and then we look at our in our victimhood we're like oh look what just happened to me we need harsher sentencing or we need harsher this but the fact of the matter is it all could have been fixed had we taken a different approach how we try to humanize the individual had we built stronger family ties with that individual if we allow individuals to fall through the cracks ultimately that crack doesn't fill up it widens and it becomes an abyss in which our children could be just swallowed up so it's all of our war wow that was pretty powerful angel thank you so i know some people in the audience and wondering what can they do how can they get involved we're going to set as i said we're going to watch this video clip but i want you to think about this we're going to do a march for justice we're going to march from new york city to albany yes we're going to walk it's 180 miles and we're leaving at the end of august and this march for justice is to call attention to the human rights abuses that are happening every day in the jails and prisons throughout new york state and to call upon our elected officials and policymakers to bring an end to those human rights abuses that includes shutting down attica prison where some of the most horrific terrorist acts are committed in the name of people who receive tax dollars prison guards every single day so we're hoping and i know that some people in the audience have already told me that they're going to help us and you may be wondering well what can i do i don't have any particular skill you do not need a skill to do outreach you do not need a skill to make phone calls you do not need a skill to put stamps on an envelope or to send well you might need a slight skill to send an email but we can help you with that but there's so many different ways that you can help us and you should know we're all volunteers everything there's not a single paid person with us not until we get to our one-year market and we've made enough money to hire people we're just paying the rent so there's ways that every single person can make a difference that can help us okay so while we're getting queued up to watch this video start thinking about how you can help us and then i'm going to tell you about our kickstarter campaign after we come back from the video okay our incarceration rate is four times higher than china's think about that there are more than two million people incarcerated in the united states and more than 50 000 people incarcerated in new york state hello i'm danie gliver activists and artists and i want to talk to you about the alliance of families for justice of which i'm a founding board member the alliance of families for justice is an innovative approach to human rights abuse mass incarceration and mass criminalization the alliance of families for justice is an organization focused on supporting and powering and mobilizing people who are incarcerated and people with a criminal record the alliance of families for justice uses a holistic approach in his work support service legal representation training and voter registration and education for family members when a person is incarcerated they leave a family behind in the community what makes the alliance of families for justice unique and different is that we take a civil rights proven model and match it with technology that we have available to us today and we get proximate with the families and people who have criminal records and enable them to have a voice in policy making and decision making so support us donate volunteer get involved you can make a difference questions please go to the two mics at the side as you're doing that i hope everyone got some of the handouts that we had on the table out there one of them has our new logo on the top this piece and it talks about our Kickstarter campaign that we need you on April 1st yes it's April Fool's Day i know on April 1st we need you to go online donate tweet post on facebook encourage people to support this effort our march for justice now i will tell you i'm very tech challenged so i don't understand why we have to all do it on the same day but our communications people tell me that we have to do it on the same day so mark your calendar for April 1st if you didn't sign our sign and sheet outside please do so because we'll send you a reminder that on April 1st we want to do this Kickstarter campaign so we'll have the seed money for our March for Justice okay you might say well how much kind of cost to do a march at bare minimum we have to give people food and water okay so help us get that March for Justice going and with that i'll stop talking because we have a question coming thank you hi my name is Christina uh first of all thank you for coming here and speaking and sharing your stories i'm nervous speaking on a microphone so i couldn't even imagine what it's like to sit up on a stage and do this so thank you um so my question is uh so when formerly incarcerated individuals are released from prison i've often witnessed the process of getting back into society these same individuals often want to disconnect themselves from their time in iraq as i like to call it not wanting to be associated with it or not wanting to relive it i have a strong belief that these men and women are an essential part to this advocacy given the obstacles that they have how would you recommend them getting involved in this important work who wants to go first typically i see you you're getting ready go ahead i took some notes um and i don't you know i have to do this shameless plug that's one of my best friends Christina and uh i you know um just in terms of having worked with parents affected by the child protection system now when when one comes into contact with parents who have had you know uh experienced child removal or what it's like to even go toe to toe with the system that is is trying to dominate um you um and your your ability to to to to have your children your ability to to raise your children without being monitored or any of those things i i've realized in doing that work that there were there were three things that were missing from from that that realm it was connection right so if there is no connection then what do we have we have disconnection that there was a lot of extreme lack of empathy when coming into contact with people and as well as people weren't reclaiming each other right so folks that were going through these things would sit in isolation with the shame and the guilt and would have excuse my language but would have a hell of a time not only just telling their narrative but even coming into spaces where folks were doing the work and so i think if if people are looking to to really connect with those have who have been directly affected by the penile system or what we call now the carceral state those are three things that we must have you the outreach must be to connect right and not just to get people in the space but to really make the connection for folks to understand like angel said that this is a war i believe a spiritual war you know and to to to to have them see that it's their voices their bodies that need to be on the front line those that have been directly affected need to lead this work um the mutual empathy you know you don't necessarily have to go to prison or have a loved one in prison or who has been touched in order to be connected to this work call me a blindly hopeless i'm a hopeful person i like to think that i'm blindly hopeful at times but i think everyone wants to be a part of something i think that everyone wants to be connected to someone or something you know nobody everyone is somebody nobody is nobody you know um and so with that there needs to be uh a huge engine behind mutual empathy that that's something that needs to happen not oh i empathize because you're going through that no you're going through this listen i'm going through some stuff too it might not be the same thing that you're going through but i'm going through some stuff too that's where we connect that builds on connection that connection of going and outreach into folks and getting them in the space that mutual empathy and then reclaim in one another despite what has happened to you despite what you've been through regardless of whether you are a nonviolent offender or a violent offender or if you are trans or if you are non-gender conformant whatever your situation is you belong you have a place and you have a space in this fight um and i think i think that those those are the three the three kickers for me um especially those are the three things that i'm i'm taking in this work in in terms of of helping build the the advocacy arm does anybody else want to say anything just going back to why it's so important for each and every one to be a participant in coming together and joining in this type of work is because we need to come together to make a strategic planning with each other not just say that we want to do something but actually put in to position a plan for everybody to come together so when they come out of incarceration while they're going through what they're going through emotionally and mentally because that's where it all stems from we can all come together and find avenues and different ways to maneuver around to getting them the support of help that they need that they're going to need a lot of support of help when they come home they're going to need a lot of assistance medical assistance all kind of things so how can we be networking that's what we have to get on to networking one another in contact one another i um i have another organization that i'm also with that has to do with only with people who are incarcerated and they also helping each other out with jobs who has been incarcerated formally and it's only for those participants who has been in jail and this is what we need if we don't network we won't know about it so i think you know i'm very pleased to say that i'm glad that i'm able to be a part of AFJ because it's an opportunity for me to network and let someone know that there is someone else that has a way to connect with those who are incarcerated and after the event i would love to let you know exactly how you can get in touch with those and pass it on to the family members or someone who's formally is out now and having that stigma or i can't get a job because i have a felony behind my name and no one in society is going to think that i'm i'm eligible or that i deserve to have a second chance and that's why this organization is called second chance thank you you know i as i listen to i realize we haven't shared with the audience one of the things that we recently developed is a partnership with an organization that's based up in the north country very close to the canadian border there are several prisons in that area clinton bear hill upstate franklin just to name a few and there are buses that leave from places in brooklyn that travel those long long long hours up to those facilities so that people can visit their loved ones at clinton in particular that we've gotten numerous reports about physical abuse horrific beatings that people have been subjected to and we've gotten emergency calls from family members concerned about what's happening to their loved ones up there but they can't get the bus to go up until saturday or friday night but if someone's gotten beaten on monday no one wants to wait until saturday to go see what's happening with them so our partners up in the north country have agreed to do emergency response so we can call them and within 24 hours generally no more than 48 hours they go in to visit someone because right now at maximum security prisons there's seven day a week visiting and there's no substitute for being able to have a friendly face come in even if it's a stranger's friendly face to come in after you've been beaten and then thrown in the hole and denied excuse me thrown in the whole means thrown in solitary confinement and denied medical treatment so that's just one of many things that we're doing to try to provide emotional support to families and people who are inside who are in find themselves suffering through these numerous human rights abuses i'll stop talking turn to the next person with a question hi good afternoon my name is vicki i just want to share that it's a great pleasure to be here in honor um to be at this event for alliance of families for justice and i just want to commend each and every one of you for being so bold enough to share your stories to empower others here and um i work with people living with psychiatric diagnoses and some have forensic histories of being incarcerated um like kevin i just want to share that i um was in the process just last year of buying a house and then i found myself in a situation i have a history of domestic violence where my estranged husband while for many years i tried to protect him i didn't want him to go into the system it was just basically i didn't see myself as a dv survivor and i based on an allegation made i was arrested and as a result of that um i was at rikers not for very long but in that experience um i noticed that there are a lot of other women there mothers and what i repeatedly heard was not their concern about being incarcerated but many would say what's going to happen to my child i who's going to pick her up who's going to take care of him and you know in my education one i was very surprised to be in that that position i never imagined and um but my education was such that i saw myself in a position where um behind bars and seeing women and understanding that man i saw a line of men of color um just in dehumanizing conditions based basically as we were going in route to rikers um a long line of people just not able to voice what's going on or get themselves out of the situation that reminded me very much that we were in a position of a vestige of slavery the judge at one point said everyone is going to get have to make bail and people were complaining about that because this is a intersection of a socioeconomic injustice people are poor they're not able to get themselves out um in addition to that i was i found myself after being released the child that i carried felt life for the first time and took care for nine years i was now separated from as you mentioned the child welfare system and i realized very early on how the verbiage the language mirrored what goes on in prisons visits children being paroled to their parents and now i'm fighting to really reclaim a relationship with my child but i want to very much stress that i'm happy to be here because i know it puts me in a position of empowerment and i want to say or ask what can i do you mentioned this earlier but i'm also going to take responsibility to say before i leave here today i'm going to own one thing that i'm going to do and at least it's going to be able to do this which is to reach out to Cuomo and make sure that we support our brothers and sisters and our children so that these cycles are not going to be continually perpetuated thank you thank you i don't want to take up too much space but i think there's power in knowing and i'm speaking to to miss vicki there's there's power in knowing that people are working diligently to to rebuild those bonds so never never feel discouraged or or hindered or or shameful or guilty for what happens things happen i used to tell the parents all the time and i'm sure because there's a parent sitting in the audience that is familiar with my work miss Eva Santiago um can tell you that one of the things that i would tell parents is always know that this system meaning the child protection system and now even the penal system it makes it hard for you to do two things at once it makes it very hard for you to fight the system and also get done what it is that you're trying to get done right so if you're trying to exit the penal system you can't fight it at the same time if you're trying to get your kids back you can't fight it at the same time but you can you can find you can find confidence you can find uh love you can find peace and healing and knowing that there's a community that's working to fight back and that's where you get your power that's where you get your energy that's where you get invigorated or i like to say gas stop right um and so i i want to point your attention to so you know that this is not this is not a joke for me i'm gonna ask my mother to stand up i'm gonna ask my cousin to stand up i'm gonna ask my grandfather who just we just celebrated his 75th birthday to stand up and and say that this is the most important social work that i've ever done in my life was putting those bonds back together again so do what you got to do and you know that i'm here so i could totally support you through the process now i'm reminded that there's so many things that we do to the law do this so i'm reminded that one of the many things that we do is family members contact us just because they need a listening ear i just need to be able to talk because the reality is we suffer in silence we suffer in silence and so i want to recognize miss lily he's stand up who is a social worker from england and lily volunteers her time with us she comes in tirelessly it's a long commute but she comes in and she talks with our family members on the phone first and then she makes an appointment for them to come in and just talk to just share to just shed we keep tissues and it's not necessarily that someone needs to sit with a psychologist or a psychiatrist they just need to talk with someone who understands okay and so i just wanted when people are thinking well what what can i do there's so many different ways that you can help and if you've got a pair of ears and you can listen that's helpful thank you lily question hi my name is emily and i'd love to know more about how afj does its outreach and gets more families involved because you spoke about how isolated they are so how do you reach out to them and bring them into the community well i actually should ask miss harry to answer that question she's in the audience you want to speak to that you want to take the mic she's better at outreach probably than we are good evening everyone my name is carol it's nice to be here it's nice to see the panel again well for me personally i have a son that's in the facility and one night i don't know where these two little girls was i'll give you the joke all the time but i was waiting on the bus like we said we have a bus that takes all night to get to where we're going it's very degrading for us and it's very heart wrenching and when we get there we do not get any respect from the correction officer that's another problem we have to go through also i was at the bus stop and there was this two young lady came to me with flyers and they gave me other ajf flyers and i they talked to explain to me about a little bit about the what they would what they do and i was very impressed and i call so fear the next day when i came home and i call her and let me tell something these people are awesome if you have can find some way to just spend two three hours of your time to do something with this organization is the best two three hours you ever spent i was i didn't know i was so emotionally by this prison situation with my son until i spoke to lily and she has been able to open because i am a very person that keeps all my problems to myself i try to solve my problem god and me and when i talk to the organization i'm very sorry i'm very teary when they come to these things and i spoke to the organization and i got such a great response the personal the person you know make you feel like a person not just like someone out there they make you the individual feels special they talk to you on your level you don't feel like you're down there or you're here your your your the reception is so warm that i started advocating i went out on the 12 o'clock bus start giving out the flyers start doing this cotton given to people who's not even a prison system but who knows someone because everyone knows someone and there's a question was asked about how it impact the prisoners when they come out there's a lot of us that say we don't want them in our neighborhood we're afraid of them in our neighborhood but when you get training when they come out social counseling when they come out job when they come out then you can have them in your neighborhood then you see that they are really human being that just needed a chance so i just want to say thank you very much i'm sorry i took up so much time i appreciate what y'all do and it's a very important thing so please anyone who can do something please do something because it doesn't affect you or you it affects the whole entire community of our family and it's not a black not a white situation is a whole in one situation so i thank you and that is how i got involved and now i'm giving out flies so thank you i just wanted to talk about i remember these bus things where you were getting people to for voter registration and that is so important politicizing individuals you'd be surprised how many people are not politically conscious when i was in prison no one knows anything about the party system they don't understand policies they don't understand anything that's going on and neither do their families once you gain political consciousness what ends up happening is that you start understanding the forces that are pushing you down certain roads that lead ultimately to the destruction of your family and to the self once you start seeing these forces with political consciousness you can step aside from it you can start now tackling where that force is coming from and try to destroy it or mitigate it so the fact that like during your voter's registration thing just informing families informing them of what's going on what are the policies by granting them insight to these policies by giving them political consciousness what you're doing is transforming an individual that had no idea of how their plight is happening or what's going on with them you're actually arming them with knowledge creating soldiers in which they can participate in this war like political consciousness is the most important thing i know for a fact that when i was in prison if more individuals understood what truly was going on what forces were pushing them towards certain things then they would see what was going on they would be able to avoid it but most of them cannot and neither could their families thank you yes sir question hi my name is carl patka i just want to say i'm very proud of angel and how articulate he is on this panel here today and what an amazing job he's done with his life with his life enrolling at columbia and not going to work for a non-profit helping others and i'm very proud of him and my daughter emily who's been involved in afj and i've been involved in albany for a long time so i can't help having an albany perspective so i'll keep it short you know i worked on a lot of nonprofits over the years and for government agencies over the years and april one is your kickstarter campaign and i'll surely contribute but april one is also budget day so i hear a lot of people here opposing limiting visitation for inmates to only three days a week and of course that should be outlawed that's that's not humane but the other thing and thank you the other thing i really think though is what are you asking for in this budget are you asking for prisoners legal services are you asking for laws that outlaw silent solitary confinement are you asking for funding for education programs for inmates in our facilities because those things are key in addition to your work to keep for bringing people back out of the system into productive life right well thank you so much sir as you know we we love angel and emily so we have a policy platform for 2017 that includes everything that you just listed it and we have a very comprehensive platform explanation that you can access from our website so part of our mobilization is to give family members and people who have a criminal record the tools so that they can impact this practice policy and the laws that affect our lives so just at our last community organizing meeting which was thursday night we went through the fact of the budget process and that the vote was going to be by the end of this month what the issues were the fact that the governor says 2.6 million dollars will be saved by restricting the visits despite the fact that the overall state budget is over 180 billion dollars we talked about the fact that there used to be free buses that people didn't have to pay 60 dollars and 75 dollars and 50 and 35 dollars for a child to go visit their family members we talked about the fact that the family reunification program should be expanded not limited that it shouldn't be determined based on the nature of your crime something that you can't change so we do a lot of education of people on a whole spectrum of issues that are key to the budget and also that are key to policy so that our people our advocates are well educated on all the issues that affect families and people who have a criminal record so thank you so much for that question i am fighting a bad cold so if you can probably hear but i'm not going to stop talking i think we're almost out of time so i want to do two things one i want to recognize and thank my dear friend elizabeth sakler for making it possible for us to have these kinds of forums and she's been diligent and relentless and if you can know anything about elizabeth sakler no it's not in her vocabulary okay so can we all just show a round of applause and just before she takes the stage i would like to ask my panelists in one sentence kevin one sentence if you could say what does justice look like for you who wants to go first if we're fighting for justice what would it look like if we're successful destroying the carceral state a man of many words okay thank you destroying the carceral state anybody else i want to read a bell hooks quote okay in response to that and i believe this is fitting for what she says in um one of her books is that the soul of our politics is the commitment to end in domination so i believe it's end in domination in always all forms or fashions it's pretty profound okay no pressure kevin jackie i would just say that the whole system needs to be overall overhaul the entire system the entire criminal justice system okay last but not least go ahead jackie well for me for um my perspective i would say just breaking a lot of um generational curses i just was just that that's exactly what it is and because i can't resist i would say victory for us would be that we reach a day where we don't need an organization called alliance of families for justice so fia thank you thank you for your organization thank you panelists this was very moving um i have to say you know angel it's interesting what you're talking about about politics the criminal it's not a criminal justice criminal unjust a system but but the incarceration system mass incarceration system has been a success it's not a broken system it was built to do exactly what it is doing and that is a human rights violation of the highest highest order and it's so painful not only to know that it was built it started in the 80s as you may well know and privatized prisons now are being built and expanded upon because of this new regime and we are facing a fascist state where already our um our prisons truly are concentration camps and they are being used that way and utilized that way to disenfranchise entire populations in this country and how we are going to uh take that apart is part of what michelle alexander uh and um our wonderful angela davis i mean all of us uh think about this all the time how do we do it this is built to destroy this is built to destroy and how um how it is that we can approach this and try and and say okay we know that this is so how do you dismantle something in the face of what is now a potentially new white supremacist government in this country and solidarity there's intersectionality being discussed privilege is being discussed solidarity to recognize what is being done the stories you've told and what you have witnessed in terms of people being abused behind bars it's it's un it's unacceptable it's unacceptable so i want to thank you sophia because you have devoted your life to this and i want to thank you for the alliance and for all of you who have the strength having either been through it or having family members or children and having the strength and coming out the other side and saying okay we're going to make a difference we're going to change this because this is not all right it's just not all right so um bless you all and have a very nice weekend thank you very much for coming and sophia and panelists thank you for sharing your stories so beautifully i really appreciate it thank you