City University of New York Baruch College. Opening remarks at: New York Reentry Education Network Pathways of Possibility Conference

Transcription

1 City University of New York Baruch College Opening remarks at: New York Reentry Education Network Pathways of Possibility Conference by Vivian Nixon Executive Director College and Community Fellowship New York, NY February 27, 2013

2 Acknowledgements Good morning everybody. It is so wonderful and encouraging that all of you have taken time out of your schedules to join this conversation about an issue that affects millions of Americans. I want to commend all of the organizers and sponsors of this conference, but particularly the New York Reentry Education Network, the Mayor s Office of Human Capital Development, and the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia School of Law. Realizing a convening with the primary goal of elevating the critical role that education plays in supporting community reintegration for those impacted by criminal punishment is a tremendous undertaking and the leadership from all the sponsoring organizations has been both extraordinary and visionary. Introduction I ve been asked to offer some opening thoughts as we embark on this journey to address the unique challenges faced by people with criminal history records who want to increase their levels of education and thereby improve their chances of living fulfilling and stable lives. Throughout the day we will discuss the role that educational opportunity can and should play in helping millions of people extricate themselves from a system that (whether intentionally, or not) has served to marginalize millions of people and keep them in perpetual states of surveillance, control, and punishment. More importantly, we hope to discuss ways that we can move forward together to undo the damage caused by this system, which boasts the highest incarceration rate of any nation on the face of the earth, in the history of the earth. The work that we do around these tables, and conversations on the plenary panels and in the break out sessions will be directed at specific solutions and opportunities. But please allow me to frame the day s work in the context of the systemic and structural problems we aim to Vivian Nixon, New York 2

3 address through this work, and the values that I hope will drive our efforts. Mass Incarceration, Mass Criminalization, and Disparate Impact I ll summarize the unprecedented position in which we find ourselves as a nation, by stating some basic facts, many of which you already know: The United States has 5% of the world s population, yet incarcerates 25% of the world's prisoners. i As of 2011, the United States incarcerates 716 people per 100,000 residents or more succinctly, nearly 1 in 100. ii When we include people on parole and probation, 7 million people in America were under some form of criminal justice supervision in iii We are experiencing not only mass incarceration but mass criminalization. There are more than 100 million criminal history records on file in repositories around the country. A closer look at the data reveals that criminal punishment in the United States has not been applied equally: Whites are incarcerated at 393 per 100,000 Latinos at 957 per 100,000 African Americans at 2,531 per 100,000, and African American men at nearly 4500 per 100,000. iv Simply put: While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States population, they account for more than 60 percent of those imprisoned. v America has not always maintained such high rates of incarceration. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the United States prison population has grown every Vivian Nixon, New York 3

4 year for the past thirty-six years. vi The rate of imprisonment in America is now four times its historic average. vii Scholars have pointed out that this phenomenon was driven by a cataclysmic spike in imprisonment, primarily of Black men, that began toward the end of the civil rights movement. This is often associated with the beginning of the so-called war on drugs and the related racial profiling, draconian laws, and mandatory sentences that have been among the weapons used it that war. While the drug war may explain the spike in incarceration rates, it does not, on its own, account for the vastly disproportionate incarceration and criminalization of people of color, black men in particular, who have been the principal casualties of the drug war and who (according to Human Rights Watch) use, sell, and buy illegal drugs at a rate roughly proportionate to their white counterparts. viii The New York State Prison system has recently been downsized and New York City has the distinction of having simultaneously reduced incarceration and crime. However, the City and State still continue to incarcerate too many people and many localities continue to disproportionately survey and police communities of color in ways that ensure ongoing racial disparity in the criminal punishment system. So, when we think about the growth of criminal punishment in the United States we should be thinking not just about the sheer numbers, but about who is damaged by this trend and why. This will be essential as we work to increase access to education and strip away the layers of history that gave birth to the policies and practices that reduce access for those who have never had equal access in the first place. History of Structural Inequality in Education We are in a period of American history wherein we hear and use terms like mass Vivian Nixon, New York 4

5 incarceration, collateral consequences, unintended consequences, invisible punishment, and disparate impact repeatedly. This is jargon that has necessarily emerged to describe the disquieting social contortions that result when criminal punishment functions as a gateway through which structural inequality rears its ugly head. In a position paper and presentation titled, Unchaining Civil Rights, the Center for Community Alternatives and the National HIRE Network note that these racially disparate consequences of criminal conviction span across employment, education, enfranchisement, and equality. ix In the context of trends toward creating barriers to education for people with criminal records and in light of recent efforts to reform the criminal punishment system with an emphasis on reentry: Education and especially higher education remain the most under-appreciated, underused and under-resourced tools to ensure the best chance of long term stability and security for those who have been marked by criminal punishment. History confirms that education has always been a principal source of upward mobility for people of color in America. Frederick Douglass said, knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom. From the time that Sophia Auld, a slave master s wife, disobeyed the law and taught Frederick Douglas to read at the age of twelve, we have known that education is one of the most effective tools of empowerment. And to the contrary, we have known that denying access to education is one of the most effective tools of oppression. When the abolition of slavery and the end of Reconstruction threatened to level the educational playing field, the Supreme Court s 1897 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, commonly known as separate but equal, ensured continued inequality. x Legal segregation in primary and secondary schools ended with Brown v. Board of Education in xi Hawkins v. Board of Control, granted equal access to higher education in xii Yet these Supreme Court decisions, Vivian Nixon, New York 5

6 which came at a very high cost including violence and loss of life, have not guaranteed equal access to education for all. Indeed, the protections that make access a reality for many, such as broad admissions criteria in public colleges and universities and affirmative action in college admissions (which has opened the door for millions of minority doctors, lawyers, social worker s, teachers, public servants, and other professions), are under growing attack. Barriers to Education for People with Criminal History Records Nowhere is the denial of access to education more evident in the United States then in its system of criminal punishment. As some level of post secondary education increasingly becomes necessary for entering and moving up in the labor market, incarcerated people have been virtually expelled from higher education by being made ineligible for need based Pell Grants at the Federal level and State education grants in most states, including New York. xiiixiv These collateral consequences were enacted purely as a means of punishment and to emphasize the separation between people with criminal history records and law-abiding citizens. In stark contrast to laws that have been enacted for the purpose of increasing public safety, the denial of funding for education became law despite overwhelming evidence that access to post secondary education drastically increases public safety. Barriers to education also exist for people with criminal history records when they are in the community. In addition to restrictions in Federal student aid related to certain convictions xv, colleges and universities across the country including some in New York are ever more engaged in screening applicants for criminal history. As pointed out in research conducted by the Center for Community Alternatives, this practice continues to grow despite data suggesting that crime on campus is more likely to be committed by students who have no prior criminal record than by students who have prior records. xvi Vivian Nixon, New York 6

7 Nevertheless, sixty percent of colleges and universities in the United States employ some type of screening for criminal history. xvii Many do so without understanding the complexities of these records and with no thoughtful process through which to evaluate the impact a criminal record may or may not have on a particular students ability to successfully engage in the educational process. Thus, when a student applies to college, he or she may be required to disclose whether or not they have ever been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor. Furthermore, in some cases, they are asked whether they ve ever been arrested even if the arrest did not lead to a conviction. Upon disclosure of past convictions and/or arrests, these aspiring students become subject to an intrusive and humiliating process of investigation that is often conducted by untrained, misinformed, and subjective reviewers. This shifts the dynamic of the process from that of moving toward educational aspiration to being reminded that in America, the debt imposed by criminal conviction is never marked paid in full. One is forever branded with the stigma of criminal punishment and therefore must endure lifetime consequences. Disparate Negative Impact of These Policies Because racial disparities permeate every aspect of American criminal punishment, the use of criminal conviction status to deny education funding to qualified students in prison or to bar admission to college has a disproportionately negative impact on communities of color. This practice adds to the already existing damage caused by a new divide in America in which criminal record based discrimination has replaced the blatant race-based discrimination that the civil rights movement aimed to dismantle. The once deemed invisible consequences of mass incarceration are no longer invisible (the gig is up). The historical legacy of slavery and structural inequality has been embodied in Vivian Nixon, New York 7

8 America s criminal punishment system. This troublesome reality has been exposed in volume upon volume of scholarship and through empirical research. Respected scholars and advocates such as Edwin Ellis, Christian Parenti, David Garland, Kimberly Williams Crenshaw, Marc Mauer, Marsha Weissman, Michelle Fine, Bruce Western, Beth Ritchie, Dylan Rodriquez, Alan Rosenthal, Glen Loury, just to name a few, have been making the case for nearly two decades. Because these negative and disproportionate consequences (once purported to be unintended) have now been exposed, it stands to reason that to the extent these negative consequences remain in place they can no longer be deemed unintended. Unaddressed, they become deliberate. I took the time to lay out the disturbing context in which we must do this work in order to encourage us to always try to go deeper and to address (or at the very least acknowledge) the root causes of the challenges that face us. If we simply tinker around the edges with small scale responses based on already failed policies and practices, it will be akin to rescuing a few people from a deep hole in the earth, only to cover the hole with a thin layer of grass and walk away hoping that no one else falls in. Collective Impact It is now up to this generation of leaders to work against efforts that would establish de facto segregation in public spaces, including in education. Governments, community based organizations, educational institutions, and individuals all have the responsibility to act. We each have a specific role to play in opening the doors of education to people who have been shut out by barriers associated with criminal punishment. The issues are highly complex and no one institution can solve the problem. Territorial silos must be dismantled, the channels of honest dialog, collaboration, and shared resources must be opened and working together we must Vivian Nixon, New York 8

9 develop concrete strategic plans to address not only the symptoms, but also the root causes. Opening the doors of educational access to all is by no means a modest goal, but it is a worthy one. The Voices of People Directly Impacted by Criminal Punishment Before I end these remarks, it is imperative that we honor the voices and desires of those who bear the mark of criminal punishment. To answer the question, What do people with criminal history records want? I draw on my own experience in prison and in reentry, my relationships within a close-knit community of directed affected friends and colleagues, my work, and some relevant research. First, we want to be described by something other than a list of failures and deficiencies. No one is more aware of our mistakes, failures, and shortcomings then we are. The concept of personal responsibility is not foreign to us. In fact, it often propels us. That is why many of us who manage to obtain adequate education (despite the odds) enter professions that serve the public good in myriad ways. We d like to be known for our potential, our competence, and our desire to serve our communities. This is not what the public, which has been jaded by sensational media portrayals, imagines us to be. However, I can assure you that the vast majority of people who are released from prison, or who narrowly escape prison by being sentenced to an alternative do not leave the prison, the jail, or the courtroom thinking, I can t wait to do that again! Most have a sincere desire to turn the tides and get on the path to a better future. What is lacking is not desire, but rather adequate opportunity, support, and access. Second, we want our fellow citizens to care about what happens to us beyond subsistence and criminal desistance. In order to justify increased access to education we are often pressed to frame our Vivian Nixon, New York 9

10 advocacy in ways that point to public safety, employability and public cost savings. But the value of education extends far beyond these. Indeed, education is a powerful path to individual transformation and vastly improves ones ability to deal with the vicissitudes of life. But it is also the window to self-awareness and awareness of ones place in society. Public safety is a natural outcome of an educated population, but it should not be the justification for providing education. Put simply, education for this population is not just a means to a series of positive ends, but an end unto itself. Education on its own merit is worth pursuing, worth having, and worth supporting. Finally, we want broad access to education so that we do not merely survive, but thrive and lead. People in prison instinctively know that education is incompatible with continued imprisonment: that if we can find a path to education the likelihood that we will achieve every type of success is dramatically increased. In one recent study 90% of the respondents, who were soon to be released from prison, indicated that what they needed most was education. xviii Education ranked higher than employment, housing, and treatment. This overwhelming desire to be educated should not be ignored or minimized. Education is the process through which we learn to imagine ourselves as teachers, executives, playwrights, lawyers, skilled technicians, nurses, scholars, artists, social workers, and leaders. Of course, once one hits the street and faces the harsh realty of a community that is unprepared to receive them housing, employment, and treatment are raised up as urgent needs to survive. The fact remains, that when the needs of subsistence are met (as they should be) education is a high priority, self-identified, and critical need for this population. In response to the self-expressed desires of people who have been marginalized by Vivian Nixon, New York 10

11 criminal punishment we elicit your full support in the quest for educational opportunities that will transcend transitional status and move people beyond reentry and beyond the grip of a criminal punishment system that is replete with structural inequality. Closing So there it is. We truly have our work cut out for us today. Let s use this opportunity to seize the passion in this room. This group represents a growing community of committed professionals and advocates who care deeply about these issues. All of us have already begun to do innovative and groundbreaking work in one area or another. Now, we must act collectively as we envision and work toward a seismic shift in our approaches to reentry. A shift that will elevate, once and for all, equal access to educational opportunities and that will actively seek to crush the structural inequalities that have ushered in this era of mass incarceration and criminalization. We have been invited here today to imagine pathways of possibility. We only have eight hours to do it so let s get to work! Vivian Nixon, New York 11

12 Notes i. NAACP, Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, NAACP, (retrieved February 25, 2013). ii. Nicole D. Porter, The State of Sentencing 2012 Developments in Policy and Practice, The Sentencing Project (retrieved February 25, 2013) df iii. Id at 1. iv. Ibid. v. Sophia Kerby, The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States, Center for American Progress (retrieved February 25, 2013). vi. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The Challenge of Mass Incarceration in America, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (retrieved February 25, 2013) vii. Ibid. viii. Human Rights Watch, Racially Disproportionate Incarceration of Drug Offenders, Human Rights Watch (retrieved February 25, 2013) ix. Center for Community Alternatives and National Hire Network, Unchaining Civil Rights: Overcoming Criminalized Inequality, Unchainingcivilrights.org (retrieved February 25, 2013) x. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 539 (1896), Lexis Nexis. xi. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), Lexis Nexis. xii. Hawkins v. Board of Control, 350 U.S. 413 (1956), Lexis Nexis. xiii. H.R rd Congress: Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, (retrieved March 4, 2013) xiv. New York State Assembly, New York State Assembly Committee on Correction Annual Report, Assembly.state.ny.us. (retrieved February 25, 2013) xv. Section 438 of the Higher Education Act Amendments of 1998 ( the HEA Aid Elimination Provision ), 20 U.S.C. 1091(r), codified as amended at Pub. L. No (Feb. 8, 2006). xvi. Marsha Weissman, Ph.D., Alan Rosenthal, Esq., Patricia Warth, Esq., Elaine Wolf, Ph.D., Michael Messina-Yauchzy, Ph.D., The Use of Criminal History Records in College Admissions Reconsidered (Syracuse, New York: Center for Community Alternatives Inc., 2010). xvii. Ibid. xviii. Christy Visher and Jeremy Travis, Life on the Outside: Returning Home After Incarceration The Prison Journal 91, (2011): 102S-119S, (retrieved February 25, 2013). Vivian Nixon, New York 12