Author Archives: Jean

Reading Plato on Death Row

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Years ago, when I first heard about the Clemente Course, pioneered by Earl Shorris, a social critic and author who believed in teaching  the Humanities to the poor and the vulnerable, I was intrigued.  The concept aimed to offer classics such as Kant, Plato, Socrates and Tolstoy to people who traditionally have no access to such work — the homeless.  Since the program began in the 1990's, the Clemente Course has expanded and now prospers world-wide.

In that vein, a fascinating venture is Lisa Guenther's work reading philosophy with prisoners on death row.  Guenther wrote a wonderful op-ed piece about solitary confinement in the NYTimes in 2012 where she said "There are many ways to destroy a person, but the simplest and most devastating might be solitary confinement. Deprived of meaningful human contact, otherwise healthy prisoners often come unhinged."

 

Guenther brings a bit of light into the dark hole of solitary.  On a blog called,  "New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science" she says "Last semester, we read Plato’s dialogues on the death of Socrates. The Apology was a great success. 'I want my lawyer to read this!' said one prisoner. 'Socrates is a badass,' another said approvingly. The Crito was another story. Socrates went from bring a principled badass to a spineless bastard, not just for refusing Crito’s offer of escape and exile, but mainly for his defense of fidelity to the law and the state, even when it has clearly committed a grave injustice."

Guenther's students on Death Row are in Tennessee. They are concerned about community and they are concerned about living a meaningful life– however much they have left and even though they live on Death Row. One student, Abu Ali Abdar Rahman, in a newspaper called The Maximum Times, published at the prison itself, wrote an article about the experience with Guenther and her grad students called "Transformative Justice: A Pilgrimage to Community Building and Conflict Resolution."  He says that the group appreciates the opportunity to learn, to think, to discuss and to "nourish our defects." 

Another student, Derrick Quintero in the same paper, said outsiders are often surprised that on Death Row, prisoners get to participate in programs, but Tennessee's Death row allows them such participation for "good behavior." The educational opportunities are transformative, he says, for the participants, both those inside and outside of prison.  He quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his article, citing his book A Saint on Death Row, and saying that they all have the potential to be "indispensable agents of change."

Guenther writes that the philosophy course used Plato's Phaedo, "the dialogue that recounts Socrates’ final hours before he is forced to drink the poison that will numb his body and stop his heart."  She recounts how some students "found Socrates’ arguments for the immortality of the soul compelling, and others thought he rejected the knowledge and pleasures of the body too harshly." One prisoner argued that state execution "twists the meaning of life and death."  In many ways, these kinds of insights are no different that students in any other part of the prison, or for that matter, in most classrooms.

Guenther says insightfully that "there are countless prisoners on death row who are working harder than we can imagine to transform themselves and to build a meaningful sense of community. We could learn a lot from these people if we weren’t so determined to kill them."

Another Day, Another Report on Massachusetts’ Botched Prison Policies

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Check out my newest blog post about the new report issued by MassINC and Community Resources for Justice (CRJ) on– guess what — the sagging state of criminal justice health in Massachusetts.

"The report points out well-worn zingers such as “A decade ago, higher education surpassed spending on corrections by 25 percent. Today the higher education budget is 21 percent lower.”

The report, titled Crime, Cost, and Consequences: Is It Time to Get Smart on Crime?, asks a good question, and it provides some good suggestions for change. But it seems like, year after year, another report comes out that recommends significant change to the system. And it seems that, year after year, we look over our policies, brood over how much money we’re spending, shake our heads at how many people keep returning to prison, and then, just like that, wash our hands and choose not to follow the recommendations."  More.

Reflections on The Past Week

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This was a difficult week to be a prison activist.  Just as it was undoubtedly difficult to work for the rights of immigrants and the mentally ill.  It was a week in Boston where four lives were lost and 170 wounded by a truly senseless act of violence committed by two young men bent on something we do not yet understand. And the last thing anyone wanted to discuss was how we need to make sure Dzhokhar Tsarnaev gets a fair trial and is not mistreated behind bars.

As I listened to the cheering on the night that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught, and all our officials expressing hopes and prayers for the 58 who, as of today, are still in the hospital, I thought of many moments from this week.  My students told me these stories: one went to the hospital to visit her ailing uncle in the Brigham and Women's ICU when those who had lost limbs were wheeled in; a student rushed from Lowell into Boston to try and find her father because she didn't know if he'd been hurt; and a Vietnam vet who had gone to see the Sox got lost on his way home because of the confusion. A friend's husband saw his company's restaurant's windows blown out, just across the street from the grandstand at the finish line; a friend's son who had been in New York and close to the tragedy of 9/11was about to get on the T in and instead turned around when he heard screams nearby.  It was a very unsettling experience to feel that our houses, our business, our institutions and our loved ones in the city we call home, could be unsafe.

And yet, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is 19.  He is the age of the students I teach.  He went to U Mass Dartmouth and wanted to go into the medical profession.  In fact, for whatever reason, he was seen at U Mass in his dorm, just 2 days after the horrific act he is accused of perpetrating with his brother. He had friends. He supposedly had a girlfriend.  He is, and I say it again, a student. I do not want him to be mistreated in prison; I do not want  him to get the death penalty, if he is tried in the federal courts.  I do not want any less for him than I want for any of the prisoners who commit heinous acts and live behind bars. For most of them, I want change, believe they are capable of transformation, and deserve options behind bars and in our system that give them a second chance.

Justice does not mean mercy.  That I know.  But justice must be tempered by mercy.  As we send out love to all the victims and their families, I hope we can remember the family of the Tsarnaevs.  I hope we can remember than everyone who enters our criminal justice system has a story.  Just like the doctors who labor to heal all who are hurt– no matter what the injured have done or who they are — we too, need to keep in our hearts that compassion cannot be piecemeal.   Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's acts were evil but can we really say that he is only the sum of this horrible crime?

Yo! He Loves This: Shakespeare in the Hood

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A wonderful article in today's The Boston Globe about a young man from Roxbury who is finding himself through Shakespeare. 

Here, in a photo by The Globe, is Antonio Stroud who auditioned for the role of Othello in 2011, got the part and worked with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project in his high school, Boston Day and Evening Academy, to get to the point where he could say  ‘Yo! I love this!’ ” This year, he's on to Henry V.

In Shakespeare, Stroud said, he found an answer to the pressures young men like him face, and the power within himself to overcome them. According to his director, he understands the notion that "great men in difficult circumstances must chart their own courses. Macbeth chose evil. But Henry V, the young king of England, grew from his wayward youth to a king who led an invasion of France against impossible odds."

How many times have we heard this? "Stroud is a child of the projects in Roxbury, his mother on welfare, his father long gone."  These are the people who so many of us teach, those of us who love Shakespeare and realize his ability to draw the best out of those who feel helpless or useless or frightened or angry– those who struggle to overcome obstacles like Rose did, the woman I cast as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. She had HIV and her life spiraled out of control into drugs and crime.  "Thank you for giving me a chance to be someone else," she said after our performance, "if only for one night."

Stealing cars and hustling were part of Stroud's world. He was familiar with guns and drugs.  And he didn't get Othello at first.  He had to read it over and over. But eventually he understood that like himself, here was a "flawed" man who he identified with.  As reported by Meghan Irons, he says "I am human. I make mistakes. I am misunderstood.’’

The women I taught needed too to open their hearts, to forgive themselves and come to grips with their lives. With theatre, we get to walk around in the shoes of another.  Just this year, my students at the community college–non-actors all– acted out a scene from Miguel Pinero's haunting play, Short Eyes, about a pedophile who is murdered by other prisoners behind bars.  They bravely acted out the murder scene and each one had to confront his or her desire to kill the man who hurt children. Murderers, we forgive, they believed when they first began reading the play — but not pedophiles.  However, once they felt what it was like to be in that scene or watch it from the sidelines, their perspectives were changed. They realized that every person has a story and a man or woman is more than their crimes.

Theatre opens up our hearts and our minds and gives us a chance to live and learn from a life unlike our own. I hope Anthony will keep finding himself in Shakespeare and keep believing that his destiny is not written in the stars.
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My LTE about this young man was published this week in The Globe.

Lawyers in Criminal Courts are Necessities, Not Luxuries

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by Guest Blogger BitcoDavid  


The title of this piece is actually a quote by Justice Hugo Black, as he wrote the majority opinion in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright, on March 18, 1963 – an opinion, and a fundamental right, seen as so important to that Supreme Court, that they were unanimous in their decision.

Clarence Earl Gideon was brought up on charges in Florida, for breaking and entering. He could not afford an attorney. At the arraignment, he asked for a Public Defender, but was refused. Instead, he was told that the court was only mandated to provide counsel in capital cases. Gideon ended up serving 5 years.

     Gideon – by himself and from prison – appealed, pleading his case on Florida State Prison letterhead – in pencil – and utilizing law books from the prison library. As defendant in his suit, he named the Secretary to the Florida Department of Corrections, H.G. Cochran. By the time the case was heard, Louie L. Wainwright had replaced Cochran. Gideon successfully argued that his 6th and 14th amendment rights had been violated. His attorney, assigned him by the SCOTUS, would be none other than future Supreme Court Justice – Abe Fortas.

Upon receipt of this ruling, a new trial was held, and in it, Gideon was given an attorney. He was acquitted in his second trial. Had he had competent legal council in his first trial, he may never have had to serve time at all.

But, a lot has changed since 1963.

Where the necessary evil that is prison, existed once to serve society – and the justice system was built around an effort to keep innocents out of incarceration – we now have a prison industry that views the public as grist for its mill – fodder for its filthy lucre. States weigh the costs of providing justice against the profits of warehousing human beings.

Several paradigms have shifted since Gideon. We now have a War on Drugs complete with mandatory sentencing, gang activity, multinational military incursion and a gun lobby that relishes arming both sides in the conflict. We have the largest narcotics consumption rate in the entire world, and at the same time we fund and arm nothing short of military juntas to enforce drug laws.

We now have a war on poverty – not LBJ’s idyllic Great Society – but rather, a war on the poor, themselves. Taxpayers, suffering under the yoke of a broken economy can no longer justify paying for the needs of those less fortunate. It’s a tough row to hoe, for a politician during a close race, to ask for tax dollars to provide legal defense for criminals, especially indigent, drug addicted ones.

We now have a largely privatized prison system, which can only function when beds are full. These companies spend vast sums on lobbying legislators to pass more and more draconian laws, more and more mandatory sentences and more and more budget cuts in terms of legal defense and public civil liberties.

And, of course – as if we’re not fighting enough wars – there’s the good ol’ War on Terror. Nowadays, it doesn’t require flying jets into buildings to be labeled a terrorist. You can have a penchant for typing too much on your computer. You can try your hand at flash-mob type civil disobedience, or you can simply join a group of likeminded activists who want to rescue companion animals.

Our society has turned more punitive and more afraid, while at the same time our coffers are now bare. States are commonly seeking out ways to kneecap the Gideon ruling. In the end however, we lose. Deny America’s promise of justice to one, you deny justice to all.

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BitcoDavid is a blogger and a blog site consultant. In former lives, he was an audio engineer, a videographer, a teacher – even a cab driver. He is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and a Pro/Am boxer. He has spent years working with diet and exercise to combat obesity and obesity related illness. He can currently be found, pounding away on the keyboard at DeafInPrison.com and BitcoDavid’s BoxingBlog.