Social justice meets criminal justice

Stephanie Damon-Moore Assistant Life Editor

“We’re concerned with changing public policy,” said Professor of Sociology Lawrence “Larry” Mamiya of the recent Prison Focus Week. The week’s events brought together faculty members, students, alumnae/i and formerly incarcerated people in an effort to raise awareness of the problems with America’s penal system and reinforce understanding and commitment to a diverse population. On Saturday, April 5, the week culminated with the ninth annual Green Haven-Vassar Reunion, which united people with past or present involvement in the Vassar prison program.

Through the program, students spend Friday afternoons in either Green Haven maximum-security prison or Otisville medium-security prison, earning academic credit to do so.

Caitlin Schattman ’10, one of the students involved in the program during the Spring 2007 semester, explained, “I [was] learning about a part of society that I’ve never really considered. These people live such a different life than I do or any of my Vassar friends do. I realized how extremely privileged our life is and I felt motivated to make a change.”

Though students underwent an extensive security clearance before visiting the inmates, Schattman said that it was “worth it. You only hear about the victims of a lot of crimes, which is normal, but you rarely get to hear the inmates’ voices, especially after they’ve been imprisoned for 10 or 20 years.”

“It’s a wonderful program,” said corrections officer Dennis DeRose. “The students are fantastic; they give 110 percent. I love Fridays.”

Students have also had overwhelmingly positive, life-changing experiences, and formerly incarcerated reunion attendants expressed a great regard for the program. George Prendes, for example, a formerly incarcerated real estate agent, described Green Haven as “a desolate island,” and the visitors from Vassar as “a ship coming over the horizon.” “They gave us hope,” he said. “They gave us tools we would need when we left the island.”

Mamiya first brought a class to the Green Haven facility for weekly conversations 29 years ago. He was strongly encouraged to return by Ernest Morton, Director of the Pre-Release Center at Green Haven, who was present at the reunion. Morton described his work modestly, saying, “All I did was make sure Mamiya would bring Vassar College in.” When Morton was transferred to Otisville, he made sure that Vassar came too.

Although many speakers expressed appreciation for the Vassar prison program, there was overwhelming discontent with the penal system in the United States. “America has 2.2 million people behind bars,” said Mary Beth Pfeiffer, investigative journalist for the Poughkeepsie Journal. “It has the highest incarceration rate of any industrialized society.”

Pfeiffer’s work with the Poughkeepsie Journal led her to investigate suicides in prisons, which exposed a serious flaw within the system: the treatment of the mentally ill. In the lecture that she delivered at Vassar on Tuesday, April 2, she told the stories of several mentally ill people who were incarcerated, and illustrated what a widespread issue it is.

“In New York, there are 8,400 mentally ill people in state prisons,” she said. “In the United States there are at least 330,000.” Pfeiffer stressed that rather than providing adequate treatment, housing and support, our society “labels and punishes.” Pfeiffer compiled the stories and facts that she unearthed in a book entitled Crazy in America: The Hidden Tragedy of Our Criminalized Mentally Ill.

She said that she doesn’t like the use of the word “crazy” to refer to people, but used it in her title to illustrate that “what is ‘crazy’” in America is how we treat—and how we fail to treat—people with mental illness.”

Pfeiffer also explained, “We imprisoned the mentally ill. They are women and children, they are the drug addicted, they are men who became a problem for the criminal justice system because there was no other system to intervene. When they violate the social order, there are few resources to help them and treat them, but there are plenty of jail and prison beds.”

Another speaker, Eddie Ellis, described the prison system as “insane,” pointing out that “one of the basic traits of insanity is to repeat the same mistakes over and over again and expect a different outcome.” Ellis is a formerly incarcerated man who works in the New York Public Policy Group and the Community Justice Center. He views the criminal justice system as “more criminal than just.”

Across the board, participants in the Prison Focus Week objected to the penal system in America on the grounds that it doesn’t prepare people in prison to re-enter society and mistreats people while they’re there. The recidivism rate is around 68 percent, which clearly demonstrates that the system isn’t effective.

“The current U.S. penal system is miserably failing us all,” said Kaia Stern ’94, Director of Pathways Home Project of the Harvard Law School’s Institute for Race and Justice and a former participant in Vassar’s prison program. She denounced the movement to “Get tough on crime,” which has put millions of people behind bars for non-violent offences. “The prison population has increased 500 percent over the last 30 years,” she said. “Two-thirds of the people there are sentenced for non-violent crimes.”

The prevailing belief at the reunion was that the key to lowering the recidivism rate in America is to educate people while they’re incarcerated. “Most people coming out of prison have less than a fifth-grade reading level,” said Sharon White, a formerly incarcerated woman who spoke about her experience re-entering society. “Through education, most doors can be opened,” she said. Ellis said that the effectiveness of providing educational opportunities to people in prison has been proven, saying, “People who leave prison with a college degree have the lowest rate of recidivism of any group.”

Right now, Vassar’s program provides incarcerated people a glimpse of the outside world. It is a valuable learning experience for both students and people in prison, but it doesn’t give the incarcerated people any college credit. Although there has been some effort to teach courses in prison to both Vassar students and incarcerated people, the New York Department of Corrections has denied requests to do so. Classes may be taught by faculty without Vassar students present, but Vassar faculty and administration would prefer to see Vassar students present in the classes and would be better able to maintain a range of classes if the classes weren’t added on top of a standard workload. “For us as a faculty, one of the impediments is that people have limited time,” said Professor Molly Shanley, who has taught in prisons and originally proposed teaching an introductory sociology course in prison with Vassar students. “If it could count as part of your normal workload, there would be an enormous amount of support to staff those teaching positions.”

The New York Department of Corrections has been a major obstacle, preventing people in prison from obtaining the education that will help people who get out of prison stay out. But it is hard to believe that the enthusiasm and commitment among the Vassar community and the formerly incarcerated activists won’t result in policy changes and expanding opportunities for incarcerated people.

Victor Monterrosa ’07, who is involved with re-entry programs in New Jersey, echoed a sentiment that had been pulsing through the room all day: “I believe that through links of social solidarity, changes can be made.”