Live “Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem” Screening & Panel Discussion – Chicago [Video]

so you should right now you should see the image of a supposer that they have and you should

hear my voice so see if that works

welcome to the reclamation center my name is colette payne and i am the director of the reclamation project the

reclamation project is an initiative of the wji that is entirely led by and for

women impacted by the justice system who are leading change in their communities

in july of 2018 the wji launched the nation’s first entirely women-led task

force in illinois to build a strategy to end mass incarceration of women and

confront the false narratives that fuel it the wji was founded to ensure that

systems see women you see our logo in lady justice see lady justice speaking out we

want you to see us and we want you to hear us that is why this event is so

important today because we are here to focus on not only the harmful impact of

misdemeanors on people of color but particularly women of color

we have three goals to reduce the women’s prison population by 50 plus and beyond in the next 10

years to reduce the harms being caused by current system policies

and improve well-being and outcomes among women children families and

communities we are looking forward to this powerful discussion we want to give a special

thanks to bethany little who couldn’t be with us today susan burton

for the opportunity and to brave new films for their incredible work on this

film as well to all of my sisters here and the panelists who you will hear from

later this evening thank you

hello and welcome everyone my name is kimber kissel and i’m the director of development at brave new

films we are thrilled to be partnering with wind recovery and the women’s justice institute to bring you this

screening of our documentary racially charged america’s misdemeanor problem bravement films is a non-profit media

company that uses storytelling to educate and engage shift attitudes put a human face to policy and organize

communities to take action on critical issues we create films to tell stories that

aren’t being told and we organize events like the event we’re at right now to bring people together and lift the

stories and experiences of people from impacted communities the short documentary that you are about

to see tells the story of misdemeanors the past and the present racially charged america’s misdemeanor

problem sheds a light on the various ways in which misdemeanor charges often arbitrary and at the discretion of the

enforcing officer can be the start to a downward spiral into the carceral system

the spotlight is frequently centered on men who are impacted by the system however women especially bipoc women are

also swept up into the spiral affecting not just themselves but their families and communities

this is no accident and racially charged shows us exactly how the system is designed

following the film screening we have an incredible lineup of panelists speakers and system-impacted women leaders that

will be sharing their stories with us and sharing with us their critical work to end women’s mass incarceration

we are extremely grateful for the opportunity to bring this event to you and the is all across social media

watching live right now i would like to thank win recovery and the women’s justice institute for their

partnership and for putting together such a fantastic screening event with us we created this film to help reimagine

public safety and show the urgency in addressing the misdemeanor system we cannot keep doing the same thing the

same way thanks to the generous support of our funders we’re able to offer our film for

free to everyone to watch and take action following today’s event i hope that

you’ll be inspired to take action one way that you can do that is by hosting your own screening of this film

and it’s very simple you can go to our website bravenewfilms.org screenings to complete a brief

registration form and materials to screen the film will be sent directly to your inbox

thank you for your presence with us and without further ado i’d like to present to you racially charged america’s

misdemeanor problem

biggest misconception about misdemeanors is that they are minor to start hearing

more and more stories of voter suppression it broke my heart they’re the ones that are using the

system

[Music]

my grandma was fighting for integration back in her day and i’m fighting for the same thing now

[Music] the problem is the system is working the way it’s supposed to

[Music]

we’re recording all right

sometimes i feel like my life ended that day my car died on the side of the road a

cop walked over to my car and asked me if i needed help and i said no john clark was convicted on a misdemeanor

gambling charge and was forced to work on a chain gang i just remember being pushed like being cornered into a wall i

was just starting out life and i didn’t think i had anything to hide mary gay

was sentenced to 30 days plus court costs for stealing a hat i was arrested that evening it was a misdemeanor that

was the beginning of the nightmare that i had to go through henry nelson was arrested for using abusive language in

the presence of a female and was sent off to the coal mines he said you’re going to jail

and i’m like what for

misdemeanors have historically been the chump change crimes that we didn’t pay attention to

i’ve done

13 million well that’s about 80 of all american criminal documents 80 of

what our criminal courts do is misdemeanors the story of misdemeanors is the story

of law enforcement continuing to prioritize african americans mexican

immigrants america’s so-called criminal class like i really just committed a serious crime i did do something illegal you

crossed the crosswalk you might see two or three police standing and waiting cops to jump out of the van anytime

anywhere [Applause] the misdemeanor system has not gotten

its fair share of blame misdemeanors are the invidious first step in the racialization of crime in

this country too often arrests for minor crimes devolve into police violence and death

for black and brown people [Music]

[Applause] [Music]

they got me for jaywalking not wearing a seat belt my tail light was out i was arrested

[Music]

how far back that goes is a really dark story

reconstruction was an error when four million african americans made it out of bondage and were able to achieve at

really high levels whether it was in business in education

different ways of prosperity that really threatened white

supremacy they elected many black men to positions of power

[Music] of course that was a sea change

from how power had been exercised during slavery and a lot of white folks just

didn’t like it they were nostalgic

for the old days of overt white supremacy and so they subverted

reconstruction if you look at misdemeanors and you track them from the reconstruction era

to modern day you see the fingerprints everywhere of white supremacy and control of black bodies

the landowners they had nearly lost everything and the only way to get that back is to somehow corral the black

labor force back into the same plantations that they had once worked

the most effective way of forcing african-americans back into this condition that would be so similar to

slavery was to begin to criminalize black life itself

misdemeanor offenses for incredibly trivial or made-up things what should have been tiny penalties for

non-existent offenses turn into years of people’s lives where were you taking

i was taken out to the camps where did you sleep slept on some hay

chain was on me i’m being put into handcuffs i’m being dragged into this cold space i don’t

have anything to cover myself and i’m asked to sit inside of this tiny little room and i have no idea why i’m there

was there any jury that tried you no sir did the recorder ask you whether you

wanted a lawyer no sir and i thought that i would have time to talk to a court appointed

attorney so we could talk about what happened i can ask them to get other you know pieces of evidence that would prove

that hey i’m poor it wasn’t like i was trying to run off with this money did they furnish any copy of the charge

against you no sir they did not did they give you any opportunity to

plead to any accusation it never gave me anything at all when they asked me how i pled i pled no

contest i didn’t understand that no contest is the same as guilty and that i would walk

away with a misdemeanor that would affect my ability to get hired [Music]

the justice system after emancipation was weaponized against black people

it perpetuated slavery by making the mechanisms of enslavement

pretty much the same family separation backbreaking labor people having no rights

it could be sold on the steps of the courthouse that you were convicted in and given to the highest bidder

a whole separate criminal code that applied to african-americans

was established many misdemeanor offenses are best understood as mechanisms of

social control they’re not designed to catch dangerous or guilty people but

rather they are tools we give them to police as additional ways of exercising their authority

some of these laws were overtly race-based and with others then and now

the understanding was that the laws would look race neutral but they would be applied and enforced

almost exclusively against black people for these governments to sell prisoners

into slavery you first have to arrest lots of people there’s a big problem with that though

there’s just not enough crime for this system to work and for it to be profitable the state governments of the

south had to invent new crimes

southern legislatures which are essentially run by confederates at that time are trying to reinscribe a form of

slavery through a system of laws called black codes

a whole category of new statutes passed in almost every southern state that attached these enormous penalties to

what were in reality very minor thefts those were laws and many others

like it that were only ever in force african americans and so it became a way

to have a basis for arresting huge numbers of black people i don’t remember much about writing the

check john owen was caught taking six years of corn from a corn field

and was arrested under the black codes this is four dollars and we have one two

three four five six seven seven times four is twenty eight dollars

so just this pile right here is how much i went to jail for owen was put in jail

for months until he was finally tried for theft i have a theft charge it’s

death by check i had money in the bank but i didn’t know how long it took for checks to process like i

know better now i could have donated plasma gotten 25

under a sentence owen was leased in the convict labor and sent to the chain gang where he served

two years for the corn and a third year for the court costs i was in the hayes county jail for a

total of 45 days for 25 dollars worth of food

michael brown who was the teenager who was killed by police in ferguson whose

death led to the explosion of the black lives matter movement

he was stopped for jaywalking he stepped off the sidewalk and was walking in the street and there was a

local criminal ordinance that made it a crime to do so african americans are being cited for

jaywalking at three five ten times the rate of white pedestrians the

legislatures of the white south make it a crime to walk alongside a railroad in an era which there are no paved roads

the easiest way for a poor person to get from one place to another is to walk alongside a railroad that law didn’t say

this only applies to black people but those were laws that were only ever enforced against african americans

all of us engage in what would be considered to be minor crimes

and for some people it’s crossing the street at the wrong time but if you’re black or brown

then it becomes categorized as something that’s criminal didn’t use the crosswalk all i’m trying

to do is go home man i’m he was walking home from work when it

happened since i felt like they were going to draw a gun out and shoot me in my back i’m tired and all this [ __ ] man

uh

vagrancy laws were passed that essentially meant any black person who was found on the streets unemployed and

couldn’t show evidence of work was a criminal a vagrant trespass laws

originate from this idea that african americans only belong in certain spaces and at certain times and so they give

police officers the ability under the guise of law to dictate where an

african-american person can be what time they can be there and how they can operate in certain spaces

my kids daycare was inside of one of the buildings to the skyway so i figured i’d

take a walk find somewhere to sit down and um wait on him to get there i’m going to new horizons to pick up my kids

i was sitting there for 10 minutes when road office was standing in the train yard when he was grabbed by the

sheriff’s deputy monroe stated that he had not committed any crime why are you going to go to

jail i’m not doing anything wrong can you hold on please i’m not no no come on brother

this is the fault at this moment i saw my children’s daycare class and their

teachers and everything um walking past while this was happening he took the taser and drove it into my leg and

pretty much at that point it lost all control of the leg the deputy later claimed that the crime committed by dolphus was taking a

25-cent tent of fish from the lunch pail of a southern railway worker unable to provide any evidence to

support this the charge was changed to vagrancy and i kept asking them what i was being

charged with they’ll create false charges just to make sure that everything is perpetuated

judge longshore found dolphus guilty of misdemeanor vagrancy and sentenced him to five months and 20

days of hard labor and the minds of tennessee coal iron and railroad

going back to the vagrancy laws of the late 19th century the people who make those laws

have in mind another group of people for whom there is an inherent threat to their livelihood like breaking

barbecue ordinances in public parks or sleeping in dormitories that white people don’t think you live there i have

every right to call the police it allows law enforcement to regulate whether or not certain behavior for one group of

people is deemed a criminal and another group of people is just frivolous activity many people

remember the starbucks debacle in philadelphia there were two african-american men at a starbucks the

employee had them arrested for loitering where they’re clearly not engaging in that behavior

loitering is a police tool of choice it’s the go-to offense that police often

use to impose their authority in the misdemeanor system there is no conduct to minor no act too small that the state

cannot render a crime black people charged with a misdemeanor are 75 percent more likely to be locked

up than white people you have to realize that these laws didn’t happen by chance

they were part of a a system to continue to oppress black bodies our misdemeanor

system includes all kinds of offenses and some of them can be quite serious

domestic violence dui but most of the time we treat minor

harmless conduct as misdemeanors traffic offenses jaywalking order maintenance

offenses spitting driving on a suspended license for failure to pay a fines and yet these

minor meaningless misdemeanors can have terrible consequences for individuals

[Music] to understand the misdemeanor system

follow the money [Music] the accused are paying for the judges

the prosecutors and three and a half million dollars off phone commissary at the jail it’s a no

money maker they call it the 20

inmate workers today’s system is estimated at 80

billion dollars the misdemeanor side of it it is a way

of saddling people with fines and fees that will put money in the pockets of the administrators of that system

the first time i got a ticket my insurance had lapsed so i got the speeding ticket and i got a no insurance

ticket at the same time the next time i got pulled over i was arrested for driving with a suspended license i paid

the tickets paid the court costs paid my fees and fines but they said we’re driving with a spinner license the

punishment for that is we’re gonna suspend your license for two years i would often have to choose between

paying my inspection or my registration or paying my light bill or other bills

that i had i had to drive my car to get to work because i had a construction job if i needed to take material to the job

i couldn’t take plywood or two by fours on a bus

i felt like there was no way i was going to be able to take care of the kids on my own while you

were out because i didn’t know how long you were going to be in jail this officer saw me a young hispanic guy

driving a 63 impala and said you know what that guy he’s up to something i was

trying to go to work trying to pay bills and he’s treating me like a hardened criminal that misdemeanor charge ended

up becoming something that i couldn’t get rid of

they are being treated as revenue sources charged daily fees for being in jail

supervision fees tether fees drug testing fees database fees to fund bail

bondsmen private probation companies electronic monitoring companies drug testing companies it is disturbingly

similar to the way that we saw african-americans being exploited in the post-war south

[Applause]

i’m the mario davis uh linebacker of new orleans saints i was born and raised in

mississippi pretty much raised by a single mom entering into my second year of college

me and a teammate were caught shoplifting groceries from from walmart it kind of felt a lot more like

a drug bust than uh um us having stole some groceries

the bail was set at ten thousand dollars and you know i have ten thousand dollars the football coaches bailed us out

a misdemeanor you’re supposed to be able to uh be in front of the judge within 90 days but this is not happening this is

not happening in our country we have people who are spending seven eight months in jail who have not even been

sentenced

[Music]

cop arrested me and i was charged with the misdemeanor the term chain gang was coined on account of the shackle worn by

convict laborers they said okay listen we’re gonna let you go home now but scram’s gonna come and uh put a monitor

on you they were taken to an anvil where a rivet was pounded into the ankle cuffs to keep them closed

then the cuffs were chained together the initial fee to get on this ground was 250

that’s just to have it put on then after that they charged me 220 a month for the

actual monitor many of the convicts suffered from shackle sores ulcers wear the iron ground against

their skin gangrene and other infections were also common right after they put it

on me you start causing these really severe sores and rashes and their attitude pretty much is it’s

court-ordered it’s by a judge and you’ll wear it or you can go back to jail the

emaciated convict laborers worked their entire days barefoot but the shackles were always on their ankles

they mined in them slept in them and those who died of disease or beatings were buried in them what they’re doing

is unjust what they’re doing is profiteering because you you’re paying them you’re their slave with their

shackle on your foot

363.56

i remember this hopeless feeling just overcome me i couldn’t take care of my family

the biggest misconception about misdemeanors is that they are minor

the full consequences of getting a misdemeanor can be astronomical it hurt me for 10 years

and it completely disrupted my life and i have been trying to figure out how to get my life back on track this will

be a part of my story for the rest of my life when people are booked into jails

for a week or a year or even a day you just cannot avoid the trauma that

inflicts upon you the moment you hit the jail you don’t come out of that unchanged or untouched

you witness trauma you witness violence and it changes you it changes your community

i try to get a job at amazon where my roommate worked i called to walmart and i called to several other retail stores

i got turned away because i had a misdemeanor charge for theft not enough people talk about what it

means to have a misdemeanor on your record it can determine the kind of job that you get to the kind of housing that

you can qualify for to the kind of schools that you can go to a lot of people are harmed for life

because of the smallest infractions they’re being rendered homeless they’re going without food without medication

their children are suffering due to misdemeanors i lost my housing shortly after that i lost my vehicle

which led to me losing my job and it was just one thing after another like like

kicks to the face i had full custody of my children

they had to get to school we had to sleep in the car waking up at like four

in the morning getting to a laundromat to make sure that they have clean school

uniforms and work so hard and all of that was ruined by one charge one misdemeanor

ruined my ability to get even just basic work

they can’t get a job if they have to check a box that says they’ve been convicted of a crime they can’t even

rent housing because they got poor credit when they received a ridiculous

500 speeding violation so this system was designed both to extract from people

but also to marginalize their presence in society

[Applause]

it’s going to be a mass grave site this is a dormitory

everybody just dying and getting sick and [ __ ] like this [ __ ] serious as [ __ ]

bro you all right mm-hmm you want me to go get the police no what have you done this [ __ ] you ain’t

gonna do nothing about it this [ __ ] literally in this [ __ ] dying bro i don’t know what to do

one of the worst places to be during this pandemic is locked up in jail the judge never said i’m sending into prison

to die the same horror story is emerging of the unchecked spread of infection and inmates essentially being left to die

now jaywalking or theft of a small amount or any sort of vagrancy type of

um behavior can lead to your incarceration and eventual contracting of the virus and death

i’ve been in jail for two and a half months for ready death a non-violent crime that carries a misdemeanor charge

for the price value of um less than a hundred dollars there’s been three deaths

two being inmates one being a guard as far as like people who are working for this facility they’re like

intertwined they could easily be catching it that’s how one of the guards caught it

my life is in danger

[Music]

these human beings aren’t valued enough for us to apply the same kinds of safety

measures there that we are in other sectors of society if it wasn’t already

bad enough that you are booked into jail because you didn’t have the money to pay the ticket and your license is suspended

that is now life-threatening to you sheriff’s office is now releasing non-violent inmates as a next step in

mitigating the spread of coba 19. hundreds of inmates have been released from shelby county’s jail in an effort

to put fewer people at risk for coronavirus

19 thousands of misdemeanor defendants are rightly being released it’s clear that these individuals should have never

been incarcerated in the first place we can tell by the fact that after these releases we haven’t seen any sort of

crime wave

there’s a different type of crime wave that should concern us though and that’s the crime of violence against black

people post civil war [Music] [Applause]

state violence has historically been used to intimidate people color especially black people we see this all

throughout history

misdemeanors they have almost nothing to do with public safety

what misdemeanors do is give police an extraordinary amount of

discretion with any minor offense premised on the idea that the black man

is a threat misdemeanors are a very specific

mechanism that legalize violence toward black people and keep them in a very

particular place not just as individuals but as an entire community of people

when we look at so many cases in history often what started as an investigation or a claim of a petty misdemeanor

offense led to police officer supported and sanctioned racial terrorism

all too often we see police exercising that terrible authority of violence against

people who have only been suspected of the most minor of crime

the problem isn’t bad apple cops the problem is the system is working the

way it’s supposed to

[Music] police shot this boy outside my

apartment they killed him

[Music]

hey

[Music]

oh

gray appeared to be unable to walk and was screaming as he was carried feet dragging on the ground to a police van

[Music] i know i know you just saw your job

[Music]

please [Music]

my life could have so easily been taken in that skyway

george floyd goes to show further that the most minor of offenses

even no offense at all could result in death the very purpose of racial terrorism is

control is social control what we have seen in the killings of

those accused was that misdemeanors became the gateway for police violence

and murder [Music]

we are seeing decriminalization we are seeing citations instead of arrests we are seeing people let out of jail we are

seeing pushback against fines and fees but at the same time there is so much more work that needs to be done

who defined what a misdemeanor is the whole thing was built on exploitation on racial violence

on building up industrial capitalism we should not be locking up people who

speed who are too poor to pay a fine or a fee who loiter or trespass or jaywalk

they’re not dangerous they’re not scary there’s never been a good reason to lock

up anybody for petty offenses like slavery back in the day

the law itself is doing the work of oppression the criminal law is providing

the authority to arrest black people to punish black people to kill black people

and ultimately the real crime is that we’re black

[Music]

when officers use their discretion and still choose to arrest low-level offenders instead of sighting and releasing them they are choosing to lock

a human into a cage we wouldn’t even put our dogs in

we got 123 people out of the higgs county jail yesterday

it eliminated the penalty for being caught driving with a spinner license from another two-year suspension to a

90-day suspension [Music]

don’t allow the outside world to corrupt you don’t don’t allow the

outside world to tell you who you are

i wanted to be a voice for those who are not able to be a voice for themselves

[Music]

um

okay um that was a oh my god heartbreaking documentary um

of course seeing anyone being arrested and locked up for anything

felony but these are misdemeanors i know a simple arrest or conviction can ruin

your life and prevent you from moving forward with your life we’re going to have a discussion and i’m here to introduce

errol laudermilk who is the chief of staff at the cook county public defender’s office she will be our

moderator for this evening thank you eric thank you colette

and thank all of you for joining us today for the viewing of what has been a very powerful film

i think it really uplifts a lot of information that is impacting a lot of people that

um if you aren’t directly involved in this court system that you might not be aware of um so

as colette mentioned my name is era laudermilk i am going to be helping to moderate a discussion today

we’re going to start today’s discussion with a good look at what the data tells us

we are joined by professor dave olson from loyola university in chicago who’s going

to tell us what the data shows about women and misdemeanors in the state of

illinois so to kick us off

do you want me to ask you a question first or you want to do your daily presentation

okay well i will i will give a little bit of background because people are probably like who’s dave olson okay so dave olson has been an integral

part of the criminal justice system in illinois he has done a lot of work

monitoring the trends in the criminal legal system as relates to our prison system he

recently collaborated with the women’s justice institute on a historic report that is designed to quantify the ways to

dramatically reduce the women’s prison population with interventions before

during and after incarceration his research has shown dramatic declines

in arrests and incarceration among women statewide in illinois with reductions as

high as 50 percent since the onset of the covet 19 pandemic

so with that professor olson can you help walk us through some of the trends

you’ve found with respect to misdemeanors among women particularly as it relates to race

race and ethnicity as well as the various regions throughout the state

thanks and uh thanks for the opportunity to to participate um i think one of the things about the

the documentary that’s important is that misdemeanors are rarely talked about uh they account for the majority of

of crimes that put people in contact with the system and they vary as was pointed out in terms of of the

seriousness of the crimes but i want to bring some information to to light specifically for illinois and

specifically for women in illinois prior to coven 19 when arrest for all crimes

decreased dramatically each year between 40 and 50 000 women a year were arrested in illinois

just for misdemeanor crimes most of these crimes did not involve

crimes of violence most involved as was described in the in the

documentary minor crimes of theft trespassing motor vehicle violations and

things of that nature one out of every two misdemeanor arrests

of women in illinois involve women of color so it clearly is disproportionately impacting

that community and while we’ve seen decreases in arrests for misdemeanors

over recent years the arrests haven’t been equal we see larger decreases in arrests of white

women compared to women of color we’ve also seen larger decreases in arrests of

younger women than older women so what we’re seeing is a change in the composition and the

characteristics of women being arrested for misdemeanors with a larger share of those people being arrested being

both women of color but also older women of color which suggests as was pointed out in the

in the documentary that oftentimes these arrests can lead to an entanglement in the system that

continues for years and years so that’s a little bit about what we’re

seeing in terms of the the trends i also wanted to just point out some

some opportunities for change the the documentary pointed to some things that

could be done to reduce the number of of women arrested for misdemeanors that face then

the consequences of the system one of those things that was pointed out

is we can make some misdemeanors no longer criminal the best example in illinois that we can

point to has been the legalization of recreational cannabis that occurred in in the year 2020.

earlier in the decade prior to the legalization of cannabis more than two thousand women two

thousand women a year were arrested for uh misdemeanor possession of cannabis

which suggests how our our thinking can evolve over time we see some things as criminal in

the past that are no longer criminal but there’s also other efforts that

impact uh the number of people arrested for misdemeanors and some of those are seen

as reforms there have been a number of efforts to reduce the number of crimes that are considered felonies

and move them down into misdemeanor categories one example of this that the cook county

states attorney will likely mention a little bit later is reducing the threshold for retail theft

this was a policy that was actually recommended and a proposed change to

state law in 2016. it was a recommendation by a bipartisan

committee that was formed in the state of illinois but to this date that law has not

changed but the state’s attorney took it upon herself to change the policies and practices within her office that reduced

the threshold for felony retail theft down to misdemeanor offenses

the impact of this has been profound annually in in cook county which is

where we’re all sitting between 200 and 400 women a year were

sentenced to prison for retail theft for stealing something that’s worth essentially four to five hundred dollars

as a result of the state’s attorney changing the policies to treat more of those as misdemeanors

we saw the number of women going to prison for this crime in cook county dropped from 150 a year

down to 25 a year so a clear impact on the number of women adversely uh being subjected to long

periods of incarceration in state prison uh the last point that i’ll i’ll make and it relates to

something that was was mentioned at the end of the at the end of the documentary is the change to illinois law that will take

effect in 2023 around pre-trial reform and the abolition of cash bail

obviously all these individuals who arrested for misdemeanors cycle in and out of jails they have to

post bond and are subjected to as mentioned in the documentary even a brief exposure to

incarceration that can be detrimental so the law abolishes cash bail so it

eliminates that financial dimension to these charges but it also emphasizes

and encourages the use of citation in lieu of arrest or summonses rather than arrest and

processing and i think all of these are examples of how there are efforts underway to not only

decriminalize some misdemeanors but also make attempts to reduce the adverse effect of

people being arrested for these offenses

thank you just by way of follow-up can you speak more about some of the unique patterns as it relates to misdemeanors

among women regarding misdemeanors particularly regarding

wraith and ethnicity i don’t know why i’m having such a hard time saying that word today um and also

the differences regarding the different regions in the state how are these issues different

for women than men

i think there’s a few things that are different one is oftentimes the crimes that

women may be identified as being involved in are more likely to be misdemeanors

i think the issue about uh the the child care responsibilities

and how again even that brief period of incarceration cannot only be detrimental for the individual involved but all

those individuals that that person uh or that rely and count on that person i

think the other thing that’s important about misdemeanors as was pointed out in the documentary is these are oftentimes

driven by police priorities and police practices if the police decide to focus on a

particular behavior or enforce a particular behavior we’ll see increases in arrests and if they decide that

it’s no longer a priority they’ll change their practices and and that’s where we see a lot of the variation

across the state in chicago there have been periods where for example the rest for prostitution

dramatically increased not because the behavior changed or the prevalence but it was an emphasis by the police

to respond to that and to focus on that we saw the same thing with with changes

in responses to drug law violations including arrest for marijuana possession even though it was

was legalized in 2020 prior to that police

essentially got the signal from the public that these were not crimes they wanted to see

enforced and so police changed their practices and so i think it’s important to recognize the importance of as was

pointed out police discretion and what the police focus on and every community is is policed by a different agency in

the state and so you can see things vary from community community in terms of what crimes are entering the

system but it really does reflect police priority and police practices

thank you so much for that you know the data really does help inform

how the work can progress and really work to minimize some of the harms that

were demonstrated in the film today the next part of our discussion will be

a panel discussion we are joined by several panelists today

that will provide some invaluable insight into what it’s like to

be a part of a system in the impacts of being in that system we will be joined by cook county state’s

attorney kim foxx we are also going to hear from colette

payne who is with the wji reclamation project uh we will also hear from melissa

hernandez who is the founder of the puerto rican project and reclama reclamation fellow

and jada lashur hi jada um who’s with moms united against

violence and incarceration so we’re actually going to

um begin our questions with colette who’s sitting right next to me

collette we both know the criminalization of addiction has been a

leading factor in driving women’s mass incarceration your story is one of

powerful resilience but it wasn’t until after the criminalization of your addiction

that you were finally able to access the help that you needed and deserved

while most drug crimes are felonies in illinois what can you tell us about the way

misdemeanors related to your addiction and impacted you

absolutely um so first i’d like to say that i did my first prison sentence um at the

age of 14 um in iyc warrenville and it was a series of misdemeanors that

sent me there as a teenager you know

that’s when the cycle continued and i started to use substances heroin and cocaine and i started using those

substances at the age of 17. so you know i would commit theft

um forgery and the thefts were usually like um during that time

anything 150. over was a

uh was a felony but in the beginning i would steal small things um food

sometimes shoes whatever i needed in order to survive because i was on the street so

um i had gotten three misdemeanors and once you get

three misdemeanors um they upgrade it to a felony

so i’m like oh my god so that’s when it started and then i ended up doing my

first adult prison sentence um in 1999.

it’s important that you you talked about the survival component

of how this impacted you as well as how this kind of compound effect

um in terms of you know it build upon each other and really

created a felony right i think that’s really important because i think a lot of people watching might not realize that

compounding effect or might not realize the survival component to why

women in particular find themselves doing actions

that are labeled as misdemeanors just out of mere survival for themselves and their children so thank you for

uplifting that prior to your work at the women’s justice

institute you were a policy associate at cabrini green legal aid and

worked on expungement policy and participated in expungement summits across the state

what did you learn from that process as it relates to the harmful impact of misdemeanors

absolutely during my time at cgla

i would work on the ceiling and expungement summits so

we passed a bill i believe it

that was the ceiling expansion bill

domestic violence you guys know your stuff so

um we would do these summits and um people would come to get their

records sealed so we’re in partnership with prairie state we’re going down state where what

people are coming in by the droves this goes to show you how many people are trying to get their record cleared

so they can move on with their lives so um we’re in peoria state um

representative jahan gordon booths peoria illinois

and um we’re doing this big summit so many people showed up but it was a lot of women there um we’re talking about

the small crimes that they had so during this time i had the opportunity to do

case files so we would have to put their records together on this case charting

it’s called charting so we’re charting the cases and i’m like oh my god do you see what these people

are charged with misdemeanors that they had fines and fees attached

um to these fines of fees okay so it’s coming up for folks to go to court go in

front of the judge to get their records sealed um so now we have to work on fines and

fees because the judge said no you have a funding

like having your music up too loud not cutting your grass these were things

that people had these fines and fees for that were preventing them from moving

forward with their lives and getting their records sealed

thank you for sharing that um so in addition to our panelists we are joined today by

the reclamation council members um i’m surrounded by a table of beautiful

ladies i’m not sure if they’re all in the shot but um i would like to give them the opportunity to really uplift

anything that they hear from any of our panelists today but i also want the audience to know who you guys are so

joining us today on behalf of the reclamation council are paris knox from mua vi

christine escala you can clap yeah you can clap of course

[Laughter] christine escalara with also chicago

heather can canuel and patients her daughter from art from the heart

[Applause] celia colon with giving others dreams

[Applause] monica cosby inside out theater

[Laughter] diana winchester with howard area community center

and nakia brooks with wji [Applause]

and liz cruz also with wji [Applause]

ladies thank you so much for being here as a part of this conversation we’ve heard some really important

information from colette based on her experience both in the system and working to dismantle that system is

there anything that you guys would like to uplift or any comments you’d like to

share before we move on to the next panel

yes regarding um just in response to what colette shared and i see that we have a hand raised so i’m gonna pass the

microphone so that your question can be heard by the audience

i don’t know if it’s a question but a comment okay so in watching the documentary listening to

everything i just wanted to say to young women because i try to be a voice to young women that be careful with your

decisions too because yes we have this system that is against us and i strongly feel like as an african-american woman

latino that it’s another form of slavery you know back in the day our lack of

education and the power that they had of us was one thing but now it’s our choices and sometimes you victim to

just who you are racially speaking but at the same time your choices make a difference too so just um knowing that

we have something against us being mindful of decisions that we make so we don’t put ourselves in those type of

situations and so um i just want to continue to attack these things so that

we can be free fully free so um that’s all i have to say thank

you i would like to say that if there was more like the 80 billion dollars that number 80

billion dollars they spent locking us up destroying our lives and our families lives for the

rest of our lives this is not just our harm that are in here it’s generational harm if they were to spend half of that

in our communities that’s what’s missing that’s what causes all these misdemeanors is that the lack of deep

investments in people deep investments in creating an equal economical

society that is just for everyone that doesn’t exist in this america

that we’ve known for so many years but yet there’s so many of us fighting for it and i think as long as we

as people continue to fight for what’s right and bring attention like they are with i mean

this video this this this film wow is all i can say like it it stirred

many different emotions inside of me some stuff i couldn’t even watch because it’s very triggering

um anger disappointment hurt rage but then

also action like what am i gonna do how am i gonna stop this can i do more

should i be doing more all of that comes into mind

thank you absolutely celia so we’re going to turn to our next

panelist now melissa hernandez melissa studies have shown that 98

percent of women in the illinois prison system have experienced histories of gender-based violence including sexual

exploitation and other forms of abuse and the vast majority of perpetrators of

this violence are men how do these issues create unique risks to women as it relates to the stacking

of misdemeanors and paving a pathway to deeper systems and entrenchment of

survivors did you ever experience or notice a difference in how you or other women

were treated differently or inequitably by systems as it relates to them

yeah thank you um so great question i want to start off by giving a little history about myself um

so i am a survivor of child abuse poverty

i’m a survivor of sex human trafficking and

so this led me down to a path to be exploited and manipulated by sex

traffickers i’ve i’ve had a bunch of long counters

while all these things were happening so when the criminal legal system became

involved and criminalized me as opposed to helping me there was no ability to help identify my

victimizat having a hard time um at that time so

how this translates into my life the more i was abused and sexually exploited

oh sorry oh okay sorry about that

so um so um the more i was uh

abused and sexually exploited the more i was interfaced with the criminal legal system so instead of seeing a teenage

girl that has been abused from a young age and being exploited

they saw a criminal and did nothing to help disrupt that cycle the police somehow thought that

continuing to arrest me and smack me with misdemeanor after misdemeanor

will solve the problem um so there was a time when during

the time i was being trafficked a raid happened and i was arrested along

with the male pimp and another female victim we all went to court and he was released

the very next day because he had an education and no criminal history

and because of my long misdemeanor background i was

given jail time when i first got arrested that day the

police stated that i will be released the next day on a misdemeanor sex charge

but once they ran my background they became excited high-fived each other and acted like

they hit the jackpot then i was smacked with quite a few more misdemeanors which also led to a couple

of felony charges as well and i was facing up to 15 years prison time

so instead all it did was take a young girl who experienced abuse and violence all her life and

entrenched her more deeply into the criminal legal system and let me be clear we’re talking about

trafficking and abuse but those are just two ways women are criminalized many young girls

that are exploited suffer from poverty trauma and drug use

and if you think about the criminal system it is criminalizing women surviving all

these challenges and arguably that system in itself is a form of

violence for women and particularly for black and brown women and women experience gender-based

violence sexual assault and all forms of abuse all across the board

wow melissa what a powerful story and here you are as a survivor and helping to share your

story and i hope the people listening will really take proactive

stances to make sure that there aren’t more victims like you that are treated as criminals and thrown into

cages can you share a little more about how you learned about the misdemeanors that

were on your criminal record and how they affected you and how you got the

help that you needed to seal them

so um all those years i experienced exploitation and

abuse as women of color and at the very end i ended up saving myself

so i decided to change my life and i was faced by more systemic violence due to

my background when i had a child i searched titan low for employment

nobody wanted to hire me because of my background i took on jobs who took advantage of my

labor and desperation and who would pay me under 10 and two times less than the minimum wage

um when i was seven months pregnant with my second child i was approved for public

housing i was so excited that i was finally going to have the stability that i never

had and i remember feeling the need to want to cry because i was so

excited i actually felt at that point that there was a light at the end of the tunnel

um i was wrong um i went down to this housing complex

to sign off on the paperwork then i didn’t know how to answer the background question so as the manager of this housing

complex what do i do and i was open about my background

she literally looked at me and said i’m so so sorry as she was grabbing the documents that

i just finished signing and said i am no longer eligible for

the housing and that she wasn’t going to waste her time or my time

to even complete the documentation so basically

my criminal background continued to haunt me and decided that i was undeserving of support

i continued to struggle for many many years battling depression trying to figure a way out

and with because of my determination to break that cycle and

prevent my children from experiencing the same things i did i reached out to a

cabrini green legal aide and i did request help with my background

they took on my case what i didn’t know until cabrini green legal aide

told me was that i had over 15 misdemeanors on my background

and they were able to seal my whole record

shortly after that i was able to find a job i went to trade school

i did apply for public housing and that’s basically when my life started

becoming stable it was after that that i

started my healing journey from all the traumatic events i went through since i was a kid

and if cgla didn’t assist me i would have still been trapped in a cycle of poverty trauma and abuse

from the system that and the haunting background and

my children would have been stuck in that same cycle so

thank you yes

um so i want to give the reclamation council members an opportunity if you have any

thing you want to uplift from what melissa shared with us today or any

comments hold on i have to give you the microphone so the audience can

i’m hear

um

[Music]

[Music]

um melissa i just wanted to say thank you for sharing thank you for being one of the many heroes without a cape here

in the city of chicago colette you two thank you for being on the way and just sharing your stories we heal in

community and not in isolation and people need to see representation that we can be better and it’s because

of your work that i was able to get my case sealed and um through cabrini legal aid i was one of the people that before

miss collette and her whole team helped open up that bill and change things for the

people in illinois i had a two class x felonies that were not eligible

for seal until 2017 until the law changed and that’s when my life changed as well

thank you thank you for sharing

okay so next we’re going to um hear from jada lashour

jada we’re so happy to have you here with us today um at a recent hearing in

the on legislation calling for the creation of a state commission on children of incarcerated parents

you shared a powerful and deeply personal testimony about your experiences with the incarceration of

your mother since you were only 12 years old

seven years old wow wow as we know parental incarceration

disproportionately impacts black children both in illinois and in our

nation the lack of investment in support systems in our communities create challenges for children such as housing

and economic instability it also creates increased risk of involvement in the

legal system what were some of the challenges you faced growing up

and how were they impacted by misdemeanors and the criminal legal system

and while many people often say that misdemeanors are only minor and not serious

what would you say to those people

um so i’ll say i faced many challenges growing up without my mother um she’s been incarcerated since i was six years

old um i practically without guidance and the protection i needed um

and care so it made me end up going it made me turn into a victim of the

criminal system um living without the support of my mom who was the financial household of requiring

me to support myself sorry about that um living without the support of my mother who was the

financial head of household required me to support myself financially this led to many experiences with the

criminal system and resulted in me having a misdemeanor conviction i got my first misdemeanor before i had my child

who’s now three years old i knew that i had and had to be there for him i applied for a job at levy and this

misdemeanor charge prevented me from getting this job most recently i set up a gtl account

um video business with my mom but it won’t let me access because of misdemeanor charges this is unfair i

also have to pay fees and be on supervision i could never work a retail job

i pla i applied for i couldn’t work for me my misdemeanor

the misdemeanor i had i couldn’t work for like um certain jobs so um i had to like keep asking questions like

what like what jobs can i work in um what doesn’t the misdemeanor affect so the misdemeanor affected really

everything so um i work like under the table i get paid under the table like i don’t get like paychecks because of the misdemeanor um

so my question is how can we change um how can we change society um after they

punish us it’s like i had to pay fees um i did supervision um i did house arrest

um i did all kind of things so it’s just like i had to go through all this to get to this

so um how could we change

sure well it’s 2022 we’re all used to technical difficulties by now

[Music] check my check

[Music]

so we apologize for the technical issues hopefully you all can hear us clearly now

jada just finished sharing her powerful story and she asked a really important

question and so um i’m wondering if there are any of the reclamation council members here

that wanted to respond so we have a volunteer i’m going to pass the mic so we can make sure the audience can hear

i love you jada like so i mean i remember when i first met jada little

bitty something she didn’t even have a child then um you know

how can we change this you know i i feel you but i think you being here

and sharing your experiences it makes a difference um

you know it helps create change in policy spaces people need to hear um our stories and i appreciate you

hey jada so you stirred something up inside of me because we’ve talked and it also

challenges me to do a better job in my career because we do have the opportunity to network

with employers on your behalf to try to help you get employment so that’ll be my

goal this week is to help you because there are opportunities with agencies such as mine and other re-entry programs

that if you have a barrier to employment that we work our ass off excuse me to

get you employed so that’s something that we can talk about this week because there are answers out here but

legislatively we hope that things can change so that won’t even have to be a barrier for you

but i will do my job this week with howard area community center and help you get a job

all right you’re welcome

hello uh sadika williams um with the safer foundation and also advisory

committee member with wji i just want to share that what you say speaks

to me because i’m a mother of two children whose father is incarcerated

and right now i’m all they got and um when you ask that question just from

understanding what they’re going through my response is you shouldn’t have to go through any of that in the first place

because when you needed help there should have been resources there to help you

the moment that that happened you shouldn’t have had been subject to the criminal legal system the way that

you were you shouldn’t have had to struggle the way that you should have or that you did i’m sorry you shouldn’t have went through all that

there should have been mentors there there should have been teachers there there should have been health care

professionals there we have to change the way that we look

at issues the onus isn’t it wasn’t your fault

you were put in a situation and someone should have helped you when

you were asking for help it should have been given one thing that i can’t stand

is when people ask for help and people talk about it instead of doing something about it

because that’s all you needed at that moment was someone to help you and then you wouldn’t have had to go

through all the additional trauma on top of the trauma that you already faced

if we had done what we should have done and treated this as a public health

issue right and so i just wanted to say that like

you know don’t give yourself some grace because

you were in this you were in a situation and you reacted and you didn’t have what

you needed and you should have been helped to avoid it so i just wanted to say that too because sometimes we are hard on

ourselves because you know we do have to take responsibility for our decisions but at the same time we have to

understand that generationally the discrimination and the injustices

that have happened on brown and black communities has done so much trauma

and on top of poverty that it’s passed down in our families and so

we’re seeing is a cycle that needs to be broke

and that’s why we’re all here today because enough is enough and it’s time to heal it is time to heal

ourselves and it’s time to heal our children and it’s time to heal our communities we don’t have to be

victims anymore we can

you know because it’s scary you don’t want to get told no again

i’m sorry but i just i had to share that with you and i just want to thank you for for sharing what you said and i and

everyone any everyone here sharing what they’ve been through in terms of your story that takes

a tremendous amount of courage and you are healing every time you do it you are

healing because you are helping other people relate and heal and you’re making them realize that you’re not by yourself

we share a lot in common

[Applause] that was powerful sonica and it really

actually set us up for the next part of the discussion you said it best

we’re not here to just talk we’re not we’re here to really take action

and really have a conversation about what

so that moving forward other people won’t be victimized by the system the same way that these ladies were

victimized by the system so i would love to hear from all of you

one by one if we had a magic wand and we do because we know

people like sadika that work in policy people like colette we have the ability to effectuate change

we’ve heard how change can have a powerful impact on helping people move forward with their lives

so what else do we need to do if you could do one

thing to change the system what would that one thing

be so we’re gonna do like a lightning round and we’re gonna pass the microphone around the table and we’re

each gonna say that one thing that we can do

to change the system i’m going to start on this side of the room

um i think the one thing we have to do is change our way of thinking i mean we have to change ourselves

so we can be better to help someone else awesome um

one thing i can do additionally is be more of action than just words um

and have follow-through and continue to tell my story and be of help and service to the community

um i agree with both of what y’all said um and

from what like i see is like what i would love to really for real change is who’s in power who’s in the play of

making all these calls and putting all these officers out in the street because what i see i i i do

street uh well i’m out reporting right but um i do domestic violence now outreach work so

i’ve seen violence in the community and and how they’re responding and how he was saying like what they choose to pick

and focus on right um but the the the prison uh the the school to prison pipeline

right and how we we do single out people trump them all with all these

misdemeanors and now it’s a felony and now they’re just in the system like you know like um but to better to be the

solution i want to be the solution i do this work because i believe in it and um

[Applause] i would say moving the money which means moving the power i believe all the

policies that have been implemented have been implemented since the days of when there was white slave owners like when

we talk about the bill of rights none of us you know with our skin color were at the table when them laws and policies were

put in place and i think we here in america we live in a different time now and our laws and our you know our our

founding fathers they look different too you know and and i think that if we can go back and just

rip up everything that’s been put in and start all over with something that’s really just and

actually create a system that’s not about criminalizing everybody that is black or

brown and using them to make profits i think that if we again if it’s about moving

the money and really just focusing on loving people and creating change and i think it starts

with emotional social learning in homes and at the schools implementing programs

that really promote healthy living lifestyles like i’ve said it forever we

have been watching the same 1970 video about sex education and it’s mandatory

since the 1950s but there’s never been a mandatory self-care conflict resolution

you know all of these things that are the core of what makes people people and really give us those tools coping

skills coping strategies not just for the parents but just like sadika said we have

generations of just harm that we harness in our dna

in ourselves so when are we going to start focusing on healing right i think when there’s more love in the earth and

in the universe less harm can exist and it starts with moving the people of

power which means moving the money [Applause]

i’ll just offer something briefs i’m a little bit out of place yeah

hearing all the stories and and thinking about this is we i think there’s misdemeanors we need to recognize aren’t

best responded to by the legal system that some of the descriptions of these are it it’s an indication of the need

for assistance not the need for a legal response and i think that’s uh and that you gain through more

empathy and it’s through these kinds of conversations that people can gain more empathy

thank you for letting me speak um if i could change anything i say

change the way they do the way they do people like in prison like um it’s not like it’s like a repeating

cycle like um how can i say it um i feel like like back in the days like they was

getting treated even worse but it’s like now they still getting treated even greater so like i think it should be like a change made

um somewhere down the lands like um it’s getting worse it’s not getting better

um yeah like this change was going on like in prison i guess i don’t know [Music]

i don’t know it’s so much that needs to be changed i i you know as it relates to to

misdemeanors and it’s important that we understand where

where we come from and how these laws were created and you know educate our families our

children around this because you know we don’t know our history and

how we get here um as it relates to mass incarceration so

when you think about you know the the end of slavery and how the vagrancy laws and pig laws just a pig if you steal a

pig because you’re hungry so these misdemeanors are basically crimes of survival selling loose squares selling

cds you know you’re trying to survive that’s like a underground market

and and why are people doing this because they’re trying to survive so you know it’s small things like that

if society would have some type of compassion and understanding but

i mean we get these jobs people get these jobs and they like oh this is what we do not

really understanding or even knowing the history as to how we got here in the first place so

i would say educating our communities educating ourselves because things are forever

changing so we have to keep educating ourselves um and just make sure we hold on to our babies man

yeah if you got babies powerful

so if i get to if i get to pick one thing too um

i would piggyback off of what dave olson said and what colitz colette said because

you know in the public defender’s office we we represent people who are charged with misdemeanors and

you know just tying it into this particular conversation you know when it comes to women in particular and

women of color the vast majority of them are in the

system because of crimes of survival for theft

retail theft or just traffic offenses driving without a valid driver’s license

while taking their kid to school or to the doctor’s appointment or

driving to work so you know for me because we are more informed now of the

collateral consequences that come with bringing someone into the system

why are we bringing them into the system we have something called deferred

prosecution where individuals can do community service

if they’re successful at that you know then the case can get dismissed if they’re successful or if they’re not

successful then you’ve basically deferred the prosecution you’re just kicking the can down the road

but when you think about women in particular for us that’s not really a good solution

because if you’re a mom or if you’re a woman and you’re the sole breadwinner of a house

reporting a community service is really just adding to your challenges and it’s really

almost setting you up for failure so rather than bringing them into the system rather than diverting them to a

deferred prosecution program that’s still court involved you know i would

and we we can look into figuring out how do we help

these women outside of the court system and refer them to resources

so they can actually get access to the help that they need in order to set them up to be more

successful rather than making them go through this system that really is

designed for their failure

thank you if i could change one thing um

i will [Music] implement a bunch of

equal resources into our communities that’s a huge issue i work i work the

front lines i lift up our community

we need to decriminalize black and brown people and we need access to quality care and

resources in our community because this is the route to a lot of our problems

thank you so if i had a magic wand

ultimately i would eliminate systems but but

i will settle for holding systems accountable just like this young lady said uh

your misdemeanors lead up to having your baby cuffed to a bed for

driving offenses so there are things that continue to build

in black and brown companies in chicago and in southern illinois all over this state

and i think misdemeanors for women

kind of need to be eliminated in the ways of ed monitor

or women’s treatment center where women could go and be pregnant and be safe

if we could eliminate systems that would be the ultimate goal but to hold systems accountable is what my magic wand would

do and then put the money like celia said into the programs that we so need

chicago so needs the women’s treatment center how many years has that been closed

and if it wasn’t for programs the beautiful young lady you guys see out there wouldn’t

have a bond with me and it was because of misdemeanors that i gave birth cup to a bed

so i think holding systems accountable is number one thank you

[Applause] hi guys

i feel as though a huge percentage of individuals who are incarcerated

most of the majority a lot have drug ad drug addicts sexual assault

victims domestic violence victims and i just feel like a lot of people need help

we need more help we need more love we need more programs like accountability programs etiquette programs we need to

raise these children better because like me like grew up in the dysfunctional homes and street gang violence and like

i was in the streets street streets robbing banks everything and um we need to be held accountable like we do need

the system but a lot of people need help if you see someone has been incarcerated 20 different times

for for the retail theft obviously that person need help that’s a person that needs

help like we need more and then it is a lot of it’s it’s a lot of resources that’s out

here but a lot of people they lack the um they they just don’t want to get up and go and do it people just lack

accountability and a lot of people just need to be held more accountable we need to be better with raising these children

we just need more help we need more love we need to just come together and we just need more love that’s what i feel because we need to be

held accountable because some people do need to be incarcerated but thank you guys

um i think everybody’s already touched on what i would i would say but um i would

like to dismantle the systems that are in place and create new ones that are not a

continuation of slavery i mean because that’s all it is it’s just moving from one system to the next

um and focusing on love and wellness

across whatever it whether it’s health housing you know

in looking at the criminal legal system hopefully it wouldn’t be the criminal ecosystem like we should really

change the way that we are treating our we are functioning as a society in

general and focus on wellness and looking at all the things that go into wellness including your health your

mental health your education um your spirituality if you have any you

know whatever that is we need to be focusing on on that

agreed i mean everything is is yes i agree with

it all i want to say that i feel that we need to redistribute the funds

into quality supportive services and not just

a service it needs to be gender responsive truly responding to someone’s gender

i mean giving them what they individually need and not just giving folks a service

because a lot of times folks wouldn’t be in jail if they had the support that they needed to begin with so we redistribute the funds

um and then looking at providers you don’t get to treat people any kind of way because i’m your client

or because i have to live in a recovery home or i’m homeless we don’t get to do that to people

most importantly when i work with women coming home and i remember misdemeanors brought me in the system but i kept

myself out i didn’t have services or support when i got out you know there was nothing provided to

me when i got out so mr meadows brought me in the system but no services kept me out

you know i had to beg bar on steel when i got out and so no one should have to beg for

services women shouldn’t have to beg for a bus car right shouldn’t have to beg for

for a bed shouldn’t have to bed for clothes or shoes so when we are providing services to people it

needs to be with dignity and respect you know and love and tolerance

and not forgetting where we come from um because i am at a place where i work

with women coming home i myself came home i know what it’s like i shouldn’t have to have a woman come to me asking

me about can i have a bus car no you can have 10. i’ma get i want to give you a 30 day bus

card and when you need another one come back and ask me for 30 more like you shouldn’t have to beg for just

for having the basic needs met and we don’t provide that to people

we do not and so we need to be providing basic needs

[Applause]

i think that was powerful that was powerful i think at the heart of everything that was said is this idea

that we’re people right and people should be treated with

dignity respect and love period

period i want to thank our panelists for joining us today

ladies it takes a lot of courage to share

what you share with us today all of you it is not

lost on any of us that in order for you to be here today

all polished and telling us there was a lot of hurt and pain and trauma

that you had to overcome in order to get here

and your power you all have superpowers your super power is being the ones that

dismantle this system you’ve already started and i encourage all of you to keep going

because if you can overcome what you’ve been through and be here smiling

and advocating and pushing for reform we could change the world

it could change the world so with that i’m going to hand it back over to colette to close us out for the

day yeah we can see do we have questions

do do tell do we have do we have questions

so i mean i will but will you tell me who okay all right okay all right all

right we’re good okay so we do have anyone on facebook

okay so if you can’t hear what’s happening right now um our lovely camera person is telling

us that we have some time for questions so if you have any questions

if you’re on youtube or instagram facebook please throw them in the chat

uplift them let us know we’ve got time for maybe one or two questions and as they come in he’s going

to tell them to me and i will in turn tell them to our council members and our panelists

so we’re just um going to wait a second i think i think that i can feel it there’s a question

there’s a question coming okay audience we’re gonna give you a

couple more minutes if you’re if you’re listening if you’re watching we’re talking to you if you have a question or

a comment um that you’d like to be um a part of our discussion today

we’d love to hear from you

okay okay

all right well i mean there’s nothing wrong with that i mean these are some powerful dynamic ladies

at this table so there’s been a lot shared it’s been a robust discussion so i’m going to turn it over to colette

to close this out yep okay um

what is the question diana

are um organizations okay listen are there organizations in the sf

bay area that do the work of san francisco

i can help uh that’s the question

okay sorry repeat i mean say the question there but let them know we’re in chicago

all right we so for miss marcia

or bellin um we’re in chicago illinois so

that’s our basis but uh anything else you want to further say okay

okay um the next question beautiful

are there um oh that’s you pierce

which one miguel smith

well i don’t even see miguel smith oh gail smith there you go we have a question from gail smith

there she is i see you go ahead um

gail smith question is how can we keep parents out of the system from the end

how can we keep parents out of the system yes she’s she’s speaking on parents like mothers how can we keep

mothers

um so restorative justice why we like that should be the last thing that we

want to do to really anybody i don’t wish jayla my worst enemy um been there done that don’t want to go back right um

but understanding the reasons why these mothers are in the system period why are

like what you were saying human trafficking you had nothing to do with that like that you’re a survivor you was

a victim right you had no choice um but you were forced to live that lifestyle right um

so how can restorative justice come into that how can we fix really fix the system on the laws

uh understanding really the needs like it’s

what i believe in it starts in the homes it starts in the homes and it floods out into the streets

so if we can fix the homes for real for real if and really flood the home with love and resources and and the needs

that base just where just basic needs are needed then you know i think that

could have something to do with it

so we have one more question um trish asked how are we changing

misdemeanors from a grassroots level

so from a grassroots level i would say it takes people on the ground people in the community people who have

experienced this um to start educating the their communities building

relationships um and talking about what’s really

happening i mean again looking at our past how we got here

so it needs to be education around that you know civic engagement

is important um but then i would say this like

sometimes it’s hard for people to even show up when you don’t have anything to eat

it’s hard for people to show up when you don’t even have a bus car to get there you know folks want to get involved but

when your basic needs aren’t being met that’s all you can think about is hey my needs aren’t being mad i

really want to show up to this meeting but i got to do go do x y and z right

now you you’re in survival mode and then you know

even you know we think about i often say this when it comes to

accountability yes we hold ourselves accountable but we got the whole systems accountable as well and

you know i think about how i come from a loving home had both parents went to catholic school but poverty played a big part

of my life you know i couldn’t understand like mom you’re sending us to catholic school and i’m hungry for real i can’t even

think and trauma is real and people experience

trauma in different ways nobody in my family ever went to jail a prisoner ever did drugs my trauma

it was the same situation but i experienced it differently

um but as it relates to grassroots this is this is it right here we’re doing it so

you go into your community you see somebody experience hey come on let’s go to this meeting

let’s talk about these issues and then you take it to another level create a bill

and you lobby the hell out of it in springfield

okay so i have a fault i yeah sure our cameraman is

he’s doing double duty today have a seat cameraman introdu introduce yourself to the audience

my name my name is ty but um i wanted to comment on what you were saying about

when people don’t have that money like there’s a um there’s this chart if you

guys heard us cause like uh miles low or maslow hierarchy of needs and it talks about

that like if you don’t have your basic needs you know i can’t worry about the water in flint if i’m worrying about trying to feed my kid i can’t because

i’m in survival mode and no one takes that into consideration if we had our needs met you would meet a completely

different person think about why people commit crimes people most most of the time it’s economic you know they’re

trying to feed their family they’re trying to eat themselves no one’s going hungry you know what i mean and if you just look at that they’re in

survival mode it’s hard for me to i cannot do anything but worry about feeding myself my kid that’s all i can’t

worry about those other problems they’re there and they’re real but i can’t give any energy to that because i got to make sure that my people straight

but if they’re straight if they have the resources they have jobs in in communities and things like that then

you’re going to meet completely different people yeah people doing life in prison you give them what they need

you’re going to meet a completely different person and greatness to come out of them but when they’re in survival mode it’s about survival you know

whatever it takes to survive in whatever geographical area that’s what i’m going to be to survive period point blank you

know that’s when you said that i thought about that and i was like [Applause]

okay so

what is no more questions we got five minutes who wants to

it’s the okay what’s the you hear me say that you gotta yeah let her read it let her read it go ahead

read it out loud all right we have um fred weatherspoon

yeah hey fred we see you um how can men whom share similar

experiences be more helpful yeah

thanks brother fred just so you’re aware um there are organizations in illinois

such as james kilgore out of u of i who only work with men and there is a resource guide on ill

cheps website for men as well and i’m sure between all of us we all know one

or two men’s organizations that we can put in the chat if that’s helpful friend

oh yeah that was the question that was the question well i would say supportive in organizations

because there’s organizations for me

yeah i want to add something only because um so what i wanted to add was

that you know i i’ve been in a few relationships where they were very violent harmful

abusive and a lot of my friends a lot of my family members as well

so if i could say one thing to men call out other men

you see them harming women psychologically abusing emotionally abusing financially abusing i mean

there’s so many ways manipulation so many things please stand up call them

out do not stay silent thank you

okay um thank you all for that rich discussion um very powerful women i’m sitting here

with this concludes this evening’s discussion thank you for joining us

[Applause]

[Music]

you