The Beat Within, A Compositional History of Incarcerated Writing

Monday, October 12, 2015

Improving Responses to Youth Charged with Status Offenses A Training Curriculum

Improving Responses to Youth Charged with Status Offenses
A Training Curriculum

@4juvjustice

Added a new category to our links list to the right of the page called Educator Resources. First resource added is the latest training curriculum from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, (SOS) Safety, Opportunity & Success Project: Standards of Care for Non-Delinquent Youth. For students, educators, justice workers, and other community members that aren't aware of status offenses and its impact on youth in the juvenile justice system, this is a great resource to review, study, discuss, share, train, reference for research assignments, grants, and/or implement. To access the training resource please visit the CJJ link: click here.

How is your state or local community responding to status offenses?

Monday, October 5, 2015

The Story of Alonzo Thomas @FrontLinePBS

When a 16 Year Old is Locked Up in a Supermax Prison

The Story of Alonzo Thomas

@FrontlinePBS: click here

Sunday, September 27, 2015

#TBW2015cj Students Discussing The Beat Within Documentary 1998

Highlighting a response from Christina Hernandez for 08.31's discussion responding to The Beat With Documentary featured below. Students researched and shared Beat Within sources with classmates. Christina linked "My Guilt, My Mom" by Wester posted on July 30th, 2015 from The Beat Within website. Below is Christina's comment about the poem and discussion about juvenile prison families. You can read the piece by Wester by clicking here.

"This particular entry really spoke to me being a mother myself. Some people assume every child that has been incarcerated have no parent involvement in their lives. I always read in posts concerning juveniles that get in trouble, Where are the parents? Why aren’t the parents putting a stop to this behavior? But sometimes despite your best efforts as a parent, your child can still stray from the right path. Not only is the child stigmatized but the parents are as well. No matter how much support and love you show your child, you’ll always be looked at as the parent that let their kid end up in jail."

Friday, September 18, 2015

In Depth Interview w/ Nell Bernstein | Juvenile Justice Information Exchange

In Depth Interview w/ Nell Bernstein

by the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange

by Gary Gately

Interview: click here

For #TBW2015cj's discussion "09.08 - Introducing Nell Bernstein #TBWMixtape2015 #listening to Will Roy & Tupac (20 Years Later) + Research & Writing Approach" students discussed the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange interview detailing Nell Bernstein's justice journey and the writing/research of this semesters course text Burning Down the House, The End of Juvenile Prison. The interview informs students of the author's background in community based work and its link to the Criminal Justice field. One of the goals of The Beat Within course is to broaden the undergraduate perspective of the kind of career paths that exist in Criminal Justice when it comes to addressing the needs of youth populations and their family.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

#TBW2015cj Students Discussing Richard Ross, Syllabi, & Juvenile In Justice

Highlighting a post from #TBW2015cj student Jessica Schmitt of 08.24's discussion about this Fall's syllabi and Richard Ross' conversation about Juvenile In Justice televised on Penn State's WPSU. To view the Richard Ross conversation on YouTube click here.

"Richard Ross' interview was incredible. The relationship between the video and the syllabi are both hoping to give people a different perspective to juvenile justice. Richard Ross has always worked in areas where few get to see, starting in the area of architecture then moving on to the juvenile justice arena. Through his photography and interviews he has been able to change his own perspective of incarcerated youth and is sharing that with the world. Through his photography and interviews he has given a face to an epidemic that is clearly out of control. Society has a difficult time believing in the inequality and injustice that have been inflicted on these kids. They are proof that circumstances somehow define us in the eyes of society without the idea that circumstances can be changed. Both the interview and the syllabi show that everyone has a voice and when given the ability to write, a bond is created, hope becomes available changing ones perception and perspective. Both this course and Ross's programs have evolved into social awareness making a movement towards change in society's viewpoint on juvenile incarceration." -Jessica #TBW2015cj

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE)

Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE)

Information is power. If you want to know more about juvenile justice in the United States visit jjie.org and follow @JJIEnews on twitter/com/JJIEnews and facebook.com/jjiega. They are also on LinkedIn.

Here are a few notes from their webpage:

"Doing what is best for children means staying well informed on governmental policies and legislation, court rulings, educational trends, treatment, research, prevention programs and other factors that impact the quality of service delivered to the kids that need them most."

"Those that care about children, education, family and the law comes to the JJIE because mainstream media no longer covers these issues with enough insight to do these serious topics moral justice. Crippled by budget constraints, mainstream media rarely examines beyond the surface except when horrific incidents occur. This approach can result in bad public policy and regressive legislation. We, as a society, owe it to our nation’s youth to do better."

"The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange takes a four-pronged approach:

1)   Great, in-depth reporting by professional journalists edited by the experienced John Fleming, Leslie Lapides and Rachel Wallack.

2)   Commentary from experts, academic researchers, practitioners and dedicated members of the public in our ‘Ideas and Opinions’ section.

3)   Interactive engagement with our audience through traditional, social and emerging medias and technologies.

4)   Editorial, action-oriented positions by publisher Leonard Witt."

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Juvenile-in-Justice

Juvenile-In-Justice

One of our first tasks for the Fall semester of 2015 is to learn more about photographer, Richard Ross. The photograph featured on the cover of Nell Bernstein's Burning Down the House, The End of Juvenile Prison text was taken by Richard Ross. You can learn more about Ross and the Juvenile-In-Justice project documenting the incarceration of children in the United States at juvenile-in-justice.com

At the website you can also purchase the text and learn about other books as well. This week we watched the program Conversations from Penn State, hosted by Patty Satalia interviewing Ross about the Juvenile-In-Justice project. Click here to check it out.

In thinking about the work of other social justice photographers such Joseph Rodriguez, it has me thinking about a course that studies juvenile justice through the lens. There are several other photographers who've captured the justice system through photo. I'd call the class something like Photo Justice...

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Day 1 August 19, 2015 @nmsu #TBWSyllabi2015

Day 1 August 19, 2015 @nmsu

#TBWSyllabi2015

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Attorney General Remarks Convening on School Discipline

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch Delivers Remarks

at White House Convening on School Discipline

"As you know, today, far too many young people – disproportionately children of color and children with disabilities – are suspended, expelled or even arrested as a result of unnecessarily harsh school discipline policies and practices that essentially criminalize minor infractions. Far too many young people spend precious time during their formative years excluded from social interactions, denied learning opportunities and deprived of the kind of encouragement and understanding that they need to progress and improve. And far too often, zero-tolerance school discipline policies serve as a tripwire that sends young people stumbling into a vicious cycle of criminality and incarceration."

Read the full remark transcription: click here

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Kids for Ca$h the Movie

Kids for Ca$h

The Movie

In 2013 as I prepared for the following Spring semester 2014, I searched for a text that I thought would compliment our reading of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. I was looking for something that revolved around juvenile justice when I stumbled upon another New Press title by William Ecenbarger through an email blast about his book Kids for Cash: Two Judges, Thousands of Children, and a $2.6 Million Kickback Scheme. I felt this text would fit the focus of history we get from Alexander's text connecting mass incarceration to the roots of slavery and the modern day practice of zero tolerance and an American juvenile justice system in Luzerne County Pennsylvania that fed off the vulnerabilities of American children cycling them into an unnecessary costly detention binge.

Over the course of the semester I had no idea a film would reveal itself based on the Kids for Cash scheme. I finally got the chance to watch Kids for Cash the movie on Netflix and encourage everyone, especially CJ students, justice professionals, educators, policy people, etc. to watch and continue to pass the word on this film, especially the text. It's an informative and detailed account not only of the Luzerne County story, but how it reflects a much bigger problem nationwide when it comes to both adult and juvenile incarceration.

This film puts a face to injustice unlike any documentary film I've ever seen. By the end I wondered who's face sat behind the bench when Kalief Browder was remanded without bail having to endure three years on Riker's Island.

For more information on the film visit kidsforcashthemovie.com

The film is available as DVD and stream from Netflix. You can access Netflix through the app and watch on any mobile device. You can also purchase your own copy through Amazon click here.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

The Half Has Never Been Told Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

The Half Has Never Been Told

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

by Edward E. Baptist

I stumbled across the YouTube lecture below I think through a TruthOut.org article and learned about Professor Baptist's book The Half Has Never Been Told, Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The talk was given at Google's Cambridge office and includes a great question and answer which provides more info on Dr. Baptist's work including digital database of runaway slave ads. You can see the talk and q&a below.

I'm interested in learning whether info from Baptist's text and Alexander's The New Jim Crow inform one or the other around the topic of mass incarceration.

For more information on Dr. Baptist you can visit the following links:

Cornell University Department of History: click here

twitter.com/Ed_Baptist Follow

The Half Has Never Been Told Online at Basic Books: click here

Amazon.com Book Purchase: click here

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Teacher's Guide for The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Launch of the Teacher's Guide for The New Jim Crow

Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

by Michelle Alexander

In September, I tuned into a webinar by Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It featured Michelle Alexander engaged in a Q&A and one of the topics was the upcoming release of the Teacher's Guide for high schools. You can access the teacher's guide at the link above. Teaching Tolerance and Michelle Alexander will also discuss the teacher's guide Wednesday, at 5 pm (MT) and you can login in by registering here.

The New Jim Crow Teacher's Guide: click here.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Formerly Incarcerated Leaders Have Historic Meeting with Federal Interagency Reentry Council

The Big Eight

Daryl Atkinson, Susan Burton, Pastor Kenneth Glasgow,

Norris Henderson, Manuel LaFontaine, Glenn Martin,

Vixian Nixon & Dorsey Nunn

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

A Webinar Q&A with Michelle Alexander | Teaching the New Jim Crow

A Webinar Q&A with Michelle Alexander

Hosted by Tolerance.org

Author of The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness*

A Teacher's Guide will be Available at the link above!

Check out the questions by visiting Twitter and searching #aquestionforMichelle @tolerance_org

Teaching Tolerance is pleased to host a LIVE conversation with Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Ms. Alexander will discuss her book and its relevance to educators, and take questions from our webinar audience via Twitter. Participants will also learn about the upcoming teacher's guide to The New Jim Crow, developed by Teaching Tolerance for high school educators who wish to teach about topics such as racial caste and mass incarceration.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

TBW INTERVIEWS: Will Roy / The Beat Within Interviews Pt. 1 (2003)

Will Roy Interview: click here (.PDF)

Best viewed if you download: (1) Right click on 'click here' link

+ Save Target As + Select and Save to Desktop + Open .PDF file

The Beat Within Interviews Pt. 1

by Lee Rhyanes

This interview was conducted in 2003 as part of a journal article titled “The Violence of Youth, The Presence of a Pen” for the NMSU Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program. The title was inspired from part 1 of Luis Rodriguez’s text Hearts & Hands, Creating Community in Violent Times, “The Violence of Youth, the Abscence of Elders”. Will Roy was the first person Lee Rhyanes interviewed upon finding out about The Beat through the website www.thebeatwithin.org. The other interviews included Co-Founder/Director David Inocencio and a Beat staff at the time Michael Kroll. The interview was recorded over landline phone and transcribed by Rhyanes. An audio recording poem titled ((I Write)) is also archived at youtube.com/voicesbehindwalls. This is the first audio recording posted from VBW in effort to begin development of the site's "Justice Archive" that will include audio recordings, writings, artworks, and sketches of photographs taken during VBW workshops hosted inside of juvenile detention. Immediate links to the VBW Research Network, the VBW Justice Archive ((Audio)), and the full interview in PDF can be accessed below. In order to read and see the interview you will need to have Adobe Reader which you can access for free at the following link: get.adobe.com/reader/.

Will Roy Interview: click here (.PDF)

Best viewed if you download: (1) Right click on 'click here' link

+ Save Target As + Select and Save to Desktop + Open .PDF file

The Beat Within Interviews Pt. 1

by Lee Rhyanes

VBW Justice Archive: ((I Write)) by Will Roy feat. Avoid the Lyricist

VBWJA-audi0-20140902-WR1

VBW Justice Archive ((Audios)): click here

VBW Research Network: vbwresearch.blogspot.com

Will Roy - I Write post click here

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Dr. Carl Hart Keynote at University of Texas El Paso (UTEP)

Dr. Carl Hart to Speak at UTEP

Keynote Address at the Vida Conference 2014

More information: vida.utep.edu/vida-conference-2014

I first heard of Dr. Carl Hart in the documentary the House I Live In, a film we recommended this Spring in The Beat Within course, in addition to the required viewing of Slavery by Another Name. Dr. Carl Hart will be giving the Keynote Address at the UTEP Vida Conference 2014 (Vulnerability to Drug Abuse Among Hispanics, Bridging Science and Society, May 29-30, 2014). The event will take place at the Tomas Rivera Conference Center (UTEP) in El Paso, Texas and will also feature New Mexico State University Associate Professor (CJ), Dr. Robert Duran on panel session #5: Qualitative Inquiries into Drug Use, Drug Markets, Gang Behavior and Successful Reentry (Gangs on the United States Side of the Border: A Story of Contradictions).

Dr. Hart's keynote address is titled, "On Drugs: Keeping It Real". On the conference agenda it states that the "presentation will describe how Dr. Hart came from housing projects in Miami to become Columbia University's first tenure African American professor in the sciences. Dr. Hart will go beyond the hype and misinformation perpetuated by the antidrug movement to explain the real effects of drugs and drug policy." Dr. Hart is Co-Director and Professor of Psychology at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University and a nationally recognized author of High Price.

Advocate Dr. Carl Hart, Carl Hart, advocacy, Columbia University, High Price, VIDA Conference 2014, UTEP, University of Texas at El Paso, The House I Live, House I Live In, Slavery By another Name, Drug Abuse, Substance Abuse, drugs, gang behavior, Dr. Robert Duran, New Mexico State University, NMSU, El Paso, Texas, El Paso Texas, Institute for Research in AFrican-American Studies, Criminal Justice, drug policy, neuroscientist, journey, self-discovery, Miami, Hip Hop, Harper, Harper Collins

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Cost of Prisons in the United States

Cost of Prisons in the United States

Site: click here

Prison cost and incarcerated population for each state.

Prison cost, total prison population, incarcerated men, incarcerated women, annual cost per inmate, prison costs, prison budget, taxpayer cost, Texas prison population, New Mexico prison population, California prison population, New Jersey prison population, New York prison population, Florida prison population, United States prison population, prison population research, David Breston

Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor

Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor

New York Times Article: click here

Urbina, Ian. "Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor." New York Times 24 May 2014. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/using-jailed-migrants-as-a-pool-of-cheap-labor.html?_r=1.

The New Jim Crow, Ian Urbina, immigration detention, detained immigrants, prison industrial complex, federal government, prison industry, exploitation, prison slave labor, Jacqueline Stevens, mass incarceration, Michelle Alexander, immigrant rights, immigrant issues, immigration studies

Friday, May 23, 2014

Advocate | The Mission of Marian Wright

The Mission of Marian Wright

I've started to learn how to use the "Labels" function on the blogger system and have decided to create a section to this blog called "Advocates". It's something that I started to keep track of on Zotero, which is a lot harder to manage considering its tucked away inside of their research tool, not as easy to find on search engines, and plus Zotero seems to run out of space quickly. So I'm through using it. I mainly hope to share notes and information online that will have a presence online regardless of whether I have an open account or not. Google is the best tool for someone who is a sponge for information and a self anointed archivist.

Our first Advocte feature is Marian Wright Edelman. I stumbled across this article at work and felt there was a connection to the New Jim Crow read that we covered during the Spring semester of 2014. Several connections, especially in thinking about individuals that paved the way for advocates today, not only in the community but in Marian Wright Edelman's case, as a civil rights lawyer.

The citations below will connect you to an article posted in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and another is to a Ponchitta Peirce article that was published in an Ebony magazine (1966).

As I was watching the video the Lyndon B. Johnson quote stood out to me.

"For the war against poverty will not be won here in Washington, it must be won in the field, in every private home, in every public office from the courthouse to the White House."

Introducing Marian Wright Edelman:

Knaan, Idit, and Suzanne Perry. "War on Poverty Spurs Lifelong Advocacy for Children." The Chronicle of Philanthropy 6 May 2014. Web. http://philanthropy.com/article/War-on-Poverty-Spurs-Lifelong/146391/?cid=pt&utm_source=pt&utm_medium=en.

Pierce, Ponchitta. "The Mission of Marian Wright." Ebony June 1966: 94-97. Web. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ql8CIGb9y5QC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=the+mission+of+marian+wright+ponchitta&source=bl&ots=Q2mT12NNiu&sig=DBmwbQVNKee4esbEp8LJ1rMG5C0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FV9_U_D7NYqMqgbljIDIDA&v.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Introducing Cornell Brooks

NAACP Selects Cornell Brooks as New National Leader

Cornell William Brooks, an attorney and African Methodist Episcopal (AME) clergyman, was elected Friday as the 18th president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, The Washington Post and The New York Times report.

An overwhelming majority of the venerable civil rights group’s 64-member board approved the choice of Mr. Brooks following a six-month search that saw more than 30 candidates interviewed. He replaces Benjamin Jealous, who departed last fall after a five-year tenure that saw him credited with reinvigorating the 105-year-old organization and improving its donor base and finances.

Mr. Brooks is executive director of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, a Newark-based advocacy group. He also owns a home in the Washington, D.C., area, where he serves as associate minister at an AME church. He holds a master’s in divinity from Boston University and a Yale law degree.

The new leader will be introduced to NAACP members at the organization’s annual convention in July. He arrives at a time of renewed budget challenges, with the NAACP recently laying off 7 percent of its national staff. “We are a leaner, more nimble organization for our new president and CEO to build on,” said Roslyn Brock, who chairs the organization’s board.

This entry was posted in News-updates. Bookmark the permalink.

"NAACP Selects Cornell Brooks as New National Leader." Philanthropy Today 19 May 2014. Web. http://philanthropy.com/blogs/philanthropytoday/naacp-selects-cornell-brooks-as-new-national-leader/85511?cid=pt&utm_source=pt&utm_medium=en.