Don’t build better prisons; build a better world!

February 6, 2019 by Dan Moshenberg 1 Comment

According to a report released today, the culmination of two years study of women prisoners in HMP Drake Hall in England, 64 percent of the 173 women interviewed and analyzed were living with brain injury. 64% of women prisoners are living with brain injury. The overwhelming majority had sustained traumatic brain injury due to domestic violence. 96% of the women reported that they had experienced “domestic abuse victimization.” The report notes, “Women with undiagnosed brain injuries, without the provision of specialised and informed support, may struggle to engage in rehabilitation programmes necessary to reduce recidivism, resulting in a higher risk of reoffending.”

Brain injuries would cause women towards behaviors that would land them in jail, particularly “emotional dysregulation (inability to control anger, aggression).” Women end up in jail for short terms. Upon release, the women predictably return to jail within the next year. In jail, the behaviors associated with brain injury – poor memory, lack of concentration, slowness to process information, poor impulse control – keep women from succeeding in any way. It’s a perfect system of entrapment wedded to abandonment. What is left after all this? Damaged women, dead women. Women prisoners self-harm at a rate five times that of men prisoners. Year after year, studies show that for women in England and Wales, `safety in custody’ means harm, death, hopelessness. Much of this is old news.

What is new is the documented prevalence of brain injury among women prisoners. Part of the study involved the establishment of a Brain Injury Linkworker service, which provided the women with desperately needed assistance from trained professionals. While the results are positive and encouraging, there’s one glaring missing from the study. Should these women have been in prison in the first place? Many of the so-called offenses derive in large part from brain injury, and that only increases and intensifies with the repeat offenses. While installing a Brain Injury Linkworker service in every prison and jail, beginning with women’s prisons, is important, more important and immediate should be providing care and assistance to women before they ever enter the criminal justice universe. Perhaps, instead of building better prisons, we might try to build a better world. Another world is possible.

(Image Credit: The Mental Elf)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: brain injury, Dan Moshenberg, England and Wales, Haunts, HMP Drake Hall

Tracy Whited and, once again, the hellhole that is the Harris County Jail

February 3, 2019 by Dan Moshenberg 5 Comments

Welcome to another year in the hellhole that is the Harris County Jail. On Saturday, January 12, 42-year-old Tracy Whited was picked up on a misdemeanor. She had allegedly knifed her ex-boyfriend’s car. She then tried to walk away from booking, and so was hit with a second misdemeanor. When Tracy Whited appeared in court, the hearing officer rejected a no-cash personal bond. Instead, Tracy Whited was hit with a $3000 bail, which she could not afford. On Monday morning, Tracy Whited was found, by another inmate, hanging with a bedsheet from her bunkbed. On Monday, after being found hanging and cut down, Tracy Whited was issued a personal bond. She was in hospital by then. On Wednesday, Tracy Whited died. Tracy Whited was the fifth `apparent’ suicide in the Harris County Jail in two years. The Harris County Sheriff says jail conditions are improving. A state Senator says he’s considering putting the Harris County Jail under state supervision, basically putting it in receivership. The two sides argue, and Tracy Whited is dead.

The Harris County Jail has been sued time and again for its violations of prisoners’ Constitutional rights. In the past two years, the Harris County Jail has been found in noncompliance five times. Again, in the past two years, the Harris County Jail has been home to five “apparent” suicides. The jail is overcrowded, fetid, and worse. Who’s overcrowding the jail? People awaiting trial … innocent until proven guilty. According to the Harris County Jail’s most recent reports, this is what the jail population looks like on the last day of typical recent months. On the last day of October 2018, of 9794 inmates, 8301 were pretrial. On the last day of September 2018, of 9804 inmates, 8482 were awaiting trial. In August 2018, of 9677 inmates, 8261 were awaiting trial. The Harris County Jail monthly census report, going back to January 2015 shows that, while the numbers may vary, though only slightly, the percentages stay more or less fixed. On any given month, well over 80% of those sitting, and often dying, in Harris County Jail are pretrial, the overwhelmingly majority of whom are there because they couldn’t afford bail. No. The overwhelming majority are there because Harris County insists that everyone must pay to play. That’s why it’s called criminal justice.

Tracy Whited was only the most recent in this cavalcade of those not rich enough to qualify for something like justice, and so poor enough to be condemned to death. In August 2018, Debora Lyons was picked up on a theft charge. Her bail was at $1500. Within days, she was found hanging from a bedsheet in the Harris County Jail. These deaths are not accidents nor are they suicides. They are a public program of abandonment. Debora Lyons last year and Tracy Whited this year were `left to their own devices’, which means they were left to hang from bedsheets.

In 2013, a women, referred to as Jane Doe, was raped. Jane Doe lives with bipolar disorder. In December 2015, Jane Doe testified against the man who raped her. Midway through her testimony, she broke down. Initially, Jane Doe was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward. Once “stabilized”, Jane Doe was sent to the Harris County Jail, where she stayed for 28 days, waiting for the trial to proceed. Jane Doe “was imprisoned in the hellhole of the Harris County Jail for no reason other than being a rape victim who struggles with a mental disability.”

In jail, Jane Doe was assaulted, insulted, verbally abused, demeaned, and worse. She was put in with the general population, even though there is a mental health unit in the jail. She was assaulted by staff who said they were confused and thought she was the rapist. In the end as throughout, Jane Doe cooperated with officials and completed her testimony, in January 2016.

In July 2016 Jane Doe sued Harris County. In July, “Jane Doe” was renamed “Jenny”. Jenny’s mother sued Harris County as she pushed legislators to address the nightmare situation. In April 2017, the Texas Senate unanimously and without debate approved “Jenny’s Law” requires a defense attorney be appointed for witnesses and victims and that would receive a full hearing before a judge could sign a writ of attachment and send them off to jail in order to secure their testimony at trial. Jenny’s mother wrote, “Putting a victim in jail should never be an option. Today Jenny is still struggling with the entire trauma she endured by the rapist and also being re-victimized by the justice system.”

The line from Jenny to Tracy Whited is direct. Tracy Whited is dead because she couldn’t come up with $3000. Debora Lyons couldn’t find $1500. How much is your life worth? Atrocities will continue in the Harris County Jail, and beyond, until the bail-to-prison pipeline is shut down, once and for all. Maybe one day, Texas will enact a Tracy’s Law, ending bail and beginning the long slow walk to justice and healing. Until then, corpses will continue to pile up. It’s in the numbers.

(Photo Credit: Houston Chronicle)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dan Moshenberg, Debora Lyons, Harris County Jail, Haunts, Texas, Tracy Whited

In Saudi Arabia, reports of torture of women’s rights activists

January 30, 2019 by Nichole Smith 1 Comment

Women’s and human rights activists, who have been arrested and arbitrarily detained for their activism, are being abused in Saudi Arabia prisons. Amnesty International obtained new reports of torture and escalating abuse of human rights activists who had been detained since May 2018. Their testimony matched earlier Amnesty reports concerning ten activist women prisoners who were tortured in November 2018. The new reports document that the incarcerated have been subjected to torture, including sexual abuse, during their first three months of detention, when they were detained informally in an unknown location. “One woman activist was wrongly told by an interrogator that her family members had died, and was made to believe this for an entire month. According to another account, two activists were forced to kiss each other while interrogators watched. One activist reported that interrogators had forced water into her mouth as she was shouting while being torture. Others reported being tortured with electric shocks.”

Earlier reports state that while informally detained, activists were tortured with electric shocks and flogged repeatedly, which caused some to be unable to walk or even stand properly. More recent reports expand the number of activists who have experienced such torture while in prison.

The activists – including Loujain al-Hathloul; Eman al-Nahjan; Aziza al-Yousef; Shadan al-Anezi; and Nouf Abdulaziz – were moved from the Dhahban Prison in Jeddag to Al-Ha’ir Prison in Riyadh. Other activists, including Samar Badawi and Amal al-Harbi, are still in Dhahban Prison. Nassima al-Sada was moved to al-Mabahith Prison in Damman. All activists have been detained for months without being formally charged or referred to trial. The crackdown on human rights activists saw a wave of arrests and raids of political and activist organizations, including the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, human rights lawyers and academics.

Saudi Arabia has dismissed Amnesty’s claims, calling them baseless while also defending their use of their own independent investigation into the allegations. Saudi backed investigators visited the women in prison and interviewed the detainees. Given Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the killing of journalist and regime-critic Jamal Khashoggi and the high-profile case of 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammad, the latest cases of human rights abuses from the Saudi regime could damage their ability “to attract foreign investment” and so any State-sponsored investigations are highly suspect.

The women and activists detained are being used as political pawns for good international PR in Saudi Arabia. Insiders have hoped that the women will be released in time to coincide with a signification international event, like the 2020 G20 Summit set to be held in Riyadh. They hope the Saudi regime will attempt to wrap up any more “embarrassing things” on the international stage before the meeting is set to take place. Activists like Bessma Momani, a professor at the University of Waterloo, and groups of other academics, are working to nominate al-Hatloul for the Nobel Peace Prize, with the hope that the importance of the nomination highlights “a young person who wants nothing more than to see half of her country have the same legal rights as the other half.”

(Photo Credit: CBC)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Loujain Al-Hathloul, Nichole Smith, Saudi Arabia, women, women's rights

Dafne McPherson Veloz and Leyla Güven ask, “When will we know freedom?”

January 26, 2019 by Dan Moshenberg 24 Comments

On Friday, January 25, 55-year-old Leyla Güven walked out of Diyarbakır Prison, in southeastern Turkey. Leyla Güven had been on hunger strike for 79 days and was in poor health when she was released. Leyla Güven had been in prison since January 2018. On Thursday, January 24, 29-year-old Dafne McPherson Veloz walked out of prison in San Juan del Río, in Querétaro in north central Mexico. Dafne McPherson Veloz had spent three years and four months in prison of a 16-year sentence. News media report Leyla Güven as “released” from prison, as “freed”. News media report also describe Dafne McPherson Veloz as “freed” and “released.” Leyla Güven still faces trial and a possible sentence of 100 years. Upon leaving prison, Dafne McPherson Veloz said, “They stole those years from me, but I made myself stronger and harder.” What is freedom in this world, this world where women are routinely falsely accused and held? When the age of mass and hyper incarceration is over, will we have any means of recognizing freedom? Will we know freedom?

In 2015, Dafne McPherson Veloz worked in department store. She was the mother of a three-year-old child. One day, Dafne McPherson Veloz felt abdominal pains. They grew severe. She went to the restroom. The pains persisted. Finally, to her great surprise, Dafne McPherson Veloz gave birth to a child, who subsequently died of asphyxiation. Dafne McPherson Veloz went into shock and fainted in the bathroom. Immediately afterwards, she was charged with and convicted of homicide and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Dafne McPherson Veloz spent over three years behind bars, all the time maintaining her innocence. Doctors say she suffered from hypothyroidism, the symptoms of which masked the pregnancy. Although Dafne McPherson Veloz went to the doctors, none mentioned that she was or might be pregnant. Dafne McPherson Veloz and her attorneys have argued consistently that her trial was improper, both because of inadequate evidence and because the judge relied on “stereotypes” of how a woman, a “good mother”, should live. In other words, Dafne McPherson Veloz “should have known” she was pregnant and so she was found guilty of murder.

Prior to her arrest, Dafne McPherson Veloz was not well known. Leyla Güven, on the other hand, is a prominent Kurdish activist, an elected official who has been detained before. Leyla Güven is an MP for the People’s Democratic Party, a pro-Kurdish party; and is a Co-Chair for the Democratic Society Congress. According to a recent statement by Angela Davis, “Leyla Güven … has been on an indefinite hunger strike for the last two months. Having dedicated her political efforts over the years to the struggle against the Turkish state’s illegal military invasions and occupations of Kurdish regions and against Turkey’s continuing human rights abuses, she now offers her life in protest of the isolation of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and other Kurdish political prisoners. Ms. Guven is a major inspiration to people throughout the world who believe in peace, justice and liberation. I join all those who support her and stand in condemnation of the repressive conditions of Mr. Ocalan’s imprisonment.” Leyla Güven faces more than 100 years in prison for the crime of having criticized Turkish military operations in the predominantly Kurdish town of Afrin in northern Syria.

We could name other women prisoners in Turkey and Mexico, and pretty much everywhere else in the world. Mexico has its particularities as does Turkey, and so the disturbing aspect here is that of the mirroring. When Dafne McPherson Veloz walked out of prison, she said the prosecutors “didn’t investigate… They didn’t do a thing … That’s why there are people inside who shouldn’t be in prison.” She added, “The only thing I can say to other women who are in my situation is never lose hope.”

Where women’s life time is stolen, what is freedom? Where women continue to be threatened, what is freedom? Where women must live with the trauma and memory of having been caged, what is freedom? Where prisons become hellholes that house 85-year-old women and two-year-old girls, and everyone in between, what is freedom? It’s time, it’s way past time, to investigate freedom itself, to do something, to pull not only the innocent but the scarred out of prison. It’s time once again to never lose hope. It’s the only thing I can say.

(Photo Credit 1: Bianet) (Photo Credit 2: El Pais)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dafne McPherson Veloz, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Leyla Güven, Mexico, prison

What goes on in New Jersey’s county jails? Overcrowding. Suicide. Death.

January 23, 2019 by Nichole Smith Leave a Comment

In 2018, New Jersey was embroiled in a federal investigation into rampant sexual abusein the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for women. That investigation culminated in several criminal investigations, indictments of correctional officers and a committee hearing that hopefully will bring some positive changes to the state prison – if positive changesand prisoncan be put together in the same sentence. But what is going on in New Jersey’s county jails may be even more insidious and too often falls under the radar. Twenty of the state’s 21 counties have jails, and they operate with little oversight from the state DOC.

According to the latest figures available from the DOJ, the Garden State jails have the highest per-capita death rate among the 30 states with the largest jail populations. The biggest driver of rising death rates was suicides committed by people suffering from untreated drug addictions and mental illnesses.

The rate of suicides in New Jersey county jails has risen an average of 55% each year between 2012 and 2016. With the exception of Hudson County, these deaths have garnered very little government attention, and action. Hudson County increased spending on mental health and stepped up screenings as part of the intake process for prisoners. Even so, in Hudson County, of 17 recorded deaths at the jail since 2013, officials could only find six incident reports. Between June 2017 and March 2018 alone, six inmates died in the Hudson County jail.

Cynthia Acosta committed suicide at the Hudson County jail. Acosta had been receiving help for drug abuse and admitted herself to an inpatient mental health program at Christ Hospital in Jersey City, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Medication was helping to stabilize her, according to her brother, David Acosta.

Ready to find her own place and about to file for housing assistance, Cynthia Acosta needed a copy of her identification record. She drove to a government office in Hoboken despite having a suspended driver’s license and was arrested by North Bergen police officers for past traffic violations. Her medicine was left in the car after her arrest. Three days later she was dead.

Cynthia’s death was preventable. Having been booked in the Hudson facility, she was housed in the combined medical and mental health unit, “a small, windowless, triangle-shaped room bordered by three cells, a shower and a nurses’ station.” The Director of the jail has acknowledged that the nurses didn’t have enough training and resources to deal with mental health issues. Neverthelss, he claimed defended that inmates were properly monitored … despite the suicide rate.

The issues do not stop at North Jersey. In Cumberland County, a man from Vineland became the seventh inmate to die from suicide at the county jail since 2015. The Atlantic County Jail has had six suicides in the past three years. Housing inmates and then completely disregarding their need for mental heath has become normalized across New Jersey. Multiple lawsuits against county jails have become the new norm, with family members demanding answers.

Meanwhile, county contracts with ICE have led to massive overcrowding in county jails. Bergen County jails nearly tripled its capacity for federal detainees. Hudson county is at 134% of its capacity. The three biggest county governments – Bergen, Hudson, and Essex – are now earning a total of $6 milliona month to hold immigrants in their county jails. Bergen County’s contract with ICE contributes to 7.4% of Bergen’s “miscellaneous” non-tax revenues. Holding undocumented immigrants is big business.

Hidden in plain sight, New Jersey’s county jails contribute to such notorious abuses and neglect that they should be front and center of media headlines. But being quiet and closing our eyes is very good for business.

(Photo Credit 1: Reena Rose Sibayan / Jersey Jour/ NJ.com) (Photo Credit 2: David Acosta / NJ.com)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Cynthia Acosta, jail deaths, jail suicide, jails, New Jersey, Nichole Smith

Why does Wales insist on incarcerating so many women?

January 16, 2019 by Dan Moshenberg 7 Comments

Today, the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University released a report, Sentencing and Immediate Custody in Wales: A Factfile. It’s the first report to disaggregate Wales incarceration figures from those of England. Wales has the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe, with England a close second. Wales comes in at 148 per 100,000; England at 141 per 100,000; Scotland at 135 per 100,000 and bursting at the seams. Northern Ireland lags with a mere 78 per 100,000. (The United States clocks in at 698 per 100,000). The numbers in Wales reflect a State criminal justice system that is deeply racist and misogynist. The report concludes, “While the discovery that Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe is a cause of major concern, equally disturbing is that such an alarming trend has emerged in Wales without detection.” The alarming trend is “that non-White Welsh prisoners are overrepresented in prison and that the likelihood of receiving a short-term sentence is greater for those sentenced in Wales than in England.” Who receives the short-term sentences? Women.

Women: “Women are more likely to be given shorter custodial sentences than men. More than three quarters (78.6%) of all females sentenced to immediate custody in Wales between 2010 and 2017 were handed sentences of less than 12 months. This compared to 67% of male offenders sentenced in Wales during this period. The frequent use of short-term sentences often brings considerable `chaos and disruption’ to the lives of women and their families. Recent research has also shown that women sentenced to short-term custodial sentences are more likely to re-offend than those sentenced to a court order … One in four women (24.8%) sentenced to immediate custody in Wales were sentenced to a period of one month or less in prison between 2010 and 2017. This compared to a rate of 15.2% for men in Wales.”

At one level, none of this is new. England and Wales, taken together, have had the highest prison population rate in Western Europe since 1999. Year after year after year, the incidence of women’s suicide and women’s self-harm while in custody has broken previous records. What is new is that Wales is worse, and that the cornerstone of being Incarcerator Number One is race and gender. The report does not provide intersectional data, for example the treatment of Black women in Wales, but one can only imagine that if it’s bad of Black people and it’s bad for women…

Why does Wales insist on incarcerating so many women? Protection. The State is [a] protecting women from themselves and [b] protecting women as vulnerable beings. Women are being arrested more often for minor offenses, and then are being imprisoned for short periods of time, all this despite volumes of research that document that short-term “custodial sentences” do not work. Put differently, they succeed in further and more deeply enmeshing women into prison networks. What is the mechanism that combines pipeline and revolving door? Ask the women of Wales. For women, living in Wales, “one of the poorest parts of the UK”, has become both a survival to prison pipeline and a never-ending and ever faster spinning revolving door. Tell the Welch government, tell the “justice agencies in Wales as well as civil society organisations and academic researchers” that living as a woman is not a crime.

(Infographic: BBC)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dan Moshenberg, England and Wales, Wales, women

Cyntoia Brown: “I learned my life was—and is—not over. I can create opportunities where I can actually help people.”

January 15, 2019 by Nichole Smith 4 Comments

Cyntoia Brown was young when she was forced into sex-trafficking and was a teen prostitute under her pimp. At sixteen she killed the man who made a conscious decision to buy her for the night for sex and, fearing punishment from the other man who had forced her into prostitution, stole his money and fled. Because some money is better than nothing.

When she was sixteen, Brown was considered competent to be tried as an adult, convicted of murder and robbery, and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, Tennessee amended its juvenile sentencing guidelines. Her case helped to alter how the state deals with sex trafficking victims, especially juvenile victims. In the eyes of Tennessee today, she would have been a victim of multiple crimes done upon her. Nevertheless, she was kept in prison. She would have had to spend 51 years in prison before she became eligible for parole. She would have spent her whole life in prison for the violent acts of men.

Thanks to activists and organizers, the outgoing Tennessee Governor Bill Halsam granted clemency to 30-year-old Brown, and she is set to be released to parole supervision in August. However noble Halsam’s clemency sentence is, the state has continued to ignore the terms of Brown’s exploitation, as a young sex trafficking victim boughtfor sex by the man that she killed: “Cyntoia Brown committed, by her own admission, a horrific crime at the age of 16. Yet, imposing a life sentence on a juvenile that would require her to serve at least 51 years before even being eligible for parole consideration is too harsh, especially in light of the extraordinary steps Ms. Brown has taken to rebuild her life. Transformation should be accompanied by hope.”

In the 2011 documentary “Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story,” Brown’s life as a survivor of abuse is detailed by Brown herself, where she was trafficked and raped repeatedly at a young age, from her pimp and other men. Evidence revealed in the documentary also suggests that Brown suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome which can cause her brain damage. None of the jury that convicted Brown ever saw any of that evidence. Her experiences as a young child had drastically changed her behavior as a teenager, putting her on the wrong side of the law.

Brown has excelled in prison, transforming herself and helping other at-risk youth as a mentor, working on receiving a bachelor’s degree with the goal of creating a nonprofit so she can help other people. Cyntoia Brown would not have been in prison had our society cared about the exploitation of young Black girls, putting them in prison for the consequences of actions that were survival choices.

Cyntoia Brown may have been thrown into prison, the system may have wanted her to disappear into oblivion like other youths with similar stories, but Brown’s optimism and desire to help others like her is proof that the opposite has occurred. On top of her work with at-risk-youths in collaboration with Tennessee’s Juvenile Justice System, she graduated from Lipscomb University in 2015 with an associate’s degree, and now uses her experience for continued good, “I learned my life was—and is—not over. I can create opportunities where I can actually help people.”

(Photo Credit: Tennessean)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Cyntoia Brown, Nichole Smith, Tennessee

This is a thank you note to South African feminist writers, doctors of the mind, heart, and soul

January 13, 2019 by Lilly Fulmer Leave a Comment

Writing is more than just the presence of words on a page. As much as writing is a repository of knowledge, it is also a living, breathing thing capable of healing and reconstructing. The words in a book do not merely exist in the static moment of a sentence; but they can also reshape and revitalize the lives of those who craft and read them. In a specifically South African context, writing is a dynamic revolutionary and restorative tool. Written works by South African feminists tell of the past as they breathe life into a better future. These writers are doctors in their own right; mending parts of their own lives and those within a larger collective, using their words to stitch together what has been torn open. We should regard these individuals in the same way that we do doctors; they have the capacity to save lives with the work they do, to stitch together broken pieces intricately and profoundly.

We need to look at writing as something revolutionary not just because it challenges ideas, but because it has the power to radically alter our own life and the lives of others. We need to see more spaces organized with the intention of bringing together writers and works that have the power to heal. The history of South African feminist activism speaks of efforts to rebuild and reclaim. It is critical that there are spaces within South Africa (and abroad) that support the sharing of radical and restorative texts. We should be able to call a collective of South African feminist writers a conference of medical professionals. While they may not perform surgeries or shrink tumors, their works have the power to ease mind, heart, and soul. I argue that collections of pieces such as Feminism Is: South Africans Speak Their Truth are medical journals. We need more books like these that foster healing writing and support restorative conversations between authors and readers. We need more conferences, discussions, and forums that acknowledge and actively promote the life-saving work that feminist writers do. When we move beyond just looking at physical health, we open ourselves up to an intellectual activist world rife with possibility.

Writing is a tool for both its creator and its consumer. South African feminists who retell their stories, craft feminist futures, or simply muse on what it means to be who they are may very well be healing themselves while they work. Their writing also serves to help others move past what has wounded them. Collections of South African feminist writing, voices amplified and in conversation with each other, are healing grounds for many people. These books, or medical journals as I’ll call them, serve as accessible and powerful points within a larger conversation. They lay the groundwork not only for a restored feminist South African future, but for other futures as well. It is naive to assume that writing only serves to inform others. It is also crucial to understand that feminist writing can be transformative and life-saving for anyone who interacts with it.

This is a case to shift the conversation on South African feminist writing, which should not just concern itself with the words on a page. Rather we should look at the radical potential of written pieces crafted by South African feminists. There is a great healing power in the books, poems, sentences, and words crafted by South African feminist authors. This is a sales pitch for a medical journal composed of works by South African feminists, whose works redefine both activism and healing. Most of all, this is a thank you note to them, those doctors of the mind, heart, and soul, whose works have helped me and others in the continuous process of healing.

What happens when we start to understand doctors as not just those who help others physically? We open the door to a world where we can decolonize our minds and heal as a collective, inspired and strengthened by the lives and stories of powerful people. Moving beyond that, we begin to put more stock into the sharing of lived experience and collective healing. Giving weight and validity to South African feminist writers allows the authors and those touched by their work the opportunity to grow and shape whatever future they see fit.

(Photo Credit: BooksLive)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Lilly Fulmer, South Africa, South African feminist writers

In Mexico, journalist Lydia Cacho persisted, and yesterday she won

January 11, 2019 by Dan Moshenberg 31 Comments

Yesterday, January 10, 2019, the Mexican government formally and publicly apologized to Lydia Cacho for having kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured her seventeen years ago. For far more than seventeen years, Lydia Cacho has insisted on uncovering and reporting the truth concerning violence against women and children. She persisted. This week, in response to the apology, Lydia Cacho said, “If women such as myself have struggled for human rights to the point of risking our lives, the least the government can do is to protect its journalists … They told us that journalism was men’s work and that human rights are mere sentimentality. I have already forgiven my torturers because I never allowed them to colonize either my body or my soul.” She persisted.

In 2003, Lydia Cacho started writing a series on a pedophilia sex ring in Cancun. The police did nothing in response, and so in 2004, Lydia Cacho wrote Los demonios del Edén (The Demons of Eden: The Power That Protects Child Pornography), which detailed the conditions and horrors of the ring. In December 2005, police officers from Puebla kidnapped Lydia Cacho, drove her almost a thousand miles to Puebla, where she was held and subjected to death threats, rape threats and other forms of psychological terror. After a half day in jail, she was released, but the threats continued. Tape recordings revealed a plot to kidnap, rape and murder her. Lydia Cacho sued the governor of Puebla for having violated her human and civil rights, as a woman and as a journalist. In 2007, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled against Lydia Cacho. She persisted.

For the next twelve years, Lydia Cacho continued to research and write exposes of violence against women and children in Mexico and beyond. She continued to press for the dignity of journalists as well as women and children. She continued to press for the dignity of Mexico as well. Last year, Last August the United Nations Commission on Human Rights declared that Lydia Cacho’s rights had been violated. Yesterday, finally, the government of Mexico agreed. The Assistant Secretary for Human Rights Alejandro Encinas declared: “On behalf of the Mexican State, I offer you a public apology for the violation of your human rights in the exercise of your right to freedom of expression.” He then enumerated the five categories of rights violations for which he, and Mexico, were atoning: violation of the right to freedom of expression; arbitrary detention; torture as an instrument of investigation; violence and discrimination based on gender; impunity and corruption encouraged by institutions. Olga Sánchez, the Head of the Ministry of the Interior, added: “We are here today to offer apologies on behalf of the Mexican government to Lydia Cacho and to confirm that the government of the Republic of Andrés Manuel López Obrador will not be subservient to private interests”.

Lydia Cacho persisted. Thanks to Lydia Cacho,impunity no longer holds carte blanche in Mexico. Journalism matters. Women matter. Elections matter. The truth matters. In this period of menace, of expanding assassination and torture of human rights and women’s rights defenders and of journalists, exposing the demons of Eden matters. Today’s good, if fragile, news: Lydia Cacho persisted, and yesterday, we all won.

(Photo Credit: Animal Politico)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Mexico

New Jersey’s Police Have an Excessive Force Problem

January 9, 2019 by Nichole Smith Leave a Comment

“Police have the right to punch you if you’re resisting arrest. They have the right to tackle you if they think you might flee. And they have the right to shoot you if they fear for their lives. The single greatest authority granted a police officer is the right to harm another person, and most use it sparingly to protect themselves and the public. But who’s watching the ones who abuse their power?”

NJ Advance Media for NJ.com recently published a 16-month investigation, which found that the tracking for New Jersey’s police use of excessive force is broken, with no statewide collection, little oversight by state officials and no standard practices in the department. NJ.com compiled nearly 73,000 instances of use-of-force, covering municipal police departments and State Police from 2012 through 2016, filing 506 public records requests to highlight the extraordinary use of excessive force on New Jerseyans by the state’s law enforcement.

The report highlight a disturbing trend: around ten percent of officers account for 38 percent of all uses of force, with a total of 296 officers using force more than five times the state average. Between 2012 and 2016 9,302 people were injured by police; 4,210 of those were serious enough cases that required hospital care. At least 156 officers put at least one person in the hospital in each of the five years under review.

In New Jersey, populations of color fare far worse in than whites. People of color are three times more likely to face police force. For example, in Lakewood, a Black person 21 times more likely to face police force than whites. Because of inconsistent and lackluster reporting, New Jersey fails to monitor trends to flag officers who use disproportionately excessive amounts of force. Though the state recently implemented an early warning system to identify potential problem officers, they did not mandate tracking use-of-force trends as a criterion for tracking.

From the local to the state level, police officers are not held accountable when their excessive use of force puts people in harm’s way and are able to continue working without fear of losing their jobs. The numbers of people hurt in the process of being put in contact with police is staggering. One officer in Camden reported injuring 27 people in the four-year span alone.

The report highlights the state’s complete relinquishment of responsibility for its citizens. As police officers are able to use deadly force on Black bodies, they get away punishment free because of a lack of consistent and modern reporting on use of force.

The groundbreaking report also has its enemies in the Policeman’s Benevolent Association, or PBA, whose president, Patrick Colligan, issued a two-page response, criticizing, “The state of the journalism industry.” His criticism did not address the substantial numbers of excessive force New Jersey police have used and continued to use on marginalized communities. Police must be held accountable, both for the racist discrimination and violence perpetrated on Black people and Black communities and for the extraordinary number of citizens they have injured or sent to the hospital over the small span of four to five years. Change must come to address the use of excessive force in the state, and accountability needs to be addressed in the 468 local police departments as in the state police. That means standing up to a large group of PBA and supporters when tackling the issue in the future. Until then, more people will get hurt and marginalized communities will be the worst hit. (Click here to see the town and county breakdown of police use of force in the state of the New Jersey.)

(Infographic credit: NJ.com)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: excessive force, New Jersey, Nichole Smith