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Books Not Bars

"If there's anything like Dante's hell on earth, it's 34 miles from here up the Hudson River."
- Manning Marable, Professor and Director of African-African Studies at Columbia University, describing Sing-Sing Penitentiary in New York.

The State of American Prisons

In the United States today, there are approximately 2.1 million inmates in federal and state or local jails. The incarceration rate over the past decade has risen steadily at an average of 6% annually. Currently 6.7 million American residents - up 265% since 1990 - are under some sort of supervision of the criminal justice system, through incarceration, probation, or parole. At 715 inmates per 100,000 of the population, the rate of incarceration in the United States is the highest in the world. Young people of color are incarcerated at disproportionately high rates. Of the persons in state and federal prisons, 45% are black, though blacks make up only 13% of the total United States population. Whites constitute 36% of all inmates, though they make up over 70% of United States residents. It has been estimated that one in every three black males between the ages of 15 and 25 is currently under correctional control and that one in every three black males will be incarcerated at least once in their lifetimes. The civil disenfranchisement of former felons has meant that 13% of the black male population has lost the right to vote. As Manning Marable notes, the stripping of voting rights has effectively created an "American dalit." Though crime rates have fallen over the past three decades, today's jail and prison system is 10 times larger than that of 30 years ago. The American emphasis on increased criminalization and incarceration as remedy to social problems has resulted in ever-escalating government spending on prisons. The trend towards retributive versus rehabilitative and restorative justice has had a profound impact on young Americans.

Youth Incarceration

Children in the United States are being prosecuted as adults and sent to adult prisons with increasing frequency. Though the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners explicitly states that "[y]oung prisoners shall be kept separate from adults", over 40 states have adopted measures which facilitate the prosecution of juveniles as adult offenders. While juvenile courts have always had provisions for waiving its jurisdiction over the most serious offences (such as homicide or rape), transfers to adult criminal courts were historically limited to only defendants who, in the judgment of the court, could not be rehabilitated under the juvenile justice system. In the past decade, the use of transfers has increased dramatically as societal attitudes towards criminal justice have shifted away from rehabilitation towards retribution and incapacitation. The fear of the youthful predator has also fueled legislation that allows prosecutors to automatically remove children from juvenile court jurisdiction to try as adults if they are accused of committing a serious crime. The notion of the dangerous young offender persists even as arrest rates for juveniles decreases nationwide. Minority youths are also disparately impacted under the juvenile justice system. Studies have found that children of color are disproportionately waived into criminal court. For example, in states where blacks make up only 7 to 27% of the total population, 60 to 88% of juvenile court waivers involved black youths. Though studies have shown that prosecuting children as adults and incarcerating them in adult prisons have not served as any measurable deterrence in juvenile crime, the ideology that young offenders must be severely punished to prevent them from becoming even more hardened criminals remains prevalent.

The trend towards increased incarceration, lengthier sentences, and jailing younger offenders has placed a burden on the corrections system, where prisons are already overcrowded and bed space is scarce. In recent years, the governmental remedy for this problem has been to build more prisons.

The Prison Industrial Complex

The term "prison industrial complex" refers to the prison system and the attendant businesses and industries that benefit from the continued existence and functioning of prisons. A growing prison population coupled with insistent public demands for efficiency and reduction in government spending has made privatization of prison administration and services attractive to many states and the federal government. While the number of prisoners housed in private facilities remains low, private prisons produce substantial profits for the corporations contracted to manage them. Even publicly-administered prisons generate income for private corporations.

The establishment of new prisons engages directly the services of contracted technological industries for surveillance and security equipment and construction companies for the building of prisons. Prison labor, justified as rehabilitative and correctional, allows corporations to engage the services of a non-unionized and politically powerless workforce. Employers benefit economically from the exceptionally low wages paid to inmates and exemptions from providing health insurance or worker's compensation. Prisons are fast becoming one of America's highest growth industries. In 1994, the Federal Crime Bill allocated $9.7 billion for new prison construction. Nationwide, a total of some $46 billion is spent annually on prisons.

The Books Not Bars Campaign

In 2001, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBCHR) launched the Books Not Bars campaign to challenge increasing youth incarceration. EBCHR has been working to document, expose, and challenge human rights abuses in the criminal justice system for the past five years. The new Books Not Bars campaign engages in public education and grassroots action with communities most impacted by the criminal justice system to fight against over-incarceration and to advocate for the reallocation of prison spending on education funding. In 1997, California spent more money on its corrections program than on education.

Currently, while it has the highest expenditures in the nation for prison spending, California ranks 43rd in funding for education. Arguing that the costs associated with the construction of new prisons and juvenile detention facilities could be put to better use providing education, programs, and services to youth, Books Not Bars embarked on an advocacy campaign to shift the governmental focus away from punishment to rehabilitation and education. The Books Not Bars project is structured around three fundamental goals: to reallocate prison spending to funding for education; to remove the profit incentive for industries involved in the prison industrial complex; and to advocate for a system of restorative justice rather than furthering the present model of retribution. Rachel Jackson from Books Not Bars remarks: "In schools today, you can go to juvie for a school fight instead of the principal's office."

In March 2000, voters in California passed Proposition 21, which allowed 14-year olds to be tried in adult courts and 16-year olds to be housed in adult prisons. A coalition of youth activists in the San Francisco Bay Area launched massive protests against the implementation of the proposition. Although the proposition won at the polls, the newly galvanized youth activists were not done fighting against the prison industrial complex. When Oakland's Alameda County revealed plans to dramatically expand its juvenile hall, the newly formed Books Not Bars teamed up with local youth activists to protest the "Super-Jail" for youth and the first Books Not Bars local action campaign was born. Advocating for programs providing alternatives to incarceration rather than pouring more money into building an expanded juvenile hall, Books Not Bars and the Bay area's Youth Force Coalition began organizing protests and rallies, conducting workshops, distributing public education literature, meeting with county officials, and gathering community support for a smaller juvenile hall. The campaign to Stop the Super Jail for Youth has won three key successes. After organizing a 70-person protest at a Board of Corrections (BOC) hearing in Spring 2001, youths persuaded the BOC to deny $2.3 million in pre-approved state funding for the juvenile hall's construction. The campaign also convinced county officials to reduce the planned expansion by half. Originally, Alameda County planned on adding 240 new beds to its massive 299-bed facility, bringing the total number of beds to 540. But, after months of youth advocacy and organizing, officials agreed in October 2001 to add only 120 new beds and build a 420-bed facility. Since then, Books Not Bars and Youth Force Coalition have kept the pressure on and a third win is on the horizon.

In early 2002, Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, a former staunch opponent of the campaign, announced plans to support construction of an even smaller juvenile hall adding only 31 new beds for a total of 330-beds! The full Board of Supervisors voted to support Haggerty's plan, and construction of the 330-bed juvenile hall is underway. The reduction in size of the new juvenile hall represents a third victory for the campaign against the proposed "superjail", led by Books Not Bars and Youth Force Coalition. Yet more successes for the campaign were imminent. In spring 2002, Books Not Bars and four nationally renowned juvenile justice policy groups published "Alameda County At The Crossroads". The report's scathing critique of the plans for the Super-Jail and unceasing pressure from Dublin residents and environmentalists prompted the Supervisors to look for alternative locations for the planned juvenile hall. Eventually on 6 May 2004, the remaining resolve of the Supervisors crumbled under massive public pressure when the Board passed a unanimous vote to adhere to the demands of the local community. The new juvenile hall will only have a 25% increase in bed size (of only 61 new beds) and will be located in the center of Alameda County, so that families can more easily visit and support their children.

Today, Books Not Bars is pushing to take these kinds of successes to new levels. As part of their campaign to shift state spending priorities in the juvenile justice system from punishment towards opportunity, Books Not Bars launched a report on Governor Davis's atrocious budget plans for the state in July 2003. The report demanded cuts in prison spending and concurrent savings in education spending. Following Governor Davis's unprecedented recall, and the election of new governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Books Not Bars continues to advocate for increased funding for the education and rehabilitation of those within the juvenile justice system in California.

Books Not Bars Family Advocacy, a local program of Books Not Bars, is an advocacy, training, service and organizing project for families of youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system. Based in Oakland, the Books Not Bars Family Advocacy Project's mission is to lower the youth jail population, following a two pronged strategy of helping families advocate for their kids; and fighting for alternative programs that can take the place of incarceration.

Let's Get Free, a primary member of the Youth Force Coalition that worked with Books Not Bars to "Stop the SuperJail" is now working to support the work and goals of Books Not Bars in the Oakland/Alameda area by leading a campaign to stop the transfer of youth from Alameda County to the notorious California Youth Authority. The current "Alternatives for Youth" campaign of Books Not Bars is striving to get knocked down and replaced with a model that works to rehabilitate and not punish young people. WITNESS is at present working in partnership with Books Not Bars on the production of a documentary focusing on the campaign "Alternatives for Youth".

Together, Books Not Bars, Let's Get Free and Youth Force Coalition continue to work to get Alameda County to invest more in developing alternative programs to detention centers and keep its new halls' 360 beds empty and streets safe.

WITNESS teamed up with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the Rights Now campaign of Columbia University's Human Rights Institute to produce Books Not Bars, the video. This short piece documents the inspiring youth-led movement against the massive prison industry in the U.S. "Books Not Bars" illustrates the race disparities and overall negative impact of this for-profit prison industry on youth " particularly those from communities of color. With music by Dead Prez and Sweet Honey in the Rock, "Books Not Bars" reveals public misperceptions about the criminalization of youth, especially youth of color, and highlights the relationship between increases in prison spending and decreases in education spending.

"Books Not Bars" is accompanied by a lesson plans for high school educators which were co-developed by Street Law. It places these issues within the framework of human rights education and encourages students to think critically about those civil and human rights implicated by the incarceration of youth in America. To read and download the lesson plans.

WITNESS and the Books Not Bars project of the Ella Baker Center teamed up again in 2004 to produce "System Failure" a follow up video to "Books Not Bars" which highlights the failures of the California Youth Authority (CYA) through the stories of the children and families caught in the machinery of California's juvenile prisons. "System Failure" is directed toward policymakers, parents of imprisoned children, and community organizations that can be mobilized to call for a total reform of the system. Watch "System Failure" and find out how you can help support the call for the reform of the CYA.