For the Children?: Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State by Erica R. Meiners

Author:Erica R. Meiners [Meiners, Erica R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: EDU000000 Education / General, LAW026000 Law / Criminal Law / General
ISBN: 9781452951690
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2016-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

Awful Acts

In the early spring of 2009, after thirty years locked inside Illinois prisons for convictions for armed robbery and sexual assault, Julius Anderson arrived at St. Leonard’s Ministries (SLM), a residence for formerly incarcerated people on Chicago’s west side (or “West Haven,” a designation realtors recently minted). Affiliated Psychologists, the mental health services agency contracted by the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), had evaluated Julius in 2006 and did not find that he was a habitual offender who required ongoing confinement but instead recommended parole (Main and Hussain 2011). Providing free services for over forty years — food, clothing, housing, and access to services including job training and education — SLM is one of the few residential transitional housing spaces for the tens of thousands of people who exit prisons and jails every year in Illinois and return to six of Chicago’s seventy-seven neighborhoods — Austin, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, Englewood, West Englewood, and East Garfield Park (La Vigne et al. 2003, 2004). In 2012, 30,172 people exited prison and jails in Illinois; across the United States, approximately 643,488 people come out of state prisons each year (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2014).

Like Julius, over 95 percent of people housed in state prisons will return to communities resplendent with underfunded public schools, hyperpolicing, high unemployment, food deserts, and shrinking public services. People are released from prison in Illinois after serving their sentences (unless they were given an indeterminate sentence or convicted as a class C prisoner) with only the clothes on their back the day they were admitted, a bus ticket (if needed), and the money in their commissary account. Some prisons might also give a person a few dollars, perhaps fifty, or a cheap sweatsuit.

Approaching sixty years of age, Julius had served his time. According to staff at SLM, soon after his arrival, Julius repeatedly stated to his caseworker, his parole officer, and anyone who would listen that he thought he might harm someone, including himself. SLM, similar to the few other transitional residential programs in the Chicago area in 2009, did not have the capacity or the resources to support GPS monitoring, but the state issued Julius a standard electronic ankle bracelet. Confined to his residence at SLM, Julius was not, despite pleas from his SLM caseworker, granted permission to walk more than fifty feet to access (free) group or individual therapy or support groups.

For the past fifteen years, I have worked alongside many people like Julius who exit prisons and jails in Chicago, coordinating and teaching at a high school for people coming out of prisons and jails. Many of my students live at Grace House, a secular residential program on the west side of Chicago for women exiting prisons and jails. Connected to SLM, Grace House is the largest, longest-running, and most stable residential transition space for women in Chicago and offers free services: housing, employment training, counseling, and education. It is sex-segregated and is often staffed by both religious women and many formerly incarcerated women.

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