Rachel Jackson, Books Not Bars Campaign

Keynote Address
JDAI Conference
January 25, 2002

Thank you Clinton. Good afternoon. As Clinton said, my name is Rachel Jackson, and I’m the State Field Director of Books Not Bars, a project of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. We are partnered with the Youth Force Coalition in California to stop construction of the Alameda County SuperJail, because it is too big, too far, and a waste of public resources. We want a facility that has the minimum beds, on the basis of the maximum number of detention alternatives, in a safe and accessible location. I am here today to share with you a small part of our story.

First I would like to do some Acknowledgements:

First, I’d like to thank the Annie E. Casey Foundation, especially Bart Lubow, our Portland hosts, and all who have been working so hard for so many years for detention reform. I have to say I feel really fortunate to be here with all of you who’ve been implementing the types of programs we’ve been talking to the County about and upholding as models; Cook County, Broward, Philly, (etc.). Second, I’d like to acknowledge the delegation from Alameda County, especially Supervisor Gail Steele. Third, I have to say I’m thrilled to be here and not have to talk about DMC, ADPs, ARIMA, rates, statistics or averages, (etc.). Finally, I have to issue a small disclaimer: I’ve never Keynoted before, and I am a little nervous, so please bear with me.

(I’d like to start with a video.)

Fortunately, my message to you today is simple. Our youth are not failing the system; the

system is failing our youth. Ironically, the very youth who are being treated the worst are the young people who are going to lead us out of this nightmare. I’d like to start out by talking a little bit about some of the things that might not be clear from the video, a little about the realities that are driving our/this movement.

Our neighborhoods are a patchwork of homes and churches, check cashing spots and liquor stores. And most of our drug stores aren’t really stores at all, they are street-corners. But given the economic and industrial flight out of our communities, it’s no wonder that some of our young people believe these are the only decent paying jobs they will ever get. And as the Holidays fade from our memories, the flowers fade too, on the makeshift altars, with the teddy bears and balloons, the photographs and poems, the candles and cognac bottles that remain to mark the sites where so many young lives were lost.

Incarceration is now a regular part of our culture. To start with, it is a basic element in our music. Award winning artists sing songs like, “Gone Till November,” about when a man is gonna get out of prison or jail. And rising star Alicia Keys’ recent hit sounds like a sweet love song, a ballad, but it’s really about the ambivalence of loving somebody who’s in prison. Artists as large as Tupac talked about it, and groups as local as the Oakland group, the Coup, have a song called “Santa Rita Weekend,” about a typical weekend in the County Jail. (Santa Rita also happens to be the adult jail that the new Alameda County Juvenile Hall is supposed to be built across the street from.)

Incarceration permeates our social interactions. These days, after “What’s Up?” and “How you doing?” we too often end up asking “When’d you get out?” We exchange updates. We talk about who’s out, who’s in, and who’s struck out. We talk about who’s dead and who “you better go by and see, ‘cause they’re looking real bad.” We talk about who “went out” (or relapsed), who got violated, who’s family got broken up . . . perhaps while they were waiting for an apartment, or a job, or program slot to open up.

And now we have a whole language of incarceration. Today when we talk about “paper,” it’s not about something we use, it’s something we’re on; on paper, meaning on probation, on parole. When we talk about “books,” it unfortunately usually has little to do with words on the printed page. Books are a place we leave money for folks who are locked up, or a process we go through, of “being booked.” And these days “numbers” aren’t just about phone numbers or social security numbers. Today we memorize PFN numbers or Department of Corrections numbers.

And “time?” Today when we talk about time, it is no longer something we keep track of with a watch or a clock. These days we mark time with calendars, in months and years, and even lifetimes. Young people locked up in California are even making up whole new compound words, talking about facing Double and Triple Life.

And now we have multiple generations of prisoners. Of people who can’t vote. Of people who have no privacy, and no protection from unlawful search and seizure. And after all this, still, no

one knows how to answer that damn question about felony convictions on job applications. ‘Cause you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Now, sometimes “Books Not Bars” and “Schools Not Jails” might seem like catchy but crude oversimplifications. But a drive through California reveals a basic and obvious pattern. Of decaying campuses and shrinking social programs, alongside brand new, expanded, prisons, jails, and halls. It is a pattern of priorities that are twisted, of the effects of political hype and “get tough” rhetoric. Of politicians and public officials afraid to advocate for alternatives for fear of ruining their careers.

No, our youth are not failing the system; the system are failing our youth. And what happens when we raise our concerns, when we question policy? “Wait,” they way, “be patient,” “wait.” And a whole lot of folks in our movement, especially the youth, know this for a fact.

My girl, whose name I’m not gonna use, knows when she gets up before the California Board of Corrections and says the Alameda County system doesn’t work, she speaks from experience, she speaks her truth.

She had serious family problems growing up. She ran away at 11 and found a place in “the life,” with drugs, gangs, the underground economy. Between twelve and seventeen, she had been in and out of the hall eleven times. The probation school program she was sent to used cross-word puzzles as school work, and her first foster care placement was with a family worse than her own. In over four years she saw her probation officer two times. And yes, she waited. She waited months for court proceedings, months for placements; months for counseling and therapy -- that never came. And through it all, nobody every really asked her why she left home in the first place.

And my other girl knows; she’s a single mother. And when she tells the Board of Supervisors about being desperate to keep her three sons out of trouble, she speaks from her experience, she speaks her truth. Her twenty year old will (hopefully) finish a 5 year commitment in the California Youth Authority next year. Her fourteen year old just got off of probation in one county and now just got on probation in a new one. And the baby has no idea what he’s facing as a young black man in the system - YET - and we are gonna do everything we can to make sure he never finds out.

But this mom knows the system isn’t working, because she searched and cried and begged everywhere for help when she needed it, and she, too, got told to “wait.” She went to Big Brothers, to residential programs, to counselors, and everybody said she had to wait. Wait till he gets arrested, wait till a spot opens up, wait till fill in the blank. And then it was too late.

Now, there’s a note on the bathroom mirror that says, “Remember: don’t’ wear an underwire bra on visiting day.” “Remember: no pens; only pencils.” “Remember: bring lots of change.” The “To Do” list includes: get a money order to put on the books for Christmas. Call the Phone Company and find out, “What’s minimum payment to keep the phone on?” and “Can I still get three-way calling?” And buy one of those clear plastic backpacks from Mervyns; it makes the visitor search go so much faster.

No, our youth are not failing the system and neither are their parents. The system is failing them, and we can’t just “Wait” any longer.

These realities, these life experiences, and the prospect of more of the same in the future is why in California, mostly people of color, and mostly youth: have taken the stage in the Bay Area, with a huge range of allies and supporters. Why hundreds confronted (and consulted with) the California Board of Corrections, three times last year, from Sacramento to San Diego, and most recently under the watchful eye of an army of police, highway patrol, and even the SWAT team.

This is why hundreds have become regulars at Tuesday morning Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ meetings. And why nine young people got arrested and taken to the County Jail after three Supervisors refused to approve new Needs Assessment. Why over a thousand youth attended our weekend concert and rally, “Not Down with the LockDown.” This is why forty people would gather on Saturday mornings to do outreach and public education; in one day we broke into about ten teams and fanned out into three cities. And we returned with: over $100 in donations, collected one dollar at a time; had dozens signed up to volunteer or get more information; and we got over 600 Post Cards in opposition to the SuperJail, signed by Alameda County residents - in two hours

It is this life experience, this reality, this drive that has gotten us where we are today.

Today the County’s plan for a 540 bed facility is down to 420. The County is once again exploring the issue of the remote location of the Hall and Juvenile Justice Complex. The County has conducted a preliminary Transportation Study, and has issued an RFP for a “comprehensive study” of the Juvenile Justice System. And the County has representatives here today, to learn from many of you here, about sizing, siting, and costs - of detention centers and alternatives to detention.

Yes, this is an uphill battle, it’s a struggle, but there is good news. Our culture of incarceration, of anger, frustration and despair is giving way to a culture of hope. It is a culture of positive hip-hop, including rap music, break-dancing, graffiti and poetry. It is a culture that unites young people of privilege with young people who have nothing; it brings together youth with pink hair with youth in baggy pants. It binds together young gay, lesbian and transgender youth with the Nation of Islam, and elderly white grandmothers.

These activities are in the Bay Area, but they are just a one small part of larger, broader, national movement. It is a movement that will continue to successfully lead boycotts of corporations that profit from incarceration, as the Prison Moratorium Project of New York has done against Sodexho Marriott. It will halt the unnecessary expansions of prisons, as Critical Resistance has done in the case of the Delano II prison in central California. We will continue to have Jazz Funeral Marches in the streets as the coalition did in New Orleans. And we will stop the Alameda County SuperJail.

There is no way I could name all the individuals and organizations who have contributed to our efforts in the Bay Area - I know better than to try - so I’d like to do it another way: I would like to ask instead that everyone who has been a part of the Campaign to Stop the SuperJail in Alameda County to please stand up. I would like to thank especially the Annie E. Casey Foundation, again, especially Bart Lubow. And the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and Justice Policy Institute; The National Center for Youth Law; the National Council on Crime and Delinquency; the Youth Law Center and Haywood Burns Institute.

And I’d like to acknowledge some particular organizations in the Youth Force Coalition. AYPAL, Asian Youth Promoting Leadership and Advocacy; the Center for Young Women’s Development and Young Women United for Oakland; YMAC, Young People Making a Change; C-Beyond; Youth Speaks poetry group; Urban Campfire, Freedom Fighter Music, and many others.

The youth are not failing the system. The system is failing the youth. And it is the very same youth who are being treated the worst that are going to lead us out of this mess. 

Thank you.