College of Alameda College Hour Salon

Public Forum Tenative Date
On Wednesday, May 10, 12-1 p.m., the class will host a public conversation or Forum on Incarcerated Women and the Letters Project at the College of Alameda.  We will invite the college community along with affected populations, families, law enforcement, advocates, survice providers, scholars.

We will need two moderators.

Students will need to brainstorm on who they would like to invite.

Discussion will include sharing excerpts from the letters written by the women and letters written by the high school students.

Students will also discussion their research on youth incarcerated as adults in California specifically girls who are now adults serving life without the possibility of parole.

To prepare, we will have as a guest presenter, May 1, a former woman prisoner who are speak about incarceration and its affects on the woman prisoner and her family.

Recomended Films:

They Call Us Monsters (2016) dir. Ben Lear

From Juvies "Duc's Child Abuse"
Juvies Trailer

Juvies (2004) dir. Leslie NealeTwelve juveniles, who have been tried as adults, were picked at random for a video workshop at Eastlake Juvenile Hall, Los Angeles. Their stories are inter-cut with commentary from academics, neurologists, a former district attorney of Los Angeles County, and others who discuss the trend in recent years across the United States to try juveniles as adults - more than 200,000 each year. The film argues that this public policy is misguided, unfair, expensive, and counterproductive. One of the youth ends an autobiographical poem, "Do you think he'll go mad?"

Prime Time Juvenile Offenders (2005)
"In the hour-long investigative documentary, PrimeTime Co-Anchor Chris Cuomo goes inside Arizona's facilities and meets an extraordinary group of boys and girls at a critical turning point - they have one last chance to either change their ways or face the prospect of doing time in an adult prison. How did they end up here? How can they be helped? [The directorial team] felt juvenile corrections was a topic that deserved an in-depth examination and [it] worked very hard to gain access to the safe schools in our program in order to deliver this fascinating and important report. PrimeTime was granted unprecedented access to Arizona's system for juvenile corrections and spent nearly six months following the teens and their families as they wound their way in and out of the system. Along the way, the locked up youth share their shame, their secrets and their dreams. They show their pride and promise. And in the end, they reveal that behind the tough talk and bravado, they are still just kids" (IMBD Synopsis).

Women in Prison: Maximum Security
This prison, Valley State is now a men's prison. The women were either moved to the other prison, CCWF also in Chowchilla or sent to county facilities or perhaps further south.

Partner Organization: California Coalition for Women Prisoners
The Fire Inside is a newsletteer published by and for incarcerated women. It is one of many programs supported by one of the "Letters Project," California Coalition for Women Prisoners: womenprisoners.org

Background on Central California Women's Facility (CCWF). This is the prison the women participants are incarcerated in:

http://www.juvies.net/videoclips.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpqNVDWc9W8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_California_Women's_Facility

http://wandasabir.blogspot.com/search?q=CCWP

Readings:Building Trust Cuts Violence. Cash Also Helps - NYTimes.com

This article from the New York Times features a program in Richmond, CA. Does anyone know about this program or have contacts? Also, wpould be interested in your feedback after reading the article.

Building a Prison to School Pipeline -- New Yorker
Formerly incarcerated undergrads started a group on campus to offer mentoring, support, and advocacy to other onetime inmates.

Readings –
Local projects which use theatre and art for ritual and healing are Ayodele Nzinga’s Lower Bottom Playaz, Recovery Theatre in San Francisco

A County Called Prison: Mass Incarceration and the Making of a New Nation by Mary D. Looman and John D. Carl

All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated by Nell Bernstein

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Soledad Brother: the Prison Letters of George Jackson

Black Voices from Prison by Etheridge Knight (all Knight)

The New Jim Crow by Michele Alexander

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

America is the Prison: Art and Politics in Prison in the 1970s by Lee Berstein

Soldier of Truth: The Trials of Rev. Edward Pinkney with Philip A Bassett

Unlocking Minds in Lockup: Prison Education Opens Doors by Jan Walker

Prison Life in Popular Culture: From the Big House to Orange is the New Black by Dawn K. Cecil

Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre by Jonathan Shailor

Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson
The Wounded Researcher: Research with Soul in Mind by Robert D. Ramanyshyn

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Black Rage by William Grier and Price M. Cobbs

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sista Souljah

A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars by Cristina Rathbon

Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States by Rickie Solinger, Martha L. Raimon, Tina Reynolds, Ruby Tapia

Straight Outta East Oakland 2: Trapped on the Track by Harry Louis Williams II (this is a sequel, local writer who has done work in stopping sexual trafficking of children).

Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healing for Inmates and Their Loved Ones by Hill Harper 

Theatre:

The Box is a play by Sarah Shourd

Film Recap: (All the directors live in the SF Bay Area)

Crime after Crime, dir. Yoav Potash

Juvies, dir. Leslie Neale, 66 min

"Better This World" directors, Kelly Duane de La Vega and Katie Galloway

"COINTELPRO 101" (56 min 2010), dir. Claude Marks
In an Ideal World (2016) by Noel Schwerin