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Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org

Uprooting Crime and Recidivism

Commentary by Dortell Williams, recorded 8/8/07

Scroll down for a written transcript.

1) 3:32 MP3 Radio Essay

Update:

Senate Bill 299 sailed unscathed through the Senate Public Safety Committee, the Senate Public Safety Commission, Senate Appropriations and the full Senate. The bill is scheduled to go before the Assembly Public Safety Committee, August 31st, where it is expected to hit turbulence. Old fashioned, traditional letters are requested of the public for legislative supporters of the bill to offset expected opposition.

Uprooting Crime and Recidivism

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As Amalia Molina – head of the non-profit Families of the Incarcerated – sat across from me in the prison chapel, the seriousness of her honey-brown, oval face only punctuated the stirring words that poured from her nurturing lips: “We need to stop recidivism and intergenerational crime.”

Sister Mary Sean, of the Office of Restorative Justice, tiered under the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, sat comfortably beside me, nodding her head in agreement.

Clad in black slacks and a dark, copper-colored blouse, Ms. Molina solemnly conveys that there is “an often forgotten population here in the United States: The families of the incarcerated.” She purses her crimson-colored lips and the shape of pity stretches across her smooth-skinned countenance as she continues.

“Most of the time these are elderly mothers, U.S. citizen children and single [moms]. They’re [almost] all low-income families who barely have enough support themselves. We need help to reach out to these individuals…” says the six-year veteran of prison ministry work.

“God is about reconciliation and healing,” says Sister Mary, brightly smiling, sporting casual gray pants and a white, stretched-neck T-shirt.

I believe, God does mend the broken, and nothing could be more splintered and scarred than a family violently separated by the crushing bars of prison.

According to Emily Peterson, in her insightful piece, “The Impact of Incarceration on Children of U. S. Prisons;” published in the California Coalition for Women Prisoner’s magazine, “The Fire Inside,” Peterson lends a penetrating description, along with some gripping facts:

Children are hidden victims of the criminal

Justice system… The growth of the prison

system has dramatically impacted the lives

of millions of children. In 1999, U.S. prisons

held parents of over 1.5 million children, an

increase of over 500,000 since 1991.

Children of color are far more likely to have a

parent in prison. Black children are nine times

more likely to have a parent in prison than

white children, Latino children are three times

more likely.

“My hope,” says Ms. Molina, contagious passion vibing from her words, “is that [we are] healing relations of families… especially [for] the children. We try to strengthen family bonds in order to [facilitate] rehabilitation.”

The Partnership for Re-entry Program gives support to prisoners returning to society, a much needed program, run by Sister Mary, considering California has the highest recidivism rate in the nation – nearly 79 percent.

Other than the homeless – many of whom are ex-prisoners who were never able to fully make the transition – prisoners are the most neglected, stigmatized and stereotyped people in America.

Prisoners are the only group where discrimination against them is socially acceptable. Is it any wonder they fail in such overwhelming numbers?

Ninety-nine percent of prisoners return to society. When asked what they need to help prisoners and their families succeed, the sisters answered almost in unison: Community support; volunteers and donations.

To help these dear ladies stop recidivism and intergenerational crime, contact Amalia Molina at (213) 637-7337 or email her at srmhodeges@la-archdiocese.org.

Sources:

Interviewed Mary Sean and Amalia Molina May 1, 2007 during visit.