Send a Kite
Can you help design a reentry zine for people in prison?
“You ain’t gotta drive up and sit behind a table.
You ain’t gotta drop money if you ain’t able.
Send a kite, I promise I’ll write.” — Styles P
Over the past eight months studying in the CUNY J-School’s new Social Journalism program, we have been tasked with something journalists don’t do nearly enough: to work with and impact a community based on the community’s stated goals and needs. To do this, we ideally set up what Jennifer Brandel has perfectly described as a loop. We consider ways to go to the community (as opposed to them finding us), listen to them, and create something with them that addresses the community’s issues. Whatever is created continues to get input from the community, growing and evolving and changing as a result. That cycle and those relationships should continue and deepen.
I have largely been welcomed with open arms by the community I’ve chosen to work with: the formerly incarcerated. I say “I’ve chosen” to work with them, but in reality I only wanted to work with them. They have allowed me to work with them, and they have done so with enthusiasm and warmth. Despite being a community facing pervasive outside stereotypes about “criminality” that have disfiguring effects on their everyday lives, I’ve seen them exhibit near-relentless courage and gratitude.
Those stereotypes were one of the reasons I wanted to work with this community. Approximately 635,000 people will leave prison this year alone, all leaving with less opportunity and more stigma. If reentry is just a different set of stereotypes and obstacles, just when do all those sentences really end? The recidivism rate is well over 50% just within the first year post-release. Five million American children have had an incarcerated parent. So what happens to a community when incarceration is so widespread?
Few institutions would be allowed to fail far beyond half the time and still suck up billions of dollars. Mass incarceration is one of those. New York City, for example, spends around $60 on police and jails for every $1 spent on reentry services. While journalists rightfully cover the horrors of prison, I wondered what happens after people are released. I wondered — in the face of being denied voting rights and job opportunities, frequently saddled with psychological issues, and being labelled a “criminal” for life — what they wanted everyone else to know about them. In the face of such massive institutional failure, incompetence, or oppression (depending on your perspective), there had to be something needed.
One of the first questions I asked (and I’m glad I did) when I began meeting with formerly incarcerated people was about whether they are a community. Inevitably, the conversation would go like this:
“Are the formerly incarcerated a community?”
“Yes.”
“Well how do you communicate? How does the community interact?”
“We don’t.”
“Well, then why do you feel you’re a community?”
“We have the same experiences, same goals, we all have something in common. We just feel it.”
I probably had this conversation, within a word or two, five times. I wasn’t at all sure what to make of it. I also heard two other things over and over again that I had no clue what to do with. The first idea is that reentry needs to start while people are still incarcerated. Once people are back on the street, in their old neighborhood, with only history in their pockets, it’s already too late to start. The second idea was that formerly incarcerated people told me they didn’t want stories about themselves for themselves. They told me over and over that they don’t need something internal, but something external that uses their stories for good. The very telling of the stories is often empowering and encouraging.
To that end, I’ve created a publication on Medium called Greylined, which is admittedly underpopulated. This is due to both the frenetic pace of school and my devotion to listening extensively before I write a word. For this vulnerable community, I don’t want to get a thing wrong. The idea is to provide a platform for the formerly incarcerated themselves to push back against stereotypes, and to provide a place where they are able to display their full, complex humanity. I can promise you a lot more is coming, so subscribe and stay in touch.
But there were still those nagging questions: How might a journalist facilitate successful reentry inside facilities, or among people recently released? Is that even possible? And what of those stories? How might we share them? And with whom?
Then I met Karren.
Karren is a woman I spoke with on Labor Day. After being arrested in her estimation around 50 times, she finally did a few months at Rikers. Sent to a drug program after, she resolved to do better and give back. She is now working on a career in non-profits. Her story is harrowing, but she told it as though she had mastered it. She had gone from a victim of her history, a history which set her up for the worst, to a woman who made the past a tool building her future.
At the end of our conversation, in a bodega buying a water, she told me her ambition: to go into prisons and speak to them about her life. She hoped this would inspire and perhaps prepare them for what is almost always a jarring, scary transition. Then she said something like:
“I wish we could tell them our stories from out here.”
In that moment, the tasks I thought impossible seemed possible, and two issues I didn’t think were related shocked me with their connectedness. In her clarity, in her “I don’t care what a journalist is ‘supposed’ to do, this is what I want,” she solved a mystery I had all but given up on.
How might we use stories of successful reentry to prepare those still incarcerated for their return? What other issues can whatever-this-is address? Can it have art? Poetry? How might reentry organizations get something out of it? How might it put incarcerated people in a mindset that is less suspicious of (and more eager for) help when they’re released? Could it be entertaining?
I believe all of this can be done, not only from community’s voice but also utilizing other talents the community has shown an interest in. Art, volunteering, and mentorship have all been shown to improve the odds of successful reentry, and it is possible that all of this can be rolled into a simple zine. So that’s what I’m hopeful we can build.
While I am still soliciting ongoing input, the idea is simple: a four-page (two pages front-and-back) zine distributed into correctional facilities throughout New York State. The front will feature art created by a formerly incarcerated person. The inside will feature a brief introduction by the artist speaking on his/her work. Next will be the story of a formerly incarcerated person: how they got to prison, how they decided to change, and how they successfully accomplished a transition back into “the world” as they say. The story will include any organizations who provided assistance, along with contact information.
The back page will feature a piece of tech advice — an introduction to music streaming or Facebook, for example — thereby addressing a very common source of difficulty and alienation among returning citizens. It will also feature a P.O. Box to which currently incarcerated people might send their work. That could lead to poetry, creative writing, and beyond. This zine could also be a place for relevant news items.
The idea is straight-up; the execution is hard, and it is here where I have less clarity. Could this be piloted in one or two facilities through the Department of Corrections? Would an organization (or several) be interested in distributing this, either outside or on their visits to facilities? Could it be distributed in areas of high incarceration through the city? Can I just mail it in? How might we ensure the relevant people see this?
I am meeting with several more people soon who could offer personal insight into this, and I have worked with a number of groups for whom this could be a valuable service. This idea is incomplete and it is barely three weeks old, but my excitement — and the idea’s origin in the community, addressing issues I’ve heard over and over again — makes me think there is something to it.
So, in the spirit of community, I want to learn more. Are you formerly incarcerated, or do you have experience with the community? How might this be distributed? What have I missed that would be of value? How did I not properly understand the community’s needs, goals, or habits? What is good but could be even better? I want to know. Talk to me here or find me on Twitter @LissomeLight. Let’s build.
