Project UNSHACKLE

This blog originally appeared on RH Reality Check.

Many of you have been following the case of Ms. T, a 28 year-old HIV-positive pregnant woman from Cameroon who was recently sentenced to 238 days in prison by a judge trying to protect her unborn child from being born with HIV.  Ms. T has spent nearly six months in the Cumberland County Jail in Maine.  It is with much relief that I tell you—Ms. T was released yesterday released on bail, perhaps ironically, for the same reason that the judge originally imprisoned her

In January 2009, Ms. T was arrested for allegedly having false immigration documents.  Only shortly after her arrest, she learned that she was both HIV-positive and pregnant.  Under current federal sentencing guidelines, Ms. T’s charge should have carried a sentence of zero to six months.  So it would have been reasonable for her to expect that she would be given “time served” when she appeared before her sentencing judge on May 14th, and released to continue her care with the team at Maine’s Frannie Peabody Center she had already started working with while she was in custody.
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On Saturday, January 23rd, more than 150 North Philadelphia community leaders and families with loved ones in prison met at the Philadelphia Recovery Community Center to discuss the services urgently needed to support those returning from imprisonment. And the group was serious about getting to work. Emcee Rev. Dr. McNear, Kingdom Care Reentry Network, was greeted with a chorus of responses to his calls for this not to be just another meeting with no action plan: “Yes, we can!” and “Yes, I will!”

This was the first in a series of Neighborhood Speak Outs organized by a new Philadelphia criminal justice coalition, the Support Center for Prison Advocacy.  The Support Center for Prison Advocacy was founded in July 2008 by the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, the Kingdom Care Reentry Network, and Philadelphia FIGHT, working in collaboration with CHAMP’s Project UNSHACKLE.

When someone goes to prison, the whole community is affected.  And community struggles do not stop when loved ones come home.  Once released, people will face difficulties accessing the services and mentoring they need to move forward and make new lives.  The Support Center for Prison Advocacy was founded on the belief that to address this prison reentry crisis, we all need to come together to build safer and more vibrant communities.
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Alan Perez first said what was to become the theme of Project UNSHACKLE’s first Community Forum in New York.  And it was almost an afterthought.  Alan is the Volunteer Coordinator for Gay Men’s Health Crisis’ Action Center.  On our presenter check-in call, he was explaining what he wanted to cover during his talk at the forum.  Pausing for a moment to find the right words to describe the Action Center’s work, Alan offered, “You know… We’re trying to turn thought into action.”  Those words caught the essence of our work on that call as they framed the efforts at the forum Wednesday, December 10th. 

There’s an often-quoted statistic from the Bureau of Justice that two-thirds of people will be rearrested within three years of their release from prison.

In a packed room on the LGBT Center’s third floor, forum presenters, Alan, Waheedah Shabazz-el, Stacey Thompson, and John Bell painted a vivid picture of what happens to the other one-third.  They all came to their work around HIV and imprisonment through stints in the New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore jail/prison systems.  And they all have now set their hands to changing the very systems they once found inescapable.  That’s how they have stayed home.  And that’s precisely the message they are trying to pass on to the members of their communities: Reach out.  Get involved.  Turn thought into action.

With the New Year nearly upon us, it’s this message that is guiding me in thinking about Project UNSHACKLE’s work in 2009.   read more »