Race and Class [Western Prisons studio session]

Transcript: Race & Class

The most recent statistics (.pdf) show that 58% of all adult inmates are black or Hispanic. The numbers for juvenile offenders are similar. Why the difference? What consequences does being a minority inmate have?

These are selections from the whole transcript. Some comments will also occur on other themed pages because they cover more than one topic.

Jim Peck: Dr. Latessa, do prisons know how to deal with minority youth?
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Dr. Ed Latessa: Well they've had a lot of experience over the years as the clip showed. We have a much higher percentage of minorities incarcerated, but I think that oftentimes programs aren't specifically designed for the, the cultural differences, and now language differences, that we often face in those institutions.
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: There was some mention made in the video clip about bicultural and cultural competency and I think that Dr. Latessa made a very important point, which is that prisons aren't necessarily capable of really being sensitive to those cultural issues. And that's a very important, I mean what Jackie says about belonging is also about culture and if these kids don't feel like they're accepted or they're even understood then how can they produce, how can they achieve.
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Robert Lampert: Well I think those cultural problems are magnified in a prison setting because again we have a young population coming in with an increasingly elderly population. They don't mix well in the first place and secondly the programming that we have in place isn't necessarily geared towards our younger offenders. And thirdly the location of our prisons typically tends to be a more rural setting where we're not able to attract a work population that reflects the ethnic or cultural background of these younger offenders.
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Jim Peck: Is minority youth dealt with more harshly than other kids?
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: That's what they find in research. They definitely find that minority youth are treated differently all across the board.
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Jim Peck: How so? I mean specifically what happens to them?
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: Everything from arrest to conviction, indictment, everything. Treatment.
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Terry Kolkey: In courts everyday. If you go to the juvenile criminal adult courts you will see, you just have to spend a week there and you will see that the minorities get treated harsher.
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: But look at Ben Moa, okay? Look at this kid who started to play for the Utes later, right? Started out in a gang. Very typical in communities where these kids are coming from, and this is a class issue too, right? Comes from the projects, he even told you that, he said, well we were a bunch of kids from the projects. It's a very visible minority group and people expect those kids to go exactly where he was going. But he had someone reach out to him. We don't know what happened to Ben Moa, but there was somebody who reached out. It could've been a coach; it could've been a teacher. He was also athletic; that's lucky for him. There's so many young black men and so many young Hispanic men who aren't reached by the, they're not touched by that kind of thing or don't have that ability. What about them? They fall through the cracks and those are the kids that make up our detention populations and our prison populations later, right?
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Jim Peck: How do you find luck for those kids?
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: Resources. He's talking about resources.
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Terry Kolkey: Yeah, it's not luck, it really isn't luck; it's a matter of a social commitment, but let me add one other thing to the difference in treatment. If I'm representing a well-off white kid who comes from a good family at the sentencing phase I can bring in the parents, I can bring in the grandparents, I can bring in a huge history, and the judge will look at that history and say, This kid comes from a good family; I'm going to give this kid another chance.
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: And the judge will say, This kid looks like me.
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Terry Kolkey: Exactly.
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: And there's a big difference there. Will the judge be able to relate to a kid who doesn't look like him, doesn't come from the same kind of background that he does? Is the kid of color? You know, came the wrong side of the tracks?
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Marianne Johnstone: Whose parents are incarcerated already.
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Jim Peck: I have the feeling this is still happening in big cities too. We're kind of looking in the west, but this is not unique to places; this is happening in ethnically diverse areas as well.
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: This is a national trend.
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Terry Kolkey: Most of my practice has been in Los Angeles or San Diego, and it's worse there.
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: And we don't want to make that the history of the west either. We don't want to emulate systems like California and Chicago and Illinois.
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Sheila Leslie: One of the other groups that's treated differently are girls in the juvenile justice system. They're treated more harshly. They're incarcerated for crimes that boys often aren't incarcerated for. And one of the best ways to create change I think among policy members is to take them out to the juvenile corrections systems and have them meet kids. We did that during our legislative session and I think a lot of legislators were surprised to hear the stories about sexual abuse, about physical abuse, about the kind of family situations that many of these minority youth and other youth come from. And I think when you have that one on one connection with a kid it's much harder to go back and cut funding for those programs. So I always try to get people out to meet the kids, hear their stories and develop more empathy for what we're trying to do. And kids can change, kids want to lead better lives. It's possible.
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Jackie Crawford: drugs, they do not discriminate and we're finding, I'm seeing more and more as middle class person coming into our prison and their parents coming who are absolutely ashamed, embarrassed and they want to see something done and I think you're going to see a change in the attitude and change in the direction because they want to know what their tax dollars are going for. They want to see some help for their sibling or their son or their daughter or grandson. But you know, drugs do not discriminate and at that point there's a lot of people who are coming in and even your entertainers you're seeing more and more of the relapse and what's happening with them and even some of your favorite radio talk show individuals. Across the board drugs are an issue and a problem and I think you may see a change because those are the individuals who are getting the treatment. They're coming back saying this is what's needed, not incarceration. I believe that's where we in corrections begin to tap into that mainstream community.
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Dr. Theresa Martinez: So how in the world I mean it's ironic to scary to think that we've got thousands and thousands of inmates across the country who have drug and alcohol programs, who've got programs that work, but we don't have the money for enough beds for them to be. And by the way that's also a racial issue across the country because when there are a black inmates in the systems or Latino inmates in the system they don't even though they have the highest rates of arrest for drugs in federal prisons and in state prisons they're not going into the programs as much as the European Americans as the whites, I mean so it's a racial issue. Why aren't we putting the money into more beds for those?
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