WE LIFT AS WE CLIMB: RESTORATIVE JUSTICE WITHIN THE BLACK PRISONERS’ CAUCUS Editor’s conversation with Dr. Gilda Sheppard and Kimonti Carter, October 2022
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE? Kimonti Carter: I want to highlight how important community relationships are, especially for young Black and brown boys and girls growing up in communities that don’t receive enough resources to provide them with a safe place to live. I had examples from men in similar situations. They were able to bring me into the Black Prisoners’ Caucus (BPC) circle. They saw that I had a brain on top of my shoulders. They took the time to provide the space for me to make mistakes and help me through them. There was no judgment. They loved me regardless. They let me know that my past didn’t define me. Our community is lacking, because we guys are [in prison]. We need to show a better presence for our community to be strong. I have a responsibility to take care of my family and my community. Growing up in the street, that’s how it’s always shaped—it’s your hood, your community, so you protect it. But in prison, we realize that there are also larger forces at play. Society is designed to entrap people who live outside the 8
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norms. Black and brown folks often get caught outside of those lines, and that’s why they end up in prison. This helped me to see even more why I need to support my community and my brothers and sisters regardless of their mistakes. Everyone makes them: We can’t get so judgmental to where it prevents us from being able to build relationships. We have to be able to say, “I forgive you” and really mean it to the people who did us harm.
HOW DOES TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE DEPEND ON RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PEOPLE? Gilda Sheppard: What I love about Kimonti is that he doesn’t start his story with what he does or who he is. He starts with where he grew up. He begins his story in community. And he uses it not as an excuse, but as a responsibility. When I taught classes in prisons, I saw that the students were doing this critical reflection where they looked at their stories and saw how social forces and the historical context greatly informed their actions. This was when I first really experienced restorative justice; they were healing themselves in order to create. And they did it in communion. As Kimonti said, you cannot heal without being in community. What I saw in my classroom wasn’t just an understanding that hurt people hurt people. It was broader than that. It was a theory of change: a practice of people not only understanding their context, but realizing that to understand their context, they need to realize that there are some non-negotiable pathways that exist. For Kimonti Carter, he admits his crime, names the young man he killed, and talks about who that man could have become. He apologized to him and his family, and then he names his actions as part of a systemic thing—we don’t think about how we treat children. This goes beyond restorative justice to transformative justice. And there is no restorative justice without transformative justice: Otherwise, you keep getting ambushed. And then you heal and get ambushed again. Over and over again. I don’t have a magic formula for how to do this in my back pocket, but I know that I have to do things that make me uncomfortable. I have to stay close to the problem and maintain hope.
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF HEALING IN TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE? Sheppard: The struggle for justice comes with some punching on your spirit. So healing is a big part of it—not only for people who we’ve harmed, but for ourselves as well.
Bring the Fire © Jeanne Ambre, SSCM, 1996
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hen Kimonti Carter was 18 years old, he killed another young man in a gang-related drive-by shooting. Because of Washington state’s “tough on crime laws,” he was tried as an adult and sentenced to life without parole. Despite the fact that society turned its back on him, Carter did not give up. He got involved in the Black Prisoners’ Caucus, an organization founded by Washington prisoners to foster Black identity and strengthen Black communities. His work with BPC eventually led him to found T.E.A.C.H. (Taking Education and Creating History), a higher-education program that allows incarcerated people to take for-credit classes and work toward an associate’s degree. In July, Carter was resentenced to 23 years in prison, including time served, and released. His resentencing was a result of a new Washington State law that prevents young people who commit crimes from being sentenced to long prison times while their brains are still developing. A Matter of Spirit talked to Carter and Dr. Gilda Sheppard, Carter’s sociology professor and director of Since I Been Down, a documentary featuring Carter that explores the effect of strict sentencing laws on a generation of Black and brown youth, about how the BPC and T.E.A.C.H. are successful examples of how restorative justice can work with the prison system.
Carter: There’s a difference between people who are passionate about the work, do it for a while, get burnt out, and then go off to do something else and those of us who have no choice but to stay in the fight. Leaving is the luxury of white supremacy. For those of us in the BPC, this isn’t something we can just run away from; it affects our life. It affects our children’s lives. We can’t give up: Our life depends on it. Sheppard: The first time I went to a prison, I was so glad to go teach a class. I was so excited to meet all these brilliant brothers at the BPC. But I got three minutes away from my condominium, and I had to pull over, and I cried one of those ugly cries. To this day, I don’t know what that was, but it had to do with intergenerational trauma. My cousins used to come from Alabama to live with us in Detroit and work in a factory. They were saving money so their kids could go to college or get a better job. Three generations after that and you know where those kids are? My cousins are in prison. Mass incarceration, white supremacy, and racism are all part of this intergenerational trauma. And healing needs to be part of this. Carter: At the Black Prisoners Caucus we do what are called healing circles. At every meeting we sit in a circle—this physically and emotionally creates that metaphor of being and staying connected. That we are stronger together than as one. A circle bends all types of ways, but as long as we keep it tight regardless of how many people sit in the circle it can do some powerful things. These circles give us the opportunity to really speak to people and air out some of our own issues on a personal and societal level. It ends up creating a bunch of stronger relationships: We live together, we’re going to have to deal with one another, and we can’t look at nobody outside the circle for help. Through this circle we are able to heal through a lot of our mistakes and our traumas, because we all come from one another’s community.
WHAT DOES A WORLD THAT'S GUIDED BY TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE LOOK LIKE? Sheppard: It looks like a place where we don’t need prisons anymore. It looks like a place where health care and public health come together. It looks at a world where we don’t see people living in tents—unless they want to. That sounds like utopia. But it’s not a place we ever reach and say, “OK, we’re here. We’re done.” Those who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. And it just keeps coming. Carter: I hear the word utopia and I think about those sci-fi movies where everything is peaceful. But in the future, outside of those blissful communities, there are also places where people are still living outside of the norms. I think that transformative justice has to imagine a world where all of us live inside those walls, not just some of us. We need to be willing to acknowledge one another’s humanity and share a common idea where our society should go. Where no one has opportunities denied to them based on how they live or look.
Shepherd: It’s like Kimonti said: We will see the humanity in one another. If you do so it’s very difficult to knock him on the head. To do that, you have to objectify him.
DO YOU THINK WE ARE MOVING TOWARD THIS WORLD? Carter: My answer is definitely yes. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to take some work. In 2021 the Washington Supreme Court found that it was unconstitutional to sentence people under the age of 21 to life without parole. At one point we lived in a society that was willing to exterminate kids, and the Supreme Court changed their decision based on new information. They—along with other states—are beginning to say that they believe compassion should be considered for people who commit crimes between the ages of 17 and 25. The spread of the BPC shows how this has to happen in an authentic way. It wasn’t spread in a top-down way by prison authorities, but instead by men traveling from prison to prison and building relationships. Sometimes we can get tricked into thinking there’s a magic potion. Like we can just cookie-cut a whole bunch of concepts and values, beliefs and ideals, and just transplant them to a completely different part of the world and expect to have the same results. People don’t work that way. Spreading transformative justice requires a passion burning in your soul and people who refuse to let it die out. The BPC had nothing to do except to take hold and develop in other places. It was a lifestyle for a lot of people, particularly brothers who sat amongst the circle with us. That passion ain’t ever gonna go away.
Collaborative Organizing for Racial Equity (CORE) Restorative Justice Washington State has one of the most regressive carceral systems in the United States and, over the last three years, restorative justice has been an area of focus for IPJC. This work has been organized through the Seattle Collaborative for Racial Equity, a collaborative project of the Jesuit works in Seattle. Last year we screened Since I Been Down to share the work of the Black Prisoners’ Caucus and the story of Kimonti Carter with over 800 individuals. Connected to this effort, folks advocated for several Washington State bills aimed at reforming the carceral system; their efforts resulted in the passage of House Bill 1412. This bill will expand judicial discretion on legal financial obligations, allowing judges to wave restitution payments they deem a defendant does not have a reasonable capacity to make payments due to their financial situation. This is a step forward in decriminalizing poverty. IPJC’s work to educate the community, deepen partner relationships, and participate in the growing restorative justice multi-faith coalition deepens this year. During the 2023 Washington State legislative session, we will be advocating on a slate of bills. Visit our website and join our email list to stay up-to-date! A M AT T E R O F S P I R IT
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