Becoming Ms. Burton
From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women
by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn
QUESTIONS
Family and Early Life
1. What was Susan Burton’s early childhood like? Who were her parents, where did they come from, and why did they move to Los Angeles? Why did Susan’s father move to Syracuse? How did this affect Susan and the rest of her family?
2. “Sue” loved going to school as a child—she called it her “safe place”—but then she got pushed out. What happened? Why did her relationship to school change? Could anything have been done to prevent her from dropping out?
3. Susan experienced sexual abuse throughout her childhood, often at the hands of those close to her. How did the trauma Susan experienced alter her perception of herself and her life? How did it change her relationships with her mother, siblings, friends, school, and community? What might have prevented the type of violence Susan experienced in her youth?
4. How are larger forces in society connected to violence and trauma? What role does community violence play? How do racism and gender come into play? How do low wages or poverty, poor schools, and substandard housing threaten families? Have you experienced any of these problems in your life?
5. People who work in trauma services sometimes use the phrase “hurt people hurt people.” What does this mean?
6. At Booth Memorial Maternity Home, Susan felt different from the other girls. How was she different from them? And how was she treated differently?
7. Susan had her daughter, Toni, on the day before her fifteenth birthday. What was their relationship like in Toni’s early years? Growing up, what did Toni think of her mother, and why? Susan’s brothers were important figures in her life but they too had many struggles. How might their lives have been different if there had been good schools and decent jobs available to them?
8. After she ran away from home as a teenager, Susan lived with various men to survive and make a living. What was her life like during this time? How did it affect her relationships with her family?
9. Susan’s son, Marque (K.K.), was five years old when he was run over and killed by an unmarked police department van outside their house. How did this tragedy fundamentally change her life? What kinds of community resources did Susan need in the wake of the accident? How did this tragedy affect her daughter, Toni? Might some of the circumstances—and Susan’s experience— have been different if the accident hadn’t occurred in a poor neighborhood?
Mass Incarceration
10. In the prologue, Susan tells the story of Ingrid, who was re-incarcerated after leaving her baby in the car for ten minutes while she was in the Dollar General Store. Susan writes, “Had Ingrid been a person of means . . . had she not been black, would she have been sentenced to years in prison?” Looking at Susan, Ingrid, and other women featured in the book, in what ways do you think race and class help determine who ends up being incarcerated? How do race and class affect your own life?
11. While the number of men incarcerated is higher than the number of women, the rate of incarceration for women has risen more than 700 percent since 1980. How is the experience of incarceration different or similar for men and women? What challenges are faced by people who identify as queer or gender nonconforming when they go to jail and prison?
12. With a population of 2.2 million behind bars, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, and black Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. Why is the prison population so high and disproportionately made up of people of color, according to the research documented by scholars?
13. How are families—spouses, children, and other loved ones—affected when their relatives go to prison? How are communities impacted when many people from a neighborhood are incarcerated or returning home from prison?
14. Susan cycled in and out of prison for six sentences over more than fifteen years (recall the prison guard who predicted she’d return, saying they would keep a bed waiting for her). Why did Susan keep ending up back in prison? Why is it so easy for formerly incarcerated people to
become incarcerated again? What can be done to reduce recidivism?
15. Susan lived in South Los Angeles in the 1980s, at the height of the War on Drugs. How were she and her family affected? What did the War on Drugs look like in her community and across the United States?
16. What jobs and educational opportunities were available to Susan in prison? How does she respond to her assignments?
17. How does Susan navigate life in prison? What does she try to avoid, and what does she—and other female inmates she encounters both during her incarceration and after—have to look forward to or enjoy?
18. Susan describes various experiences with parole officers. How did these experiences differ and what role did parole officers play in Susan’s life?
Recovery, Re‑entry, and A New Way of Life
19. One of the highlights of Susan’s book is the description of Susan making it to a recovery center and finally getting the treatment she needed to begin to heal and make a new start in life. How did she finally get help? Who were the various people who helped her? What did they offer that transformed Susan’s life? Why did it take so long for her to get the support she needed?
20. At the CLARE center in Santa Monica, Susan learns concepts and receives support that allows her to reckon with her past, as well as with her trauma and addictions. What are some of the lessons and techniques for recovery she learns in the twelve-step program? How does recovery begin to transform her sense of purpose in life?
21. Throughout her life, Susan is made to feel singularly responsible for her problems. Her aunt calls her a “dirty little girl” when she discovers that her boyfriend is abusing Susan; her mother calls her a “bad seed” and says she is “rotten to the core.” What other messages of blame do Susan and others who become caught up in the criminal justice system hear from family, friends, community, and society as a whole? Have you ever been affected by negative messages about you or your life?
22. Thinking of examples from the book, how do these messages, which blame the victim, affect the people receiving them? How does victim-blaming prevent healing and the possibility of rebuilding one’s life? Are there ways to address or challenge someone who is victim-blaming?
23. What are the challenges facing women of color upon re-entering society? What are some of the ways that Susan and A New Way of Life tackle these challenges?
24. The annual cost per woman at A New Way of Life is $16,000, while the annual cost of imprisoning a woman in California is $60,000. Why does this country spend so much money keeping people behind bars? Does incarceration reduce crime and keep people safe? What would it take to change the current thinking and approach to crime and incarceration? What is needed to make communities truly safe?
25. Not long after founding A New Way of Life, Susan became an activist and began to work to change the system more broadly. What is All of Us or None? Who does Susan work with on the state and national levels? What are some of the policy measures and structural changes she thinks would dramatically change the lives of people who have been incarcerated?
26. After reading The New Jim Crow and other books and talking to her new friends in the criminal justice reform movement, Susan came to understand the larger political and societal forces that affected her and her family. She began to believe that the criminal justice system, as well as other social systems and power structures, is designed to disadvantage and oppress poor people of color. What does she mean by that? How did the criminal justice system become this way? Do you agree or disagree with her beliefs about how these systems can harm people rather than help people? Have you been part of social systems that diminished you as an individual?
27. When formerly incarcerated people try to re-enter society, they encounter what Susan calls a “Wall of No.” What is that wall, and how can it be torn down?
28. What is Ban the Box? How did “the box” eventually become banned from state and federal agencies, and why was it so important to All of Us or None?
29. What is California’s Proposition 47? What lessons for organizers might we draw from its successful passage?
30. Susan offers portraits of people—including Saúl Sarabia, Dorsey Nunn, Senator Rod Wright, the women of Orange County, Joshua Kim—who volunteer, donate, and assist her in running and expanding A New Way of Life. What do these people have in common and what inspires them to work with A New Way of Life?
31. What role has advocacy work played in Susan’s recovery? Why does Susan think this type of advocacy and leadership development is so important?
32. Are you or do you have friends, family members, or community members who have been or are currently incarcerated? In what ways is your path, or the paths of people you know, similar to Susan’s? In what ways is it different? What can we do to help more people?
33. Has Susan’s story changed the way you view criminality, punishment, and mass incarceration in America? If so, in what ways?
34. At some point, Susan was able to forgive herself for some of the poor choices she made and she is open in the book about some of things she did that she now regrets. She was eventually able to reconnect with her daughter and other members of her family. What role do social policies play? And what role do professional support, forgiveness of others and of yourself, and taking responsibility for yourself and your actions play in helping someone like Susan get to this new place in their understanding of their lives?
35. Susan Burton believes that there are “no throwaway lives.” Do you? What will it take for formerly and currently incarcerated people to be treated humanely and with dignity in America? Is it possible to achieve the full restoration of the civil and human rights of all formerly incarcerated people?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Susan Burton is the founder and executive director of A New Way of Life, a nonprofit that provides sober housing and other support to formerly incarcerated women. She is nationally known as an advocate for restoring basic civil and human rights to those who have served time. She has been a Starbucks® “Upstander,” a CNN Top 10 Hero, a Soros Justice Fellow, and a Women’s Policy Institute Fellow at the California Wellness Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles.
Cari Lynn is a journalist and the author of a historical novel and several books of nonfiction, including The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman’s Fight for Justice, with Kathryn Bolkovac, and Leg the Spread: A Woman’s Adventures Inside the Trillion-Dollar Boys’ Club of Commodities Trading. She lives in Los Angeles.