THE TRUST presented at Houston Institute for Race and Justice Inclusion Conference

This past week THE TRUST had the honor of being asked to share a work-in-progress piece from the film at the Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School's Inclusion Conference. The goal of conference was to begin developing a far-reaching plan and several related shorter-term, concrete projects through which people and organizations collectively advance an inclusive, opportunity-expanding agenda over the next decade.

Kicked off by the Houston Institute's Founder and Executive Director, Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., along with an inspiration introduction by the son of the man for which the Houston Institute is named, Charles Hamilton Houston, Jr.

THE TRUST was presented as another opportunity to view media as a partner to policy and values based campaigns as demonstrated by films such as The Visitor and Trouble the Water.

Present at the conference were professors, NGO directors, law enforcement directors, Judges, and policy experts. Speakers included John Powell, Peter Edelman, Judge Harry T. Edwards, and John H. Rutherford, Sheriff of Jacksonville, Florida.

These leaders came together to identify, broad, common, values and principles that unify movements, organizations and causes that are typically separated into categories such as “criminal justice,” “public health,” “education” and “immigration”, and learn how to better communicate these values and principles through messages that reach beyond self-defined progressives.

It was exciting and inspirational to be among these prolific leaders and able to begin to take in and learn from their collective wisdom.

Thank you David Harris and Kaia Stern for inviting me, and Sheryl Jackson-Holliday for making the trip so easy and comfortable!

Continually grateful to serve...
Peace,
Tamara

Tamara Perkins
Director/Producer, THE TRUST

“Surviving Criminalization: Films on Incarceration & Family Detention”

Wednesday, October 14: Another great night of conversation and building connections!

 We extend thanks to our colleagues at the Equal Justice Society for inviting us to co-present our work along with the west-coast premier of “The Least of These,” a provocative documentary that addresses the use of family detention as part of the current U.S. immigration. 

More than 120 tickets were sold for this screening, and over 100 of these folks stuck around for the question-and-answer session that followed.

Speaking on behalf of “The Trust” were Producer/Director Tamara Perkins, Film Advisor Arnold Perkins, and Rhody McCoy, Program Associate for The National Trust for the Development of African American Men.

The clip we showed was an enhanced version of the previous week’s presentation at Saint Mary’s, which focused mostly on the men inside. This updated segment reflects the on-going efforts of Tamara and Editor Diana J. Brodie, who have been hard at work interweaving input from incarceration experts and family members. As we watched from the comfort of the cushy seats at the Sundance Kabuki Theatre, the film itself looked fabulous and lush in all it’s glory up there on the big screen!

There were two recurring themes that arose in the post-screening Q & A conversation:

(1) the importance of illuminating our cultural reliance on incarceration as a solution to “problems” such as asylum seekers and drug addiction. A deeper look at the situation reveals a powerful profit motive for maintaining prisons along with extreme racial disparities regarding incarceration rates. (In the words of one audience member: “immigrants are being held because they are leaving deplorable conditions, and black and brown people are being held because they can’t leave deplorable conditions.”)

(2) a shared understanding of our inter-connectedness with those behind bars. Panelist Clark Lyda, Co-Producer of “The Least of These,” clarified that his priority for the film was to connect viewers with a stronger sense of the immigration detainees as fellow humans who are attempting to find safety and security for their families, while Tamara echoed this theme when she declared that “rehabilitating” how our society views prisoners as “others” is foremost in her mind as she moves forward in completing “The Trust.”

Again, many thanks to the co-sponsors of the event: the Equal Justice Society, in partnership with the ACLU of Northern California, the San Francisco Film Society, and the Commonweal Institute.

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Watch for upcoming blog posts as we continue to build connections with community partners: bringing you additional news from fellow activists working to put a human face on the issue of incarceration.

 

 

Roots & Redemption: Social Justice & the Prison System presented by St. Mary's College of California

A special screening of clips from “The Trust”, in conjunction with a conversation on “Roots & Redemption: Social Justice & the Prison System”

Wednesday, October 7, 2009, at Saint Mary’s College of California

Last week, “The Trust” was invited to participate in a special evening of conversation organized by St. Mary’s Professor Marshall Welch in his role as Director of CILSA (the Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Aciton), which is the academic center at Saint Mary's College for promoting a culture of service and social justice education.

The evening featured two clips from “The Trust” (both available on You Tube), with brief introductions by film co-producers Tamara Perkins and Jesse Dana.

To add more depth to the film clips, Tamara invited two social justice advocates to join us and talk about their efforts within the criminal justice system: The Honorable Gail Brewster Bereola, Judge of the Superior Court of California, and Rhody McCoy, Program Manager of The National Trust.  

Judge Bereola spoke passionately about her belief that the vast majority of young people she sees in her court have the capacity to be become educated, focused, and gainfully employed, if only we would re-allocate our resources to give them support instead of just punishment and warehousing. 

Rhody McCoy reminded us that this is a community problem, which is going to take community-based solutions, such as The Trust, to support incarcerated men in learning to break the cycle of incarceration and become an asset to their communities. In both of their presentations, it seemed clear that they just barely scratched the surface of what they have to share regarding these topics.

In order to bring the evening back to the topic initially posed for the Saint Mary’s students: “How does restorative justice relate to our mission for Social Justice here at Saint Mary’s?” we heard from three faculty members about the work they are doing to provide students with opportunities to learn more about the realities of our criminal justice system.

Participants than had a chance to discuss amongst themselves, and then to share with the group their own ideas about possible next steps in terms of what can be done at Saint Mary’s College to understand and promote restorative justice.

Ideas included creating awareness with a speaker series, offering field trips to visit prisons, providing scholarships for ex-offenders, and starting a mentoring program for Saint Mary’s College students to help teach reading and writing skills to the youth in juvenile hall.

We were pleased to hear back from the professors that several of the students enthusiastically continued the conversation in their classes the next day -- this mirrored the experience of the presenters and film crew, all of whom lingered long after the stated end time of the event, eager to build connections and share our own experiences. Building community, launching the conversation, getting people inspired and involved: this is precisely the goal of our project!

See below for more details on the current projects and past accomplishments of our guest speakers.

There was another chance to see exclusive footage and join the conversation on Wednesday, October 14 at SF's Sundance Kabuki Theater - stay tuned for an update on this special event.

Surviving Criminalization: Films on Incarceration & Family Detention - Presented by the Equal Justice Society, ACLU of Northern California, SF Film Society and the Commonweal Institute.

Guest speakers featured at "Roots & Redemption: Social Justice & The Prison System"

• The Honorable Gail Brewster Bereola is a Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda and the Presiding Judge of the Alameda County Juvenile Court. She has handled cases involving abused and neglected children who are dependents of the court, as well as delinquency cases involving youth accused of committing crimes. Interested in addressing habitual truancy and in maximizing positive outcomes for youth, Judge Bereola has launched several ground-breaking programs, including a Middle School Truancy Diversion Court pilot program designed to address habitual truancy of middle school students, and the first Alameda County Restorative Juvenile Justice Task Force to study restorative justice practices and how they could be utilized in Alameda      County. This task force developed a three-year restorative justice strategic plan, which was ratified by stakeholders in March 2009. Broad-based collaborative efforts are currently underway to implement the three year strategic plan that Judge Bereola believes will fundamentally and positively change how juvenile justice is administered in Alameda County, and will address issues of accountability, repairing harms caused by youthful wrong-doing, supporting and strengthening youth, victims, families and communities.
  

• Rhody McCoy III was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended both the University of Massachusetts and the University of San Francisco. After more than 20 years of trudging, and struggling with addiction and periods of incarceration, Rhody changed his mind and began his amazing journey of “living.” Since his final incarceration ended in 2000, Rhody has dedicated his life to three pursuits: (1) becoming and remaining aware, healthy, and purposeful, (2) continuing to develop into the best father possible for his three children: Leah , Rhody IV, and Tre’ McCoy, and (3) becoming a model member in the community. Since 2007, Rhody has served as Program Associate for The National Trust for the Development of African American Men. He is also a Board Member of Positive Directions Equals Change, and a member of the African-American Action Network.

• John Ely is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department of Saint Mary’s College of California. Professor Ely supports service learning courses in which his students interact with recent parolees, and is developing another course in Spring 2010 which would bring students inside San Quentin to support the work of The Trust Program.
  

• Peter Freund, Associate Professor, and Chair of the Art and Art History Department at Saint Mary's College, has taken an active role in the development of the San Quentin Media Project, working with film crew members Jess, Tamara, Diana and Shane to create a full-fledged film school within the walls of San Quentin.
  

• Barbara A. McGraw is a Professor of Social Ethics, Law, and Public Life and also the Director of the Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism at Saint Mary's College. She spoke to her personal experiences working with prisoners along with her institutional-based effort to shift towards a culture that acknowledges, in the words of Sister Helen Prejean, “people are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives." 
  

Photos of the panelists (from left to right: Judge Gail Bereola, Jesse Dana, Rhody McCoy, Tamara Perkins) provided by staff photographer Quincy Adamo of the St Mary's College of California "Collegian."