On Friday 25th we interviewed Ross Macdonald. He works as the Chief Medical Officer for Nyc public hospitals. He was seen first hand what its like in jail and how it can effect a persons medical and mental health. This interview we wanted to focus on jails instead of prisons because we have already learned much about mass incarceration and what jail is like.

Something that personally struck me about this interview are male jail stereotypes. He told us that there are lots stereotypes about males in jail that there tuff or dangerous. But he said that they are actually very emotional from what he’s seen. Some other things we learned were: mass incarceration is a tool used to fight against drug use and gun violence, Covid-19 has been a huge risk for incarcerated people and lawyers want to release certain people because the prisons have been over crowded which increases the risk for Covid-19. We learned about male stereotypes in this interview which really taught us a lot.

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On Februrary 4th, we has the pleasure of meeting with Sophia Henager. Ms Henager is a Law Fellow from the Equal Justice Initiative. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in political science and international relations from Gonzaga University and is a 2020 graduate of New York University School of Law. Her main focus is on cases involing life sentences and the death penalty. She gave us very helpful information regarding these types of cases.

Sophia started off with talking about the issue with mass incarceration. She explained how it mainly affects the black community. Black people were more likely to be arrested for having drugs, yet white poeple have been reported to have it more often. In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs, which was actually a ploy to imprison more people of color. It was used to make black people look like heavy drugs users. This statement alone raised the incarcerated population from 300,000 to 2,000,000.

She also talked about unfair sentences. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton passed the Violent Crime Control Act bill. It stated that if someone gets 3 felonies, one violent in them, they can be incarcerated for life. People in povetry have been incarcerated for life for non-violent crimes such as stealing little items due to this law, and it shows how much the justice system needs to improve.

Our group enjoyed taking with Sophia, and we took in a bunch of information. This Equal Justice Initiative is a wonderful organization, and I wish to talk with more people from there soon.

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Last Friday, February 11, our Social Justice group had the chance to speak with Jacob Hutt. A legal aid attorney that works in the Prison Law organization, located in California. Jacob went to Harvard College and NYU, graduating with an impressive magna cum laude. He was also a Fulbright Research Fellow in Israel/Palestine. Jacob joined Prison Law Office in early 2020. He has since worked on cases having to do with disabilities in prison and the well known Chavez v. County of Santa Clara that went to the Supreme Court.

During our interview, we talked about the mental and medical health issues that prisoners face in American jails. We talked a little more specifically about cases of police brutality and systemic racism factor in the prisons where people who are physically handicapped or are blind need special attention. A case that is common for him is where an inmate needs something to help them physically like a wheel chair, or a prosthetic leg. One case that broke my heart when he is working on is a situation where an old blind man was brutally beaten by a guard as a result of his race. This guard took advantage of him and the man wants justice.

Personally, this made me very upset. Under no circumstances should law enforcer take advantage of someones physical problem and use it against them. I believe the case is ongoing and I hope for best for the man. The sad truth is that issues like this and many others happen daily in prisons and people get away with it too. I hope that I can make a change to this recurring problem in America.

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On Friday, February 11, my group and I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Alison Hardy who works at the Prison Law Organization. This organization is located in California where most of their work happens. Alison joined the organization in 1988, advocating for HIV and AIDS prisoners to get the healthcare they needed while inside jail. Shortly after, she went to Oregon and set up a healthcare rights project there. When she got back to California, she primarily works on health issues in prisons. Famous cases she worked on were Plata v. Newsom and Hall v. County of Fresno which were brought to the Supreme Court.

During the interview, Alison told us about the sorts of cases she works on. She explained that many prisons are overcrowded with the lack of funding needed to care for all the prisoners. One of the cases she worked on, the prison held 175,000 inmates while the prison could only contain around 100,000. Overcrowding can be very dangerous and lead to violence, lack of resources such as food, medication, overstocked jail cells, and more. They won the case and the number of inmates decreased by more than 75 thousand! She also spoke about the issues with mental health treatment. Inmates who are suicidal and seem like they are harmful to themselves and others are put into solitary confinement which is an isolated 8 by 6 foot cement box without any light. This is an extremely inhumane and cruel way of fixing the problem and only fixes the short term issue. Thankfully, many prisons do have therapy programs in America but this only solves the issue for one out of many.

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Alison Hardy works at prison law as a senior attorney and fights for changes to death row inmates with mental health illnesses. During the interview we asked questions about mental illnesses in inmates and how the prison helps them and/or deals with those inmates.

In the interview she talked about how prisons in California are extremally under funded, over crowded, and how its set up to undermine mental health. All these things are ruining the mental health of inmates. Mass incarceration isn’t only about being put in prison, its also about what is going on in prison and how we can improve these conditions. This interview was very informative and introduced us to the subject of mental health in prison.

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On Monday, Februrary 14, we had the pleasure of meeting with Jacob Hutt from the Prison Law Office. Mr. Hutt is a Staff Attorney who joined the organization in 2020. He focuses on disability inequalities and unfair living conditions in prisons. He is currently working on the Armstrong v. Newsom case, a class action brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act on behalf of people with disabilities in California state prisons, and the Chavez v. County of Santa Clara case, a class action challenging certain conditions in the Santa Clara County jails. He helped us learn about the many inequalities in the prison system.

During the interview Jacob explained that there are various inequalities within the system, and they are all in different aspects. For example, people who are blind aren’t given proper care, only someone to do things for them. Therefore, if they have anything they need to read, their privacy is obstructed, since their person must read the letter for them.

Inquality is present as racial discrimination, unacceptable living conditions, and inproper mental health treatment. If you have a certain tatoo before coming into the jail, you may be associated with a certain gang, despite not being there. People with mental health are often “treated” with physicsl force and intimidation. Living spaces have become overcrowed, making the conditions unlivable and unconstitutional. I really enjoyed talking with him, and I wish to learn more about this aspect of the topic.

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On Tuesday, February 15, we were honored to have a nice chat with Alison Hardy from the Prison Law Office. She is a Senior Staff Attorney who earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University, and her J.D. at UCLA in 1988. Her cases usually follow the topic of mental and physical health, and she is currently working on the Plata v. Newsom and Hall v. County of Fresno cases.

During the interview, Ms. Hardy informed us of all the flaws in the mental health protocols in the prison system. She explains how the system is designed to undermine mental health, isolating and degrading anyone who shows it. There are some ways that they help those prisoners, but it is overshadowed by what they don’t do for them. She explained how when she saw how infected prisoners were treated very poorly during the HIV epidemic, that she immediately wanted to study this area and work on improving it. We really enjoyed talking with her about these issues, and we appreciate that we were able to talk with 2 people from the same organization. This is a very interesting aspect of our topic, and I wish to learn about it more.

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We interviewed Casilda Roper-Simpson, a Law Judge that works mostly on criminal cases. She has worked on public assistance, Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP) shelter allowance and assistance with rental arrears to prevent eviction. These topics are all connected into mass incarceration in some way and we got to learn about what its like being a law judge

In the interview she talked about how mass incarceration tears families apart, targets black families and communities, and how its a billion dollar business. “Mass incarceration comes form the lack of reasources in communitys.” “Mass incarceration rips families apart, targets families of color, and costs tax payers 260 billion dollars a year.” She gave us an incredible insight on what its like being a law judge and gave us a ton of great information.

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We interviewed Jacob Hutt. He works at Prison Law as a attorney. He helps people who incarcerated with mental health problems and people with disability’s. He taught us about how prisons have little to no resources for people with mental health problems, health problems, and disability’s.

During the interview we asked how do incarcerated people with mental health problems receive the treatment they need? He responded with “The prisons help people who are suicidal with the short term solution by isolating them so that they can’t harm themselves, which doesn’t help them in the long term.” This answer gave us a whole different perspective of what prisons do if a person is suicidal. He was super amazing to interview and gave us a lot of great information.

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On Friday, February 4, our group had the amazing opportunity to talk to Sophia Henager who is a Law Fellow for the Equal Justice Initiative. EJI is an incredible organization that challenges racial and economic injustice in America, helps educate people on mass incarceration, and supports people with unjust punishments. Sophia was generous to accept a 45 minute, unrecorded interview over Google meet where she answered many of our concerning questions relating to our topic. A few things we learned about were, how mass incarceration started in America, the racial targeting and injustice people of color deal with in America, under budgeting of U.S. prisons, and the issues of misdiagnosing mental health. We are very lucky that we got the chance to meet Sophia and are grateful for the opportunity.

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We interviewed Sophia Henager. She works at EJI (Equal Justice Initiative) as a Law fellow. She has worked on incarceration cases, death row, felonies, and misdemeanor cases. She has taught us a lot about mass incarceration and how it can completely destroy people’s lives, and how political decisions have largely affected incarcerated people.

During the interview we asked questions about how mass incarceration affects communities. She gave us some really great answers. She said that “Today almost half of the people in federal prisons are incarcerated for drug offenses, and ⅔ of that 50 percent are people of color.” This fact was produced in 2017, and she said that this number has most likely risen. She gave us a ton of great new information and was great for our first interview.

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On Jan 20, my group presented about our social justice project to the class. We created a slide show on mass incarceration in the U.S and told our classmates facts and about how mass incarceration has effected millions of people. One of the things that I shared in the presentation was the following,

“After reading articles and watching educational videos on this topic, I can say that I have learned a lot. And about how serious and how this problem is affecting a large part of the world. Mass incarceration has affected millions of people and communities and needs to be fixed and stopped.”

I hope to interview people who work to defeat mass incarceration.

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Last week, my group presented an overview presentation on our SJ topic. Even if I may have not done as much work as I would have liked, I wasn’t nervous. THe slides were touched up and looked pretty good. One interesting fact i shared said as many as 2.7 million children have an incarcerated parent. The information we uncovered during our research was plentiful and I loved doing it. I feel this this project is going really well so far.

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