It is difficult, if not impossible, to pursue the goals of punishment at the same time as rehabilitation and reentry.
Probation is a punishment, and Rhode Island is a national leader in this form of punishment. As noted recently in the Providence Journal, the Governor’s workgroup is looking at ways to amend the state’s practices. Hopefully, any suggestions that pass the legislature or Department of Corrections are substantial and impactful. The crux of this, however, will depend on whether the state has an appetite to reduce punishments and thereby increase rehabilitation and reentry. Keep in mind that some people get sentenced directly to probation while others serve that sentence following a stint in prison.
As a former member and organizer with Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) who has been serving a punishment for 22 years, I can tell you that many Rhode Islanders have been thinking long and hard about this topic, long before anyone could imagine a reduction in punishments for any offense. People are hampered in their attempts to live a productive life because of the crimes we have committed in the past, as there is a natural tendency to exclude us; however, this is reinforced by a probation status that serves to deny jobs, deny homes, deny education, and deny opportunities to help others.
DARE is the only membership-based grassroots organization in Rhode Island with a focus on criminal justice policies. Since forming our Behind the Walls committee in 1998, we are the only policy organization with formerly incarcerated people in leadership, and played a critical role in re-enfranchising people on probation and parole, reducing prison phone rates, ending mandatory minimum sentences, unshackling pregnant women, reducing employment discrimination with Ban the Box, ending probation violations based on dismissed new charges, and (soon) ending blanket discrimination in public housing.
As community members who are overwhelmingly impacted by criminal justice policies, we want to generate stability, support individuals and strengthen our community. Our membership is reflective of the low income communities of color that have the fewest resources to deal with unemployment, homelessness, mental illness, physical health, and substance abuse; i.e. the primary drivers of mass incarceration. Our community members are often both victims and perpetrators of crime, generally excluded from victims’ services once we are convicted. We live this issue, multi-generationally, in a state that has issued over 150,000 prison ID numbers in recent decades.
Ten years ago, DARE took an analytical approach to probation reform in Rhode Island. We knew the stories and lived the lives of people on probation. We recognized patterns of structural discrimination, financial hardship, and mental anguish that make it hard for any normal person to succeed. We recognize that probation is punishment, and the lengthy punishment of our family members, people living in our homes and raising our children, has been a disaster.
DARE articulated a four-point interlocking probation reform platform:
- Limit sentencing on violations to the time remaining on probation (Rule 32(f)). Thus, if one has a single day remaining on a 10-year probation term, they can only be sentenced to a single day. Whereas the status quo is that a judge may instead impose an entire 10-year suspended sentence, we believe this is not only morally flawed but also exceeds (in some cases) the statutory limits on certain crimes.
- Eliminate the 120-day limitation on filing a motion for a sentence reduction (Rule 35). Circumstances rarely change to justify a reduction within four months of the original sentence, yet when someone is serving a ten or fifty year sentence- they will often change over the years. Although the DOC can put some people on low supervision or banked status, their sentence has not ended for any of the structural discrimination purposes such as housing, employment, or volunteering. Nor are they free of the punishment’s mental and spiritual impacts.
- Extend Good Time to people on probation and parole (R.I.G.L. §42-56-24). This adjustment would have several effects, by (a) incentivizing good behavior, (b) naturally shortening sentences, and (c) allow probation officers and/or judges to take away earned Good Time for lower level infractions, similar to ACI discipline boards.
- Allow for violations to be dismissed where the new underlying charge is also dismissed (Rule 32(f)). This proposal passed the legislature after several years of advocacy. It was particularly frustrating when few people believed it was happening, and momentum shifted after Rep. Patrick O’Neill (a criminal defense attorney) interjected during a committee hearing that it is true: sometimes a new allegation comes along and within a few weeks the prosecutor offers a “deal” to plead guilty. If they don’t take the deal, then a maximum sentence on the probation violation is guaranteed. Defendants believe that guarantee, knowing the extremely low standard of guilt, eroded rules of evidence, and notorious cases such as Richard Beverly and Meko Lincoln. Both involved the dubious testimony of police officers ultimately revealed as criminals themselves. Most are “smarter” than Richard and Meko, accepting a few years in prison rather than risk lengthy violations.
These four reforms would reduce the number of people on probation, reduce the number of violations, incentivize good behavior, and allow people a better chance at a second chance.
There is no such thing as a second chance, a fresh start, or anything of the like while on probation. There has long been massive investment in low-income communities, however it has come in the form of police and prisons. Millions of dollars are spent in each neighborhood, although none of that money is an actual local investment. We are not widgets for processing, nor animals for study, nor wetlands to be saved. We are parents, children, brothers, sisters, workers, voters, and even policy experts.
We want a criminal justice system that can protect us without hurting us, where cages are a last resort, where punishments can end, and people can overcome their mistakes. We are the number one stakeholder in reducing overall crime and punishment, and reinvesting resources into affordable housing, jobs, education, along with a health care approach to addiction and mental illness.
I’ve long acknowledged that my sentence will never end, and do not take issue with that. I left Rhode Island to get an education, as my applications were rejected by Brown, URI, RISD, Salve Regina, Providence College, and Roger Williams Law School. Furthermore, several arts organizations, mentorships, and the Training School would not let me volunteer. Regardless of my own saga, Rhode Island needs to look at the systemic issues, and not isolate a few cases. To that end, the Governor would be well served to pick the brains of people who have lived these issues, from cradle to grave.
this program and working with men such as Wilfredo has changed the way I look at this issue dramatically. Most importantly, it’s taught me that rehabilitation is possible but extremely hard. I remember when I first started working with Wilfredo it was tough just to get him to come to class. He would agree with me that he needed to work harder one moment, and then next moment he’d be making up excuses to leave. High expectations and work ethic are not part of the normal culture in prison, where people spend years passing the time, staring at a tv screen, waiting for their life to re-start.
Nearly 100 people attended the Black Major Movement demonstration outside the Providence City Hall Monday afternoon. Organized by community activist Kobi Dennis, the point of the protest is to balance the lack of police officers of high rank in Providence. Currently a “black police officer of high rank is non-existent on of current police force,” says Dennis. The demonstrators are asking Mayor Jorge Elorza to appoint a veteran black police officer to the rank of major.
City Council President Luis Aponte stopped by in support of the demonstration, as did Councillors Mary Kay Harris and Wilbur Jennings, Jr. Jennings told me that he’s “definitely down with the idea behind the black major movement.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (ACLU) today filed a 
It was a packed house at the RI Center for Justice as Executive Director Robert McCreanor lead a discussion about the collaborative work of community organizers and public interest lawyers in the area of social justice. On the panel were organizers and lawyers who work with DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) and PrYSM (Providence Youth Student Movement) in Providence, and MFY’s Housing Project, the Three-Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project (TOP) in New York City.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has called on all school districts that currently have school resource officers (SROs) to re-evaluate their use in the schools and to revise the agreements they have with police departments that set out their job responsibilities. The call was prompted by incidents at Pawtucket’s Tolman High School last week, which reinforced many of the serious concerns the ACLU has long held regarding the routine presence of police officers in schools.
The letter acknowledged that Pawtucket should not be singled out for such problems. A 2011 review by the ACLU of SRO use across the state found that many school departments had similar “one-sided” MOUs and that there were many incidents in which the presence of a police officer escalated a student’s minor infraction, such as wearing a hat in school, into an arrest for disorderly conduct.
The twenty people, parents, activists, concerned citizens and students, gathered in the meeting room at the Pawtucket Public Library Tuesday night agreed that the police officer violently arresting two brothers at Tolman High School last week used, “too much force.”
An activist countered that, “safety is different from policing” and then worked to disentangle the two ideas. “Developing forms of keeping each other safe is important,” he said. “We need to ask ourselves ‘Why are our schools unsafe?’
Back in the meeting room at the Pawtucket Library, someone suggested educating high school kids about their rights and teaching the youth to prevent the kinds of situations where they might be targeted for arrest by police officers. An objection to the second part of this idea was immediately voiced: Framing this as “how kids should behave puts the blame [for police violence] on the kids.”
“I don’t know how to defend myself and my children as a Hispanic woman,” said a mother. She has come to this meeting because she can imagine her children being arrested by police officers as shown in the video, and she worries. Like everyone in the room, she knows the statistics about students of color being disproportionately suspended from school. She is aware of the school to prison pipeline, and she wants to keep her children out of it.
Since the incident yesterday at Tolman High School in Pawtucket, in which a resource officer aggressively arrested a student by grabbing him from behind and slamming him to the ground, the situation has been escalating. The incident was 
Fifteen plastic sandwich bags containing racist and anti-semitic literature and weighed down with white rice were left on the doorsteps and sidewalks of East Side homes in Providence over night and discovered early Thursday morning by residents. Fire and police responded by cutting off access to Methyl St and part of Lorimer Ave. They were treating the material as a Level 1 hazard pending test results.
Activists and supporters gathered outside the Dunkin Donuts on Atwells Avenue where an employee wrote #BlackLivesMatter on a police officer’s coffee cup. They marched in support of the employee, a 17 year old woman of color, and against the over reaction of the Providence police union. Police officers looked on as the peaceful rally progressed.
The rally was organized by the 
“In the face of this crisis, communities have been coming together to address a national and local state of emergency. Police brutality and state violence have lasting effects that ripple through communities and generations, effects borne in large part by Black communities and other communities of color. #BlackLivesMatter is a direct and courageous movement in response to incredibly high rates of Black people being killed by police. For some, it is easier to ignore these wide disparities; for others, it is an inescapable, daily reality.
“We gather here today as one human family to raise our moral voices and to welcome Pope Francis and his message that true faith is not a disengagement from the challenges of the world but an embrace of those very challenges,” began Barber.
“In this history of the United States, a moral critique has been always been at the center of any challenge to the structural sins of society—slavery, the denial of women’s rights, the denial of labor rights, the denial of equal protection under the law, the denial of voting rights, and the promulgation of unchecked militarism. We have never overcome any of these evils without a moral critique that challenged their grip on the heart and imagination of our society.
“We must make a moral demand, shifting the energy supply strategy from coal, oil, natural gas and other fossil fuels to solar, wind, geothermal, and other clean renewable energy sources.
“We must choose community and care of the earth over chaos and greed.
“Four to five percent of U.S. deaths have been found to be attributable to poverty. That is nearly 120,000 people, each of them created in the image of God. Each of their precious lives matters. Their death is the scandal the Pope is exposing.
“This is the scandal a moral critique must expose: the poor are destroyed, society is destabilized, and our shared humanity is terribly diminished.
“To our ears, the Pope’s message resonates with the ancient Jewish text that says, ‘Woe to those who legislate evil and rob the poor of their rights.’ This Pope sounds a lot like Jesus, who said in the Gospel of Matthew that love, mercy, and justice ate the weightier matters of the law.
“This deafness to the Pontiff’s purpose suggests that Jesus himself would not be welcomed by them in America. Their complaints reveal the serious moral crisis we find ourselves in.
“And so, to those who complain that the Pontiff is engaging in politics, we say, prophetic voices must rise up and challenge immorality in every age. It’s our time now. So let us join the Holy Father not in the politics of Democrat and Republican but in God’s politics of love and justice.
