Dr. Kimberly McGlonn: Questioning the criminalization of poverty and struggle that perpetuates systemic injustice — Green Dreamer Podcast
In a recent poem, I wrote:
“A second chance ain’t nothin’ if a brother didn’t have a first. How we gonna start a fire, and want solutions to our burns? Ain’t a system of redemption when we just waitin’ for our turn. Memories caged don’t decay. When the hell are we gonna learn?”
Can you guess what I am referring to? Let’s break it down line-by-line.
“A second chance ain’t nothin’ if a brother didn’t have a first” criticizes the Second Chance Act. The act, in short, authorizes federal funding for state and federal reentry programs. Though, as beneficial as this act has been for some people, especially assisting the release of a couple of incredible individuals I have been humbled to meet, the framework bothers me. Simply naming it “second chance” illusions society to believe that the individual convicted had an equal opportunity to succeed before being imprisoned. It buries the narratives and complex social issues that help conceptualize the context and conditions of communities disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. And though I do want to credit the states who have genuinely implemented second chance reforms — especially those who have enacted automatic record relief for dismissals and acquittals, and who’ve expanded expungement and sealing authorities — I must honestly say, this act is not surprisingly reactive.
“How we gonna start a fire and want solutions to our burns?” is my personal critique of the criminal justice system as a whole. It is a simple explanation of society’s insistence on using ineffective punitive practices. Society perpetuates systemic problems by accepting complacency as a response to inaction and inability to be proactive.
“Ain’t a system of redemption when we just waitin’ for our turn” is yet another critique of the prison industrial complex, highlighting the fact it disproportionately affects African American/Black and Latinx communities. How can it be a system of rehabilitation when 1 out of every 3 Black men, and 1 of out every 6 Latinx men, will be imprisoned in their lifetime? (Prison Policy Initiative, 2020). It is only a matter of time.
“Memories caged don’t decay. When the hell are we gonna learn?” is just a continuation of my critique. Society fails to acknowledge that incarcerated people have their own humanity, and are suffering. When are we going to learn that keeping minds and bodies behind bars is deterioration, not rehabilitation? Yet, still, some of the strongest minds have survived the being knelt on by the system.
How can we continue being so comfortable with this?
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Dr. Kimberly McGlonn, founder and creative director of Grant Blvd. — a fashion brand dedicated to sustainability and criminal justice reform — aligns a similar critique on the Green Dreamer Podcast. She emphasizes driving reforms in sustainability, recognizing links between poverty and criminalization. Whether it’s dense communities that have been redlined, underfunded schools caused by redistricting, inadequate access to healthy and affordable foods, or poor transportation to service jobs, “all these systems,” McGlonn says, “in their failures are linked.”
She claims that the links alone are evidence that incarcerated individuals are not deserving of over simplified labels. Though still, society prescribes blame and criminality to the actions sparked by those very struggles. “Sit with the reality that we have denied people, men and women, [and children] access to freedom, and stripped them of so many levels of human dignity,” she reminds us. There is too much data that tells us how ineffective the CJ system is at diverting crime or enhancing rehabilitation. But it is ignored. Instead, a myopic view pervades and society continues to believe that bad people = criminals, and that criminals need to be punished and locked up like dogs.
That is why, from a holistic view, the Second Chance Act is misleading; it only continues to feed society this false sense of sympathy America has for returning citizens.
“But,” as McGlonn rightly asks, “were they ever fully treated with full citizenship?”
I used to believe people were just ignorant.
But now I believe people are just ignoring.
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Mass incarceration is a human rights issue.
This is not new news to those whose life’s are dedicated to this fight. But as an environmental justice advocate, I never saw myself joining this fight. It was easy for me to see, as a minority myself, how ill and unregulated environmental practices target poor communities; and how those poor communities are conditioned to make decisions that are not ecologically conscious. It was not so clear to me, however, that we have an entire system that enables environmental injustice due to a centralized power stripping the minds, bodies and souls of people, just as power plants leak poisonous gas into their communities: slowly and quietly.
I can’t ask to protect our planet without asking to protect our people.
So climate change is not only a human rights issue, too, but it is directly linked to mass incarceration.
McGlonn advises us, “Sustainable living is how we behave in our own homes.” How we see the world directly impacts how we treat it. How we see each other directly impacts how we care for one another. And by dismissing the connections, we are missing every solution.
How is knowing 1.2 million people (and counting) are locked up any different from knowing global temperatures have risen more than 1 degree celsius? One could say, ‘because climate change affects all of humanity.’
Well, I argue that humanity was being stripped away long before science revealed its data. That is why it shouldn’t come as a shock that climate science is being denied, just as the data regarding how ineffective mass incarceration is, has been denied.
Temperatures don’t just rise because we don’t regulate fracking or power plants. Temperatures rise because we haven’t dealt with America’s deepest, darkest issues.
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So when are we gonna learn? I am not asking you to begin your overt activism against mass incarceration. I am simply asking you to recognize the connection between the criminal justice system and environmental injustice.
As big of a problem saving the planet sounds, restoring the dignity and humanity of 1.2 million people sounds like a good place to start.
