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| Clip-art image I found for prisoner reentry- it shows 2 clip-art people getting out of prison and starting to walk down a road that leads to a cute house, but there is a barrier on the road. Image source. |
So, I read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness [affiliate link] (my review is here) and now the question is, what should we do about it? The book says that meaningful change can't happen through gradual steps- the entire system needs to be overturned. This is true, but, for now there must at least be some small things we can do to help.
One specific issue is helping people who have been in prison to re-enter society. And there are charities that are working in this area, so, let's donate to them.
I have to say, personally, this felt weird to me. Donating to help people who are in a bad situation because they committed crimes. Aren't there plenty of other charities I could donate to, to help people who are in need and did not commit crimes?
It's like... I seem to have this bad psychological hangup about charity, where I only want to give money to people who are "perfect victims." And I'm sure it's not just me- this must be a really common thing, because ads for charities always emphasize how innocent and helpless the starving children are- like needing to portray the recipients of charity in the most extreme ways, to try to get more money from the donors. Like they're one-dimensional people who don't have anything to do besides be sad about whatever problem the charity is meant to fix. And I feel like there's something really wrong about this... like a mismatch between donors' impressions of what giving to charity means, and the actual reality. Because in reality, recipients of charity are real people with complicated lives, who have made good and bad decisions- just like all of us. But if the donors saw that, then they wouldn't donate money.
Or maybe it feels like there's a difference between charities that help with problems that could happen to anyone (illness, natural disaster) vs problems that are just the result of living in poverty. Like, I don't think people wonder if cancer patients "deserve" medical treatment. But if your problems come as a result of your poverty, people will ask why you didn't make better decisions with your money.
Anyway, as Michelle Alexander says in "The New Jim Crow," it's an oversimplification to say "well they shouldn't have committed a crime." The system of policing and mass incarceration is designed to set people up to fail- specifically targeting black people. And people who re-enter society after finishing their time in prison deserve to have a fresh start, but the system makes it difficult for them to get the resources and support they need. In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to donate to charities to address this problem, but here we are, it's a real problem, and they deserve help.
So anyway, I've googled a bit and rounded up these links. Please share more links in the comment section, if you know of other organizations helping people in this area.
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Some organizations I've found by doing a quick google (I searched "charity for formerly incarcerated people"):
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
A New Way of Life Reentry Project
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