Department Spotlight: Justice Initiatives

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed Brooklyn Public Library’s branches in March 2020, our outreach services to underserved populations closed along with them. For the Justice Initiatives workgroup, this meant that the vital connections we maintain between incarcerated New Yorkers and their communities and families were severed, leaving some of our most vulnerable patrons more vulnerable than ever.

A bit of background, Justice Initiatives (JI) is a component of BPL’s network of outreach to the community outside our doors, which includes things like class visits and book delivery to homebound patrons. JI supports incarcerated and formerly incarcerated patrons and their families through three main program areas all of which traditionally require physical connection and sharing space:

• The TeleStory program connects individuals in custody of the New York City Department of Corrections and Administration for Children's Services to their loved ones through use of teleconferencing equipment at the public library
• Jail and Prison Services, which includes book delivery service to city and federal correctional facilities
• Daddy/Mommy & Me, an early childhood literacy program

JI also hosts book discussion groups and workshops and a reference correspondence program and promotes Reentry Services, which are guided by the BPL Reentry Committee and include BPL staff support and training, public education, and direct services for formerly incarcerated patrons and their families.

March was a particularly difficult time, surfacing existential questions for the Justice Initiatives workgroup. Not only were we unable to serve our patrons, but we were acutely aware of the danger incarcerated people and their families in particular were facing during the pandemic as well. At the height of the crisis in New York, the highest rate of infection was on the huge, violent and unsafe city jail complex where we typically do book service and provide TeleStory, Rikers Island. Given the racial and economic disparities in policing and incarceration, we were also aware that many families of our incarcerated patrons live in under-resourced communities hardest hit by the pandemic. What follows is a description of what Justice Initiatives is doing now and how we are responding to the health and humanitarian crisis afflicting our community.

Our group met virtually, immediately after the library closure, to discuss what we could do to support our patrons. We quickly settled on a strategy of virtual outreach and support as well as public education on the issues important to both our patrons and to us as well. We made hundreds of phone calls to TeleStory families to provide resources and referrals as well as information and moral support. All of the families were anxious about conditions on Rikers; many family members had also lost jobs; others were struggling with school closures and supporting their kids. We put together a resource guide—including instructions on the new procedure for applying for unemployment benefits, and we connected families with library and non-library supports. We also pulled together a virtual event, featuring a public defender, a member of the New York City Board of Correction, a reentry advocate and an individual who had experienced the beginning of the pandemic on Rikers Island and who had been recently released. The event was livestreamed on BPL's YouTube channel and has since been viewed hundreds of times. At the event, we encouraged community members to ask questions of the panelists. Our aim was to inform the public, particularly families with an incarcerated family member, on the unfolding situation in the city’s jails. Encouraged by the response that event received, we planned more. Then George Floyd was murdered. Our next two planned panels were to address the opportunities created by the pandemic for accelerated reform of the criminal legal system, but they became about something broader and deeper: the uprising that was beginning against the brutal systems of racist violence and oppression personified in the killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and many others. We were soon programming discussions on spreading awareness about alternatives to policing and ending policing in schools; we now have bi-weekly events planned through the rest of the year.

As a complement to these virtual panel discussions, we recently began a Justice Initiatives Book Club. In choosing the books on our list, we wanted very much to balance thoughtful analysis of issues around violence, social, racial and economic justice and the criminal legal system with narratives of the impacts on individuals and communities and also narratives of resistance. For a complete list and description of the titles in our series, visit this booklist. The titles in the series are listed below, with calender entries and registration information updated as they become available:

 

The End of Policing written by Alex Vitale

The End of Policing interrogates the immense, decades-long expansion of police authority—specifically over Black and Brown people, sex workers, and people with mental health conditions—and demonstrates how it has quantifiably (and contradictorily) rolled back public safety and quality of life in the United States. As Vitale illustrates,​ r​eforms like sensitivity training and diverse hiring practices are ineffective and require further investment in law enforcement institutions.​ Humane, constructive, and economically viable alternatives to policing abound, with proven track records for improving collective safety and wellbeing. Abolition is a manifold process—as much about disbanding as it is about rebuilding communities and introducing public policies that center housing and healthcare for all, ​drug ​legalization, rehabilitation, and harm reduction. (This title will be discussed on July 20th and July 27, 2020.)

Check the Catalog

Emergent Strategywritten by Adrienne Maree Brown

An exploration of radical social change inspired by the work of Octavia Butler that provides a valuable foundation in afrofuturism and methods for collaborative community transformation. Emergent Strategy focuses on “how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for” and doubles as a handbook for readers to discuss with this in mind. (This title will be discussed in August 2020.)

Check the Catalog

Men We Reaped written by Jesmyn Ward

Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward explores grief in her 2013 memoir Men We Reaped. She dives into the painful reality of entrenched systemic racism, emerging not in anger, but in near-defeat. In just five years, she saw the lives of five black men succumb to circumstances that claim so many rural Black Americans as their victims--poverty, racism, and drugs, often intertwined. Is her community destined to live this way forever? Ward guts readers with a tapestry of tragic stories, asking if we're ready to reckon with the lingering legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. (This title will be discussed in September 2020.)

Check the Catalog

Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair written by Danielle Sered

Until We Reckon came out of the author’s work as Director of Common Justice, a Brooklyn-based restorative justice project, as well as her experience as an individual harmed by violence. The book makes a compelling case that our current criminal legal system is a machine that, in response to violence, creates and perpetuates more violence. Sered developed Common Justice as an alternative focused on healing and the restoration of individual and community relationships. This book documents that work and the many stories of Brooklyn lives touched by violence and healing. (This title will be discussed in October 2020.)

Check the Catalog

Blood in the Water written by Heather Ann Thompson

On September 9, 1971 nearly 1,300 people took over the Attica Correctional Facility to negotiate for better living conditions, labor rights and political rights. These negotiations came to an abrupt end when state troopers were sent in and killed 39 people, injured hundreds and took back control of the prison. Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson pieces together long suppressed documents into the most complete narrative of the Attica uprising, the state’s violent response, and the decades-long long legal battles that ensued.  Through it we gain a greater understanding of how our current state of mass incarceration was constructed and insight into movement organizing that can help us connect more deeply to the current moment. (This title will be discussed in November 2020)

Check the Catalog

How To Hide An Empire: A History of The Greater United Stateswritten by Daniel Immerwahr

In his meticulously researched exposé, How To Hide An Empire: A History of The Greater United States, author Daniel Immerwahr deconstructs the falsehood of the United States as a republic of 50 states and delves into its widely ignored imperialist past. Immerwahr reveals how authorities have sealed a revisionist image of the country into public consciousness, keeping natives of seized lands, and the violence inflicted upon them, unseen. Starting from the earliest forays of American expansion, Immerwhar traces how the country has risen to power by laying claim to overseas territories and using them to advance in globalization, yet denying citizenship or association to their inhabitants -- an exploit that continues to conceal the true nature of the U.S. (This title will be discussed in December 2020.)

Check the Catalog

As the Justice Initiatives group brings back our direct service to patrons over the coming months, firstly with a “books by mail” service to incarcerated patrons and then with the resumption of the TeleStory program and, eventually, in-person services in facilities, we are committed to continuing the virtual programming we have developed during the pandemic. We are also committed to making explicit the connections between direct service to patrons, public debate and education, and the role of the public library as a space for racial, social and economic justice.