Darielis Rivas & Tracie Bernardi
Professor Ronald Jenkins
Final Presentation
Introduction:
“The overwhelming majority of people branded criminals and felons struggle mightily to play by the rules and succeed in a society seemingly hell-bent on excluding them. Like their forebears, they do their best to survive, even thrive–against all odds.” That is the harsh reality, the criminal justice system claims to be rehabilitative to individuals who are incarcerated, but the truth is that during and after incarceration the system does not do enough for them. The system perpetuates excluding formerly incarcerated people from opportunities. Even while incarcerated, the job opportunities are equivalent to slave labor, such as for the men who were at Attica in the 1970s, “no matter what the job, few of Attica’s prisoners earned more than 6 cents a day in 1970. The lucky ones were paid $2.90 for a full day’s work, which was still much less than a man needed to survive at this,” prison. However, let me stress- the majority of the men only made 6 cents. Even after individuals get released from incarceration, the opportunities are sparse because “nearly every state allows private employers to discriminate on the basis of past criminal convictions. In fact employers in most states can deny jobs to people who are arrested but never convicted of any crime.” This is completely unjust. Today we will hear from Tracie Bernardi, a formerly incarcerated woman, who’s speaking out and advocating for individuals who are both currently and formerly incarcerated. Check out her blog, the link can be found in the chat (https://23-years-an-inmate.com)
Monologue:
My name is Tracie Bernardi. I went into prison in 1993 as a 19 year old child. I was sentenced to 30 years. I ended up serving 23 years flat in prison during which I served 7 years straight in Solitary confinement.
I introduce myself like that so that you can understand the perspective from which I’m speaking with you today.
Even as a women with that prison experience, I winsed in disbelief. When I watched the Attica Documentary. I could not believe that that the people in-trusted with the men in Attica’s lives could be so inhumane and cruel. And worse was that our society allowed this.
Watching what happened in Attica reminds me of why I advocate today. As you can imagine I witnessed lots of abuse and oppression at the hands of the prison guards
“and this oppressiveness, unreal, gives rise to real distress in him who watches it”
Watching Attica reminds me why today, People in prison are scared to death to stand together…because when you do stick up for yourself you get retaliated against.
This is why I advocate and fight to change the treatment of human beings throughout the judicial process.
I’m the co-founder of once-incarcerated…and I facilitate Once-In Anonymous meetings for formerly incarcerated people. Once IN provides a safe haven for people like ourselves to be able to talk about the collateral damage,and other things that we face when we come home due to our criminal record.The stereotypes, the not being able to get gainful employment, not being able to get stable housing. So on that end We provide peer support.
I’m also ACLU SmartJustice Leader – we change laws to help end Mass incarceration. In 2019 we helped get a Prosecutorial Transparency Law passed. CT prosecutors have too much discretion and up until now all sentencing records were still on paper. Because of this law these records will go into a database which will help us to gain crucial insight into why mass incarceration is happening in the first place. We also passed a law to form a council to study collateral damage.
For those interested in public safety, lets do all that we can to society from being able to perform double jeopardy on formerly incarcerated people. After a person has served their prison time they should be able to reintegrate without interference. It is our social responsibility, not to allow people to socially bar or exclude anyone from society.
I work at these causes because Allowing people to discriminate against ANYONE is against God..
When someone returns to prison, society says the person failed. Like ‘why are they going back they must like it there’ but the untold truth the reason they’re coming back is because they’re rejected from society. The stigma of a criminal record is attached to a person, A scarlet letter.
When I was in prison I didn’t stand up for myself and when I did stand up for myself it backfired… I was afraid to speak out.
But I believe God allowed me to live through my experience so that I could use my voice and my story to make change.
In Prisons today they aren’t outright killing us like they did in Attica but they are slowly killing us. Allowing guards to abuse inmates, to leave us with post-traumatic stress disorder and other new traumas. They destroy you and in the very place that you’re supposed to be rehabilitated…It’s a sad shame that abuse is still so prevalent among the people that are supposed to be entrusted with our lives and nobodies doing nothing about it.”
“Tell me how can you be quiet? You know the language of the unheard, is a riot All we ever see from you is violence (True) You know you ain’t no better if you silent You talking ’bout the city on fire (Oh, oh) Where your rage when my people die? We ain’t slaves, let my people fly (Oh, yeah) Now it’s time, watch my people rise”
Tracie Bernardi Guzman 