Summary(0:21) Incarceration for twelve years -- (0:55) Experiences of injustice -- (1:11) Exacerbation of mental illness within prison -- (2:11) Family members serving as political prisoners -- (2:26) Entering the system and receiving a number -- (3:29) The ways in which mass incarceration mirrors slavery -- (4:03) The link between poverty and systems of oppression -- (4:55) Uncle’s viewpoint on the law -- (5:27) The design of class subservience -- (5:56) The link between class and ethnicity -- (6:09) Incarceration statistics -- (7:10) Lack of knowledge possessed by those who have not experienced incarceration -- (8:22) The gap between media representations of the justice system and the reality -- (9:11) Attending conferences to spread knowledge about the realities of incarceration -- (10:11) The problems of youth prosecution -- (11:08) Advocacy and change driven by the voices of those who have been incarcerated -- (11:54) The importance of the public library for reintegration and education -- (12:16) Increasing the accessibility of multiple types of education projects about incarceration -- (12:50) Finding ways for the United States to heal itself -- (13:14) The example of Germany’s healing process post-Holocaust -- (14:18) Experience of solitary confinement -- (15:12) Being given the minimum amount of food necessary to stay alive -- (15:38) Minimum standards -- (16:07) The impact of sensory deprivation and human isolation on the cerebral cortex -- (18:21) Loneliness and bombardment of sound in solitary -- (18:57) The deterioration of the brain and emotions and development of psychosis in solitary -- (20:14) Lack of communication in solitary -- (21:07) Hopes for founding a corporation called Incarcerated Nation -- (21:48) California Hunger Strikes -- (22:20) Building replica cells for the public to experience solitary confinement -- (22:49) Creating media content for advocacy -- (22:49) The relationship between capitalism and prison injustice -- (23:35) Statistics on human isolation in New York prisons -- (25:25) The link between redistricting, legislation, community resources, and prison reform -- (26:20) The incentive to criminalize certain communities -- (28:18) Raising the bar on human rights -- (30:48) Psychological punishment that devalues human life.
NoteAudio interview conducted on November 1, 2016, by Carmen Lopez and Brenda Bentt-Peters in Harlem. Collected through Our Streets, Our Stories, an oral history project of Brooklyn Public Library. This project is a partnership with Services for Older Adults and the Brooklyn Collection.
SubjectImprisonment ; Justice ; Indictments ; Police ; Rikers Island (N.Y.) ; Behavioral assessment ; Mental illness ; Prisons ; Political prisoners ; Constitution of the United States ; Slavery ; Criminal law ; Welsing, Frances Cress, 1935- ; Poverty ; Oppression ; Social classes ; Ethnicity ; Prisoners--Employment ; Housing ; Census ; Immigration ; Detention of persons ; Deportation ; Correctional institutions--United States ; Prosecutors ; Plea bargaining ; Legend, John ; Simmons, Russell ; Social advocacy ; Public libraries ; Education ; Germany ; Holocaust ; Solitary confinement ; Osteoporosis ; Sensory deprivation ; Somatosensory cortex ; Manic-depressive illness ; Schizophrenia ; Punishment ; Psychoses ; Human rights ; Torture ; Capitalism ; Legislation ; Prison Kennedy, John F. ; Reagan, Ronald ; Homelessness ; Psychology
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TitleOral history interview conducted with Five Mualimm-ak on 2016 November 01.