We now have two workshops running at ToCI in addition to the Fall 2012 Inside/Out class. The class is going very well. Students are working on final projects to present to one another and at the closing ceremony.

The workshops are: Urban Policy and US Politics. Urban Policy is being offered for level 3 individuals and US Politics for level 4. We hope to add a level 4 Inside/Out class in Fall of 2013. The workshop is a way of spreading the word and beginning to lay the groundwork for the class inside while we work on recruiting students at the University for the class.

People for Change is launching its first fund-raiser for January of 2013. We are selling men's toiletries to support our efforts as a book-reading group, to get supplies for members, and to support meetings we plan to hold such as the HUB meeting in fall of 2013.

We are also about to put out the fall edition of our newsletter. The question is: "What does freedom mean to me?" Submissions have been steady and powerful. We look forward to the final product and more feedback from readers!

People for Change also continues to read together. We read some chapters from Freakonomics related to criminal justice issues. The chapter discusses the relationship between crime and other social phenomenon. The books just makes me glad I am not an economist. The findings are taken out of context and ignore the scary policy implications of some of the relationships they find, like between the legalization of abortion and a reduction in crime rates. While I know that policy recommendations are not intended by the authors, and in fact that they are fairly progressive types, I would not, personally, spend my time researching such a question. I am more interested in preventing/reducing crime by supporting communities and families of all sorts.

Our next text has yet to be decided. I look forward to extending our discussions, however. We never seem to have enough time to discuss after doing the business of the newsletter and fund-raising and catching up on how workshops are going.

People for Change at ToCI continues to organize educational workshops in addition to spending time ourselves studying texts of interest to our members.

We recently completed discussions of Manning Marable's biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Our discussions were deep and informed by individual PFC's members' deep knowledge themselves of the life and political work of Malcolm X. His legacy is claimed by many and we talked a lot about whether Marable captured valuable aspects of his life that contribute to our knowledge of what it might take to achieve racial justice in this country. We also noted what  in Malcolm's life Marable highlights as moments of "reinvention" and discussed the meaning of that term.

Next week we will discuss some commentary on the book brought to us by member Kenneth Sharp.

We will then proceed to discuss the already classic text (only two years out from its date of publication in 2010) The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. 

People for Change is also about to put out our second newsletter. The question to respond to for submissions was "If I had a second chance, what would I do with it?"  Inside and outside members contributed. Contact me at renee.heberle@utoledo.edu if you would like a copy.  Our next newsletter will respond to the question, "What does 'freedom' mean to me?"

These questions are always collectively arrived at through discussion in our group.

Dr. Morris Jenkins and myself will be reprising our inaugural class for the Inside/Out program titled "Law, Justice, and Mass Incarceration."  We will also be studying The New Jim Crow, embedded in many other historical and contemporary analyses of the question "why and how does the US incarcerate a greater proportion of its citizens, disproportionately citizens of color, than any other nation on earth?"

URLs for some publicity for our Inside/Out program

http://wordpress.utoledo.edu/provost/2012/06/05/prison-classroom-soars-free-with-shared-learning/

http://utnews.utoledo.edu/index.php/07_17_2012/ut-offers-integrated-course-with-incarcerated-students

People for Change will host the midwest HUB meeting for the Inside/Out Prison Exchange Project Saturday, April 28. We are welcoming 30 guests from around the region along with 25 local participants, inside and outside faculty and alumni.  The program will include discussions of think tank development, course pedagogy, content, and projects, and a session devoted to strategies to further our goals of breaking down barriers through education and organization.

The collaboration between the University of Toledo and the Toledo Correctional Facility is getting ever stronger even while the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections undergoes significant reorganization. We are grateful for the cooperation of staff at ToCI and for the solid participation of those who live inside in the efforts of People for Change.

Students, alumni from our classes, will run the day-long meeting. We will report here on outcomes and developments.

A message to my brother

Dear Brother,

This decade behind prison walls

Has had its ups and downs.

Thirteen years – fears and tears

Battles fought daily

Physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Battles I can win

But the war was lost

The day I got locked up.

The anxiety built up inside me

Leaves me questioning

Life itself as I say:

Who lives in the eyes of God?

Who walks in His grace?

Who has even seen His face?

Help me live in faith

I’m blind and can’t see

I talk but can’t breathe

I feel but can’t embrace.

I wake up in the morning

Like a corpse rising from the grave.

I look up in the sky – Damn!

I’m still in this place.

Hell on earth in store for a rebirth.

Need air and water to stir this fire.

The burning desire not to be a liar,

Backbiter, dirty fighter – can’t even buy a cigarette lighter.

All this anxiety, monstrosity, calamity,

Poverty, living in a cage,

Bottled up rage, the sky gets higher

There goes my shade – my own shadow

Can’t stand this place.

Prison wasn’t made for me.

I should’ve stopped while

I was ahead.

Now I’m trapped in a cave

With a toilet and a bed.

God I beg of you-

Take me when I’m dead.

Welcome to our blog!

People for Change was organized inside the walls of the Toledo Correctional Facility in Spring of 2011. We are a group of alumni from classes offered through the Inside/Out Prison Exchange Program at the University of Toledo.

This blog will serve as a place to publish writings of students and former students. These writings might be prose or poetry. They might be analytical or more personal and reflective. They will often be in response to readings we discuss together during our bi-monthly meetings.

We will also keep readers informed here about events and projects we are working on. We hope to build a network of Inside/Out alumni in Ohio and beyond who are aware of the issues of incarceration and are  interested in communicating in a humane and safe way about questions that arise when individuals are harmed or commit harms against others. 

I would like to open the blog with a poem by a member of People for Change:
This poem was in response to the double-celling of the Toledo Correctional Institution.

"How I feel about having a cell mate"
I feel like a lion trapped in a bird cage.
Like a Puffy sweeping clean the Cepalt's stage.
I feel like an elephant at a circus being told to stand on those little balls.
I feel like a skydiver with no parachute on a long fall.
I feel like a bird with steel wings
Like a Yo-Yo on a short string
I feel like I'm on a journey with no map
I feel trapped
I feel like a King with no throne
I feel so alone
I feel like an afro with no pick
Or like a blind man with no stick
I feel like a wishing well without a wish
Somedays I don't feel missed
I feel like a bottle rocket with no fuse
Like a handyman with no tools
I feel like music with no speakers
Like I'm in Love with no one
I feel the same way I felt before I had a cell mate
Like I'm ready to be on the other side of that gate.

Lamar