Activists Seek Parity for Blacks in Criminal Justice System

Khalid Abdar-Rashid tried to keep quiet.

He told the 10 people who met to brainstorm ways to reduce the number of African-Americans in Iowa prisons that he didn’t want to share his views because they were conservative.

But, then he really got to talking. The state has long studied the disproportionate number of blacks in prison, but done nothing concrete to change it, he said. And he doubts it will.

It’s not in the “best interest” of those who profit from the prison industry to change the situation, said Abdar-Rashid, a specialist at Spectrum Resources, a non-profit job training group that serves ex-offenders. 

Reducing the number of blacks in prison will require them to work together on solutions, he said, but they shouldn’t look for help from outsiders.

“We need to make some difference with how we deal with our kids,” Abdar-Rashid said.

A variety of topics was discussed Thursday night at Amazing Grace Church in Des Moines, including barriers to employment for ex-offenders, the effect of rap music, school discipline, activism, voting rights for ex-offenders, sentencing laws and black history. This was the third forum organized by activist Genie Bundy since September. Past forums garnered higher attendance, but the conversation was lively and candid with the small group.

David Goodson, an activist from Waterloo, said the problems must be attacked from multiple fronts. He said more organizations and programs are needed to help ex-offenders and black male adolescents. Then, pressure must be applied to change unfair laws and sentencing practices and convince the public that non-violent offenders don’t belong in jail but in community-based correctional programs.

“Simultaneously we have to work the programs and challenge the system,” Goodson said.

Bundy quoted Manning Marable, a professor of public affairs, political science, history and African-American studies at Columbia University and a speaker at the Ongoing Covenant with Black Iowa Summit, who said the “mass unemployment, mass incarceration and mass disenfranchisement” endangers blacks’ existence. 

“These are the conditions in which we currently live and enough is enough,” said Bundy.

Blacks must learn to make better choices and learn to work together more effectively, she said.

Others agreed.

“It’s tough to handle this problem outside of us,” said Curtis White, a small-business owner who grew up near the westside church.

White said ex-offenders struggle to change their lives in part because having a criminal background makes it harder for them to get a job.

“We have to have some reprieve,” he said.

Brooks Banton, deputy outreach director for the Barack Obama campaign, also urged participants to stay organized, get others on board and take their concerns collectively to law makers. 

Iowa tops the nation for imprisoning blacks at a rate that is 13.6 times that of whites, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, during the Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) Conference that concluded on Friday in Des Moines, said the state will work to “eradicate the problems of racial disparity in Iowa, whether it exists in hiring practices, in our schools, in our businesses or in our correctional system.”