In-Care-Ceration Episode 3: Civil Commitment

In this episode I sat down with Natasha Baker, Supervising Attorney for Litigation and Policy at UnCommon Law, to examine a deeply troubling issue unfolding inside California prisons: the use of flawed drug test results to deny people parole.  We start with the basics — what the Medication-Assisted Treatment program is, who it serves, and why drug testing plays a role in it — before uncovering why those tests were never designed to be used as evidence of wrongdoing. Then we get into what happened when Quest Diagnostics produced a wave of false positives, how those inaccurate results made their way into parole hearings, and what it meant for people who had spent years working toward release. This episode highlights how a clinical treatment tool becomes a punishment, and how medical errors can cost people their freedom.  Natasha Tavora Baker works as Supervising Attorney for Litigation and Policy, at Uncommon Law. Natasha holds a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School, and a B.A. from Boston College. Natasha leads Uncommon Law's strategic litigation and supports its policy efforts to address the arbitrariness of the parole hearing process.  Uncommon Law brings people serving life sentences home from prison by providing the legal, mental health, and rehabilitative support California's parole process demands, and challenging a parole system that wasn't built to recognize who they've become. Over nearly 20 years, 99% of the people they've helped come home have never returned to prison.    Links: UnCommon Law Medication Assisted Treatment and Parole in California State Prisons California prisons have life-saving addiction treatment. Doctors say the parole board is undermining it. Revealed: drug tests in California prisons yielded false positives, affecting thousands of people Thousands of California Prisoners Falsely Tested Positive for Opioids. Did It Cost Them Their Freedom? Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam   Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com. Support our show by making a tax deductible donation here.  Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more  

In this episode we talk about mental and physical healthcare in Washington's prisons.  We speak with Tony Tyson, Queen J, and Darnell Jones, all incarcerated voices in our state, who talk to us about accessing care in prison, and also what they or the people around them have done to get or create care. Content warning: this episode includes first-hand accounts of medical neglect and suicidality in prison. In-Care-Ceration was written and produced by Leah Montange and Meredith Ruff.  

In this episode we explore ways that people are working to build a more caring and care-full world, and to address the harms of our carceral systems whether they are prisons, jails, or hospitals. Some of the people we talk to are interested in engaging with Washington State to change systems, and others are more interested in finding ways to do care otherwise, outside of state systems. This episode features the words of Scout Smedley, SYP, Cindi Fisher, Joshua Wallace, Lauara Van Tosh, Chris Carney, Shaun Glaze, and LeTania Severe, as well as Patreece Spence. We'd like to dedicate this episode, and the whole series to those who lost their lives or their loved ones' lives – physically or socially - to carceral systems; and to all who have devoted their lives to creating a more just, caring future, one where we aren't relying on cages or confinement to solve social problems. Thank you! In-Care-Ceration was written and produced by Leah Montange and Meredith Ruff.  

In this episode we talk about mental health in jails – what mental health care looks like in jails, how people with disabilities navigate and experience jail, and how activists and organizers have addressed the mental health crisis in urban jails in Washington.  We speak with Jordan Landry, Tony Tyson, Leslie McCallum, KL Shannon and Patreece Spence. Content warning: this episode includes first-hand accounts of police violence, unhealthy jail conditions, and suicidal ideation.  In-Care-Ceration was written and produced by Leah Montange and Meredith Ruff.  

In this episode, we take on the topic of civil commitment and experience. We address hospitalization, the emergency room, and the perspectives of people who work in the system and who receive treatment.  We address ways that civil commitment resembles incarceration. We speak to SYP and Laura Van Tosh, and feature the words of Cindi Fisher – all people whose lives and advocacy have intersected with the civil commitment system. This episode contains descriptions of civil commitment and emergency rooms, including discussions of suicidality. Music by Scout Smedley and editing by Nest Audio Co. In-Care-Ceration was written and produced by Leah Montange and Meredith Ruff.  

In this episode, we take on forensic commitment, the psychiatric commitment of those who are facing criminal charges but are legally considered not competent to stand trial  We unpack how the jail and state hospital systems are connected with each other through forensic commitment, and how there is a surplus of people in the jails who are awaiting space for beds to open up in the state hospital system. This has created pressure for an expansion of forensic commitment space in the state hospital system, something that abolitionists and reformers have addressed.  We speak with Chris Carney (Carney & Gillespie) again, as well as abolitionist, street medic and nurse SYP, and prison abolition activist Scout Smedley.  Music by Scout Smedley and editing by Nest Audio Co. In-Care-Ceration was written and produced by Leah Montange and Meredith Ruff.  

In episode one, we introduce this series' central questions: what do the mental health system and the criminal legal system have to do with one another? More to the point, how is improving care in Washington contributing to the expansion of jails, prisons and other spaces of confinement? We frame the whole series by outlining ways that care and incarceration are entangled with one another in Washington State. This episode features the voices of Chris Carney (Carney Gillespie) as well as Shaun Glaze (Black Brilliance Research) and LeTania Severe (Black Brilliance Research and Seattle Solidarity Budget).  Music by Scout Smedley and editing by Nest Audio Co. In-Care-Ceration was written and produced by Leah Montange and Meredith Ruff.

In-care-ceration is a documentary podcast about how Washington's so-called mental health system is entangled with the carceral system. How do people in need of mental health care end up losing their freedom, whether in a hospital, jail, or prison? How do these institutions care for people? Do they care for people at all? Are community calls for a more caring system having their intended impact? We especially tune in to how improving care is a guise for expanding confinement and coercion. The podcast episodes feature voices from advocates and people who have experience in the jail, prison or mental health systems. We hope that this podcast can support future campaigns to stop carceral expansion. About the Producers / Co-Hosts Leah Montange is a human geographer who words toward prison and immigration detention abolition in the PNW. She teaches, writes, and creates media (like this podcast). Meredith Ruff is an attorney turned bureaucrat (oh no!). She has been organizing with people in prison since 2017.

For this episode I sat down with Garrett Felber to talk about their new book, A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre. The book is described by Dr. Orisanmi Burton, author of Tip of the Spear, as "A rigorous examination of Sostre's revolutionary life that offers vital lessons for those seeking to carry on the struggle."    I began our conversation by asking Garret about what motivated them to write the book in the first place. We then focus our discussion on what they learned about Sostre throughout the process. Garrett's clear writing and insightful analysis offers us a layered and complex understanding of Sostre's life and work. Our conversation highlights Sostre's evolving political vision and practice, the relevance of his organizing for our current political moment, and how his skillful use of the courts in the fight for prisoner's rights is foundational for understanding the broader abolitionist struggle.    Garrett Felber is an educator, writer, and organizer. They are the author of Those Who Know Don't Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State, and coauthor of The Portable Malcolm X Reader, with Manning Marable. Felber is a cofounder of the abolitionist collective Study and Struggle and is currently building a radical mobile library, the Free Society People's Library, in Portland, Oregon.   AVAILABLE NOW! A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre, by Garrett Felber Virtual Book Launch hosted by Haymarket and AK Press feat. a conversation between Garrett Felber and Ruth Wilson Gilmore. A Continuous Struggle is a political biography of one of the most important revolutionary figures of the twentieth century in the United States. Martin Sostre (1923–2015) was a Black Puerto Rican from East Harlem who became a politicized prisoner and jailhouse lawyer, winning cases in the early 1960s that helped secure the constitutional rights of incarcerated people. He opened one of the country's first radical Black bookstores and was scapegoated and framed by police and the FBI following the Buffalo rebellion of 1967. He was sentenced by an all-white jury to thirty-one to forty-one years. Throughout his nine-year imprisonment, Sostre transformed himself and the revolutionary movements he was a part of, eventually identifying as a revolutionary anarchist and laying the foundation for contemporary Black anarchism. During that time, he engaged in principled resistance to strip frisks for which he was beaten eleven times, raising awareness about the routinized sexual assault of imprisoned people. The decade-long Free Martin Sostre movement was one of the greatest and most improbable defense campaign victories of the Black Power era, alongside those to liberate Angela Davis and Huey Newton. Although Sostre receded from public view after his release in 1976, he lived another four decades of committed struggle as a tenant organizer and youth mentor in New York and New Jersey. Throughout his long life, Martin Sostre was a jailhouse lawyer, revolutionary bookseller, yogi, mentor and teacher, anti-rape organizer, housing justice activist, and original political thinker. The variety of strategies he used and terrains on which he struggled emphasize the necessity and possibility of multi-faceted and continuous struggle against all forms of oppression in pursuit of an egalitarian society founded on the principles of "maximum human freedom, spirituality, and love." LINKS Study and Struggle is a collective concentrated in Mississippi that organizes towards abolition through political education, mutual aid, and community building across prison walls. We believe that study and struggle are necessary, complementary parts of any revolutionary movement, and that dismantling the prison industrial complex (PIC) requires centering criminalized people. Justice for Geraldine and Martin – Martin Sostre and Geraldine (Robinson) Pointer's names should have been cleared after they were framed. Sign the petition to support our effort to make what's been delayed for far too long a reality for these two transformational former political prisoners.   Credits Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com. Support our show by making a tax deductible donation here.  Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected] Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast Instagram:@beyondprisons  

In this episode I sat down with the amazing Jennifer Viets for a conversation about her work as a restorative justice practitioner in Chicago. We begin by talking about Jennifer's experience with being a grandmother including pushing back against societal expectations, how her work shifted from being individually focused to more community oriented, and we explore some of the lessons she's learned from being a circle keeper about being in right-relationship with others.     Jennifer Viets(she/her/hers) has worked as a Restorative Justice Practitioner for the past 15 years. She is currently the Alternative Resolution Pathways Specialist in the Office of Student Protections for Chicago Public Schools and for the previous four years worked as a Restorative Practices Coach in the Office of Social Emotional Learning. Her work in the community involves training community Circle Keepers and supporting restorative processes. She has also worked as a multi-disciplinary teaching artist and arts administrator with children and families for the past 30 years using the arts to reach, teach and heal. This work has included designing programming for children and adults in hospitals as well as other institutional settings. She is also a proud mother and grandmother.