Ending Mass Incarceration: On a mission to transform our barbarous system

Glenn E. Martin presented at the recent conference on Ending Mass Incarceration & the New Jim Crow at Pendle Hill. Glenn is formerly incarcerated and runs an organization JustLeadershipUSA, whose mission is to reduce the rate of incarceration by half by 2030 drawing on the leadership of people formerly and currently incarcerated and their families. - Lucy

I was first bound by handcuffs in 1995, and though I haven’t known their crushing grip for years, the gruesome logic of our criminal justice system has remained with me ever since. In those years, prison revealed itself not as the place reserved exclusively for the world’s villains, but as the repository for our own national neglect. Ours is an expensive and ineffective criminal justice system that’s become our knee-jerk response to behaviors that are, by a wide margin, the predictable consequences of social catastrophes. Prison warehouses those consequences, and in so doing gives us an excuse to look away. My years of incarceration left more than my humanity devastated. My faith in the world’s ability to evolve itself from barbarism to compassionate and moral conduct felt violently challenged. Yet amidst my skepticism I found purpose—our criminal justice system is a human creation, and its transformation can be achieved through the same channel.

Glenn E Martin at Pendle Hill by Joe Hulihan

I eventually found opportunity in the advocacy world. There, I was valued for my passion and professional acumen, but also for my practical expertise and unique perspective as someone directly impacted by the failures of criminal justice policy. National attention soon followed as I gained a reputation as a tireless advocate for reform. It became clear that my voice in the advocacy world was a unique one that, if harnessed, would become resounding enough to effect change for myself and millions of others.

In the spirit of that knowledge, I resigned from my position as Vice President at the Fortune Society in 2013, one of power and prestige, to found JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA); an organization whose mission is to cut the number of people under correctional supervision in the US in half by 2030, while proving that those closest to the problem are indeed closest to the solution. 

And therein lies my principal critique of the growing reform movement. I take no comfort in being the “exception.” For me, the position has always confirmed the horror of the “rule.” I want to be clear: there are no voiceless for whom I speak on behalf of. I’ve learned that such slogans are little more than cheap gimmicks for crass, even if well-intentioned, political ambition. My goal is to amplify the voices and expertise of those who remain either deliberately silenced or willfully ignored so that they may speak on behalf of themselves. It's time we acknowledge that the experts we so urgently need have always been close at hand, even when the experts themselves least expect it.  

The treacheries of my own incarceration—numerous as they were—seemed to cohere around the gradual destruction of my humanity. Any suggestion that a leader dwelled inside of me would have been rejected as a vulgar fantasy. Much of my personhood was destroyed in those years and I began to accept its demise as just another in the long list of intangible belongings I had lost along the way.

Glenn E Martin & Jondhi Harrell at Pendle Hill

With the birth of my son Joshua, and through my boundless love for him, I found it restored. That one of the principal cruelties of incarceration is the destruction of families is confirmed by the fact that for so many of us family serves as the greatest inspiration to begin life anew. My son, more than any other factor, compelled me to reclaim all that was lost. JLUSA and the half by 2030 campaign are a commitment to making that opportunity possible for the entirety of our incarcerated population.  

The further relevance of 2030 as the year of my son’s 18th birthday has not escaped me. The overlap of these events is deeply revealing. In that year, history instructs that the pathology of my son as an adult black male will be a foregone conclusion in the eyes of our criminal justice system. With that realization I’m forced to confront the spirit of my country with both the optimism and sober reflection required of all parents. And it’s made all the more urgent by an equally horrifying fact: that a system-wide skepticism of his humanity will almost certainly precede his 18th birthday by years, likely beginning in his most formative moments. That means that if our system continues to go unchecked, the whims of adolescence will be luxuries that he can least afford. I won’t countenance a future America that forces him to forfeit his childhood in the same way that I did. 

As the son of a Liberian-American mother and Caribbean-American father, his existence is the clearest expression of America’s future. To the extent that his maturity is unjustly stunted, so too will his country’s. For me, half by 2030 is hardly an academic exercise: it is as much a mission to transform our barbarous system as it is a fight to secure my son’s future. The humanity of our country will inarguably be judged by the way we treat his and the millions of others who stand to inherit, and shape the life of, America’s future. 

 

Related content:

Read a letter Glenn  wrote to President Obama after being "escorted" into a meeting at the White House

Building a nonviolent revolution against injustice: A conversation with Michelle Alexander

Ending mass incarceration: The pitfalls of incremental change

More Acting in Faith posts on ending mass criminalization

Addressing Prisons key issues page