Philosophy for Humans (P4H) learning community met twice at SCI in January, and we are excited to be taking on a new project and continuing our existing ones. Upon reflection on these meetings, inside P4H member Farmer John remarked: “It’s easy to get overwhelmed with tasks, even when incarcerated. Some days it feels like too much to go to learning community, then at its completion, I feel rejuvenated, energized, and even relieved of stress!”
We celebrated the new year with a round of the game “Your Worst Nightmare”, which reminded us that there’s nothing like a shared chuckle for building community. We opened and closed our second meeting with an activity that asked us to try to rank order countries and then US states in terms of their total incarceration rates. We lined up flags in the order that we thought was right and then looked at a source to make corrections. Some of our biggest myths shattered by this exercise: Russia is not as high as we thought and India was far lower than expected.
The focus of our first January meeting was deciding what common project we would focus upon for our Spring meetings, as our breakout projects of Abolition Writing Group, Creative Arts Group, and Oral History Group will continue. We have engaged in similar deliberation over our common project for several cycles now, as it helps us to take stock of what we have accomplished as well as chart a path forward for what we want to do next.
After collecting various proposals from members, we built consensus through identifying desiderata to inform our decision. Proposals ranged from reading scholarly books to learning about current events like prison liberation in Syria, presidential pardons, and incarcerated firefighters to biomimicry life’s principles. With so many compelling options we generated the following desiderata: variety across meetings is desirable, continuity with our past work is desirable, and our common project should inform our breakout group projects.
In the end, we decided to read Dr. Jennifer Lackey’s Criminal Testimonial Injustice (Oxford University Press, 2023) to help us deepen our understanding of abolition from a new angle. Our prior common projects focused upon the experience of incarceration; that is, we looked at abolition from the perspective of those after sentencing. Lackey’s book offers insight into the US criminal legal system before incarceration, from the investigation and charging to trial and sentencing to parole hearing phases of its operation. By discussing this book together, we hope to be able to diagnose not only what needs to change in the current criminal legal system, but also what characterizes a more just accountability practice when testimony is included.
Dr. Lackey accepted our invitation to visit our community at the end of April to discuss her book with us. In addition to her scholarly work, she is the founding director of the Northwestern Prison Education Program, which offers a four-year undergraduate degree in partnership with the Illinois Department of Corrections. The program is the only bachelor’s degree for incarcerated students directly offered by a top 10 university in the United States. Currently 100 students are enrolled in the program.
We discussed the introduction to Lackey’s book at our next meeting. Several inside members of P4H affirmed that the chapter detailed stories well familiar to them. Lackey opens the book recounting the story of 12-year-old who was interrogated by police for 12 hours without access to his parents and who was eventually sentenced to 80 years in prison for carjacking and murder based upon his false confession. Inside members reflected that such people often spend their life unsuccessfully fighting their conviction, struggling with hopelessness that what really happened will never see the light. Lackey mentioned that truth-finding, conflict resolution, and restoration of peace are often thought to be the cornerstones of the trial system; however, the exercise of brute state power often undermines these goals. “Backed into a corner, threatened with the death penalty, more time in prison, or the loss of one’s children,” writes Lackey, “desperate and terrified people will say just about anything.” One inside member summed up Lackey’s analysis: plea deals are torture. Another member quipped, the truth doesn’t come out when a gun is to your head. When over 95% of felony convictions at the state and federal level are secured through guilty pleas, we should not accept a system that undermines a person’s epistemic agency in the process.
Lackey explained that epistemic agency refers to a person being recognized and treated as a truthteller, that is, a giver of knowledge. While Lackey often mentions cases of innocence and wrongful conviction, her argument is designed to extend even to those who have caused harm, even serious harm. Anyone convicted of a crime has a right of allocution, that is, a right to speak at a sentencing hearing. “But the reality is,” as Lackey explains, “defendants are told not only what not to say at such hearings, but also what to say and how to say it…defendants are expected to follow a script in which they admit guilt, apologize to the victim, and display an understanding of the seriousness of the crime, all while expressing an appropriate amount of remorse.” With such a narrow window for action, it’s no wonder many regard as the accepted truth that the tears of defendants at such hearings are inauthentic and manipulative. One P4H member remarked that they were told as a child not to talk to the police because it will be twisted to fit a narrative that works for the state—that’s the community’s interpretation of “can and will be used against you.”
In the end, P4H members thought Lackey’s introduction and book more generally points toward a bigger question: Who does society think should be heard? Unfortunately, too often, poor people, less educated people, people not familiar with the system, and non-white people are not on our radar. We were left with a variety of unanswered questions: How do we fight against agential testimonial injustice? Can an interrogation be conducted in a way that is consistent with agency? How do we build a system that addresses all sources of harm? How do we make the most vulnerable in our society count? We hope to make some progress on these questions in future meetings this semester.
