- When we talk about Black incarceration in Wisconsin,
we typically talk about issues that Black men face,
which is an important topic.
Wisconsin has one of the highest incarceration rates
for Black men in the entire country.
But what about Black women who are incarcerated?
What are the issues that they face?
On this episode of Why Race Matters,
we'll talk with one woman who is working
to remove employment barriers for people
who are formerly incarcerated
and who are returning back to their communities.
She'll also share about her experiences
in the criminal justice system.
But first, let's discuss why race matters
when it comes to incarceration.
Existing at the crossroads of race and gender,
Black women are especially vulnerable to policing
and sentencing rooted in a history of oppression.
Black women are more likely to be fatally shot by the police
in comparison to any other group of women.
They are also most likely to be unarmed
when those shots are fired.
In Wisconsin, Black women are overrepresented
in the criminal justice system.
As a group, they make up just 7.5%
of the state's female population,
but 21% of women in the Wisconsin correctional system.
Women who survive criminal justice
often find re-entry to be an uphill battle.
Formerly incarcerated women face high rates
of mental health challenges, poverty,
homelessness, and unemployment.
This is compounded by the reality that the majority
of incarcerated women are mothers of children under 18.
All of these barriers can increase the threat
of reincarceration.
To unpack these experiences is Carmella Glenn,
coordinator of Madison Area Urban Ministry's Just Bakery,
a culinary vocational program
for people returning home after incarceration.
So thank you for joining us today, Carmella.
- Thanks for having me.
- Absolutely.
Can you tell us your story and how it's gotten you
to the place where you are and the work that you do?
- So, my story starts
with me trying to find my way of who I was.
When I was about 21,
my mom was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
- Wow. - And my father
was sentenced to five years in federal prison,
my mom was state.
My husband's been incarcerated,
a lot of my family and friends.
I was incarcerated in Dane County jail,
not in the correctional system.
And the reason was, once my mother went to prison,
I was the provider of all my younger brothers.
I'm the oldest of four.
And I just fell into substance use myself
around alcoholism, numbing.
I had a lot of traumatic events happen in my childhood.
When my mom came home from prison,
so here's where my journey begins around criminal justice.
When my mom came home from prison,
she decided that she needed to go back in
and work inside of the prison system.
And so she started working for Asha Family Services--
they're out of Milwaukee-- around domestic violence.
And so I started doing that work
going into the women's prisons
and I fell in love with the work inside.
However, I felt like I didn't have all the pieces.
And so I started looking around
for more employment and ended up working for now Just-Dane,
then Madison Area Urban Ministry.
We changed our name in June.
- When you mentioned your experience
within the criminal justice system
and then family members' experiences,
I guess I wanted to know if you could uplift things
that people may not know about what it's like
because you even distinguished
federal versus state versus jail; right?
And for a lot of us who may watch Law and Order
or what's the show, Orange Is The New Black,
there's an idea of what it is, but what is it actually
from your experience and those of your family members?
- It is a system that is used to house people
rather than help people.
It is a system that is putting bodies behind bars
and doing nothing for them while they're in there.
- Okay, so this idea that you're going in to come out
a new person that can positively contribute to society,
you're like, "Absolutely not."
- Absolutely not.
The reason is...
Most of the reason is most of the people that go to prison
go in there for non-violent offenses and are coming back,
and there isn't treatment inside of there at the levels.
It's used for housing because we don't have
enough mental health providers in the community,
so they house people.
There's not enough around addiction
and substance use disorder period, inside of there.
And if they do get it, and if you are one of the lucky
that do get to get in that,
let's say you get a 10-year sentence,
you sit nine and a half years then your last six months,
let's shove a whole bunch of programming in you
and then go say, "Play nice outside."
And once you walk out of the gates, the supports end.
- Wow.
And that explains probably
why the recidivism rate is what it is
because I'm going in, I'm not getting help,
not getting services, or maybe a little something.
And then, I'm being sent back out
with now this label attached to me.
- And more trauma being inside of a cell
around people who aren't getting any help themselves.
So we're creating little pockets of trauma and then saying,
"I consider you rehabilitated," and they like to use that.
But what about those that haven't been habilitated
in the first place?
Have significant trauma and go inside of this trauma box
and then come out?
And for women, you are addressing--
Most women that go in are for non-violent offenses
but have suffered at a two to three times higher rate
than their counterparts,
significant trauma
and go inside of the box, and then children
and all of that.
- Angela: Wow, yes.
You mentioned your work with domestic violence,
and so understandably, there's a correlation, right?
Between women who have experienced domestic violence
and those who are incarcerated.
Would you say that it's higher than the general population?
- Yes, my final paper I did for criminal justice
was on women and incarceration.
And about 70% of women that are in there
have suffered from domestic violence.
- What do you think can be done to change that
or even the things you've seen that are moving the needle
in elevating women's issues in the same way as men's?
- When you talk about Black women
that have been incarcerated,
our system doesn't even know what to do.
It's one of the reasons why I wanted to work specifically
around trauma in it.
It's because I've seen so many Black women
come out and literally
not even have time to take a training program,
which is why we offered a paid training twice a year,
because they got kids that are in a system.
They need to get a job; they need housing.
They're the breadwinners.
We are the invisible thread until we show up.
We're not even spoken about
until it's someone famous
or someone out there or someone doing these things.
In this community especially, the system was designed
to break Black women down a long time ago, right,
by incarcerating our men. - Right.
- Welfare was designed to separate families
and keep the Black woman from-- not marrying her husband.
And then, when they get out, struggle harder
than their counterparts to get their children back.
- Wow, so there are issues, pre-existing issues
that I'm sure were contributing in some way to incarceration.
Not being addressed, there's added trauma
through the incarceration experience.
You're leaving now with untreated trauma, compounded trauma
on top of having this label that limits your ability
to access certain things.
And so, just left to figure it out.
- Yes, and said, "Go play nice."
And, "You're free."
And the services that...
This state has tried.
There was this movement of outside entities
that we wanted to be like a Minneapolis
that was definitely more progressive than us.
But it dies every time.
- Why do you think that is?
- I think it is a "not willing
to look in our own backyard" problem.
We believe that those over there
are the ones with the problems.
And,
until it directly affects us,
then we're willing to just look the other way.
And we live in a place that considers itself progressive.
And I don't know, that's not my experience
as a person of color, and to live in that
and have someone tell me I'm crazy
because my experience is so different than yours
makes you feel a little, you know, prickly sometimes.
- And so, I'm thinking then about the connection
to your work with Just Bakery and the re-entry world.
Tell us about the significance then of programs like that,
given this huge issue that doesn't seem
to have any easy resolve.
- Yeah, so, a little bit of a journey.
So when I first took over Just Bakery,
we knew we wanted to work around employment.
And so we started there
around finding people jobs,
training them minimally, and finding employment.
But I quickly,
as someone who has suffered significant trauma,
realized that there's more to the picture, right?
There's more, too, than finding a job for someone.
Because I can check a box,
I have so many grants and reports I fill out,
and I can mark success down so easily
by putting them through Just Bakery.
But there were so many pieces that needed to be added.
And so, am I successful
if I get a woman a job...
She doesn't have a driver's license.
She has to see her probation and parole officer regularly.
She doesn't have an automobile.
She has to be at work at 8:30 in the morning,
but she has to get her kids to school,
and she has to take the bus.
Yeah, I get to mark a box that says, 'Successful.'
- Because she's employed. - Because she's employed.
Did I just set her up for failure, though?
And so I've really taken the program
and dug into every tiny little aspect of.
When someone comes in,
I wanna know everything about them.
Everybody that comes in, it's a 12-week program,
and it's free for everybody.
It costs us about $3,500 to put a student through.
And the only thing you have to have
is a barrier to employment.
That can be formerly incarcerated,
that can be mental health disorders, substance use disorder,
lack of education.
And I call it an 90-day interruption of your life.
Everything you thought you thought about yourself
or what the world told you, just give us 90 days to show you
that who you are and where you can go.
- So what is that like for the women that you're having
this initial conversation with?
- Emotional. - I can imagine.
- It is emotional, lots of tears.
I love doing the initial interviews with all of them.
My favorite question is when I first started sitting
down with them, and I say, 'Could you close
your eyes for me, and then tell me,
who do you wanna be when you grow up?'
And I've had people tell me, "I really wanted to be
an astronaut, but I can't because of now what I've done."
And I'm like, "Who says you can't?"
And I have shown people how you back that up.
So, Just Bakery, when you graduate,
you can graduate with up to 12 college credits.
It was my biggest feat that I had to do.
- That is excellent. I love that.
- I graduated from Madison College culinary school,
and my chef and I worked for two years
to find curriculum that could be accredited
that would have transfer credits.
And so I can literally walk someone through
how you can get into culinary school
and transfer those credits onto a Bachelor's
and then go to a Master's.
And, who knows, one day, you might be an astronaut.
And so, allowing people through long- and short-term
goal making to see what they're capable of.
- Okay, so I feel like there's a ton I could ask you more,
but I don't want to monopolize too much of your day.
So I guess I'll ask you, what are the takeaways
that you want those viewing this conversation to have?
Either those who have no experience
in the criminal justice system are learning things
for the first time and maybe want to do something
to bring about change,
or those who have been directly impacted
and are just trying to figure it out?
- Those that are trying to bring about change.
There's so many layers to it that we have
to deal with the big, right?
We have to deal with the big.
So systems have to be changed around sentencing.
I have friends who are in prison
for the rest of their life for drug sales.
Sentencings needed to be changed.
Stop putting people in prison for crimeless revocations.
Madison loves that.
No new crime, someone called and made a false accusation,
and they just lock you up.
Having probation and parole and those doing the work,
correctional officers, sergeants
trained in privilege, conscious and unconscious bias.
Racism and what it looks like. [chuckles]
- The way you said that word was like
people don't believe this is a real word.
So, racism. [laughs]
- Yes.
And what it looks like.
So that system, for those that are in it,
come see me.
[both laughing]
You're welcome.
There is people out there fighting for them every day.
I want them to know that we're out here fighting for you,
and we are working on changing the minds of people
and what people think about you.
We are not the worst thing we ever did,
and they are not the worst thing they ever did.
The only reason some of us aren't incarcerated
is 'cause we didn't get caught,
more than,
more than people want to even admit that.
And do not be ashamed.
Hold your head high, and do not be defined by that.
You are someone who has been incarcerated before;
you are not a convict, a criminal, a felon.
You are someone who has been incarcerated.
You are a person who has had this happen
and has made choices and is no longer that person anymore.
- Ooh, so with that mic drop,
thank you so much, Carmella, for joining us today.
- Thank you so much for having me.
- The experiences of men, women, and non-binary folks
in the justice system are all different,
but Black incarceration is about more than race
which is why it matters.
Black incarceration is talked about a lot in Wisconsin,
and maybe that's the problem.
We spend so much time talking about the systems
that cause issues
and less time actually fixing them,
which is why work like Carmella's
is still so very important and necessary.
To learn more, go to pbswisconsin.org/whyracematters
to find additional links and resources
to help keep you informed.
There, you can also check out the Why Race Matters podcast
as well as additional episodes.
[calm orchestral music]
- Funding for Why Race Matters
is provided by
CUNA Mutual Group,
Park Bank,
Alliant Energy,
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.