JUUstice Washington

A Unitarian Universalist State Action Network

Learning about & Speaking Up for PRISON ABOLITION: A COVID-Safe Way To Help

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The views & opinions expressed here are those of the author & do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of JUUstice Washington.
Looking for a meaningful topic to study with a small group? Please learn more about prison abolition by visiting the resource page at www.nonewwashingtonprisons.com Getting involved is a proactive way to tell elected officials to stop funding expansion of prison infrastructure. Funding is needed for basic needs like housing, food, education, child care, transportation.
Perhaps you have been working diligently through the years on reforming the criminal justice system, learning from knowledgeable, dedicated professionals who are motivated to be public servants, working for offices like city police, the county courthouse, or the state Department of Correction. Thank you for your dedication! Your commitment and work is appreciated! Your insights and wisdom are needed.  When you share how this work shaped your learning and work for justice, you encourage others.  You may be helpfully offering practical, generation-connecting questions like, “So what step needs to happen next?” or “How does this keep people safe?”
For the first question: a practical step is to be sure to address racial justice in any community justice work. If your community seems predominantly white, all the more reason to increase racial justice skills.  Besides recommendations from your Minister and Religious Education Director, there is https://www.uuare.org/addtional-resources  Consider subscribing to a BLUU box! https://www.blacklivesuu.com/  If you read Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” years ago, talk with others following her current work for Black Lives. Share what you learned from it, and what steps you’re taking to honor that.
Encouraged by my congregation’s value of racial justice, I have learned about stopping expansion of prison infrastructure, from my local chapter of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice).  Attending public city and county meetings, I have seen that while our elected officials make many budget decisions, it is citizens’ role to speak up for our values.  Like us, elected officials are people doing their best, with varying amounts of institutional power.  At meetings, where government leaders and community members were planning new jail beds for projected increased future need, I’m grateful to have been able to speak up, about struggling hungry families that need that tax -payer money now. And how, if our system requires people to get arrested before getting help, how can we fund basic needs for our neighbors before they get handcuffed?  While these aren’t a template for action, they are still worth raising. Elected officials are often very creative people! It can seem like they’re most accountable to those who’ve traditionally been represented in positions of power.  Michelle Alexander illustrated how the current system is racist and unjust. Our system of mass incarceration, the largest in the world, is completely unsustainable, and is fairly recent. Human history is full of creative solutions.
For the second question: here’s what I’ve learned from reading. While most rapists aren’t in jail anyway, most incarcerated people haven’t committed violent crimes. Most people who do commit violent crimes were victims of crimes. The next step I encourage is to learn: check out the resource page and FAQ of www.nonewwashingtonprisons.com. Identifying and unlearning internalized biases frees my attention up to recognize important nuances, to have my actions and words be experienced as safe and welcoming, by more people. To make our culture more safe for everyone, we can advocate for allocating tax payer dollars to funding basic needs. Jail time does not help a victim or perpetrator heal.  The idea of ‘putting people away’ to make society safer makes people disposable. It’s related to our nation’s history of eugenics. We can do better.
You are welcome to join people advocating for transforming the systems which criminalize people with Brown skin and other marginalized identities, like being poor, disabled, non-binary/ transgender. Our national association recommended we learn about prison abolition in 2015. On a recent panel, Andrea Ritchie promoted prison abolition. The founder of Black and Pink is a Unitarian Universalist minister.  Please check out www.nonewwashingtonprisons.com or “No New Washington Prisons” on facebook to learn more. If you have UU grandkids, they may join you!

By: Anne Hundley, member of Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, anne.hundley@comcast.net

Union negotiations loom over the future of policing in Seattle

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As Seattle grapples with the future of policing and public safety, much of the attention has focused on the Seattle Police Department’s budget. But looming in the background is the contract with the city’s largest police union, the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

In its current iteration, the contract was so concerning to a federal judge, James Robart, that he declared the city was out of compliance with its longstanding agreement to reform the Seattle Police Department.

Read more here.

Harvest the Power 2020-Commit to a Season of Collective Action and Faith Formation

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On October 1st, the Harvest Moon will rise shortly after sunset in the Northern Hemisphere. This burst of evening light provides an extended time for farmers to harvest summer crops and plant new seeds for the Fall Season.

What and how have you grown this summer — personally, in connection to your community, and in connection to movement uprisings for justice?

Unitarian Universalists are invited to mark this seasonal transition by reflecting on this question in the Harvest moonlight, and setting intentions to Harvest the Power of community this Fall through a sprint of collective action and faith formation weaving together all Unitarian Universalist justice ministries. This is a shared endeavor between UUA, Side with Love, UU the Vote, and UUMFE.

  • October 21-27 Week of Action with UU the Vote
  • November 4-18 Post-election Virtual Spaces for Community Care & Formation
  • November 19-22 Virtual Justice Convergence & Decolonization Teach-In
  • November 26 Plymouth Day of Mourning 50th Anniversary Virtual Observance (hosted on Side with Love and UUA FB page)

Ahead of these events, ground yourself in our theological grounding around decarceration, decriminalization, and democracy. Learn More.

In faith and solidarity,

Aly Tharp
Program Director, UU Ministry for Earth
Create Climate Justice Manager, UUA Organizing Strategy Team

Recent protests revive push for WA to speed up police reform

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Nearly two years after voters approved I-940, training lags while investigations into police-involved killings face scrutiny.

. . .

At the forefront of the conversation that has emerged in the past few months is a restless generation of activists who are rejecting long-held ideas about how to reform the police. They say existing reforms, such as those mandated by I-940, have done little to slow killings by police. They call instead for foundational change, including steep cuts to police departments’ budgets and the diversion of those savings to other social services such as crisis-intervention units.

This emerging movement comes as reforms required by I-940 were due to be taking effect. Yet, a review by InvestigateWest of the state’s compliance with the voters’ nearly 2-year-old mandate reveals a process fraught with delay, compromise and pushback. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, police agencies were on track to miss deadlines set to enforce the law. And as the shooting by Wiley reveals, it may take intervention by activists to ensure that agencies follow the standards set under the law.

https://crosscut.com/equity/2020/08/recent-protests-revive-push-wa-speed-police-reform?utm_source=Crosscut%20Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Crosscut+Weekly+-+20200830+-+READYRead more here.

Blood in the Water

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It would be the first federal execution in 17 years. The last time the U.S. government restarted executions after a long pause — killing Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in a newly constructed death chamber in 2001 — throngs of protesters and national press overwhelmed the city of 60,000. But this was a significantly smaller event. Some 20 protesters had gathered at the intersection in front of the dealership earlier that day. The street that cuts across Route 41, Springhill Drive, leads straight to the entrance of USP Terre Haute, a sprawling supermax prison across from a Dollar General. The demonstration included a contingent of Catholic nuns, Sisters of Providence, from the nearby Saint Mary-of-the-Woods congregation. They held signs, prompting honks, waves, and the occasional expletive from passing cars. “What about the victims?” one woman yelled.

Read more here.