EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a series of stories about this week’s Richland County Community Equity Challenge. Today’s topic deals with criminal justice.)
MANSFIELD — Pastor Lawrence Rawls has seen the impact of inequality in the criminal justice system.
The leader of the Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Mansfield, Rawls worked as the human resources director at Richland Correctional Institution for more than 20 years before leaving the local state prison earlier this year.
Rawls volunteered to become involved with the Richland County Task Force on Racism and is a member of the steering committee working on criminal justice issues.
He said he chose to get involved to help local residents become aware of former inmates re-entering society after being released from prison.
“Those individuals who were/are incarcerated will be returning to society and will need jobs, and support. Those returning home/reentering the community have paid their ‘debt’ to society and need to feel that they stand a chance,” Rawls said.
“I have formerly participated in ‘Citizen Circles’ committee groups and so I realize the various challenges that confront those being released. (In his role at RiCI), I have had many opportunities to talk with the incarcerated and I do understand some of their concerns,” Rawls said.
Challenge organizers said the nation’s history is replete with “stories of crime waves or criminal behavior and then patterns of disproportionate imprisonment of those on the margins of society: Black people, immigrants, Native Americans, refugees, and others with outsider status.”
“The result has been the persistent and disproportionate impact of incarceration on these groups. From 1850 to 1940, racial and ethnic minorities — including foreign-born and non-English speaking European immigrants — made up 40 to 50 percent of the prison population,” organizers said.
“In 2015, about 55 percent of people imprisoned in federal or state prisons were Black or Latino.”
In its Richland County State of the African American Report 2020, the North End Community Improvement Collaborative reported a disproportionate local number of Black men were incarcerated, compared to White men. At the time, the report said one in four men in local correctional facilities were Black, compared to one in 50 who were White.
“Why? One reason is that our criminal justice system is rooted in racism,” Equity Challenge organizers said.
A video attached with Wednesday’s challenge, narrated by Prof. Daniel D’Amico from Loyola University of New Orleans, said issues involving systemic racism in the criminal justice system often go ignored because they don’t impact the vast majority of Americans.
In 2010, he said, there were 1.6 million Americans in state or federal prisons, or about half of one percent of the nation’s population.
“When you separate that population by race, you recognize that the personal effect of the criminal justice system are very unequally shared throughout our society,” D’Amico said.
The professor said 64 percent of the nation’s population in 2010 was White, but only 31 percent of the inmate population was White. He said Blacks comprised 14 percent of the population, but 30 percent of the jail population. Hispanic residents made up 16 percent of the population, but 24 percent of the prisoners.
Part of the disparity can be found, for example, in the way the nation writes, enforces and prosecutes drug laws and violators, he said.
“People with different levels of wealth face different costs and benefits to participating in the drug trade,” he said.
Anna Durtschi, a retired corrections nurse, is also on the criminal justice steering committee.
“Racism is a national epidemic. I wanted to be part of this task force to help educate and influence others right here in my hometown,” she said.
“It’s important to participate in the Equity Challenge to bring awareness to individuals who may not know of the day-to-day issues and concerns that ethnic groups face. Because of my white privilege, I was not aware of many of the hidden issues of systemic racism as they did not prevent me from buying a home or getting the job I wanted,” Durtschi said.
“By participating in this challenge, others will learn how these seven different domains are affected by racism and prevent others from having access to equal opportunities,” she said.
Dave Koepke, North Central State College criminal justice program coordinator, is also serving on the steering committee. He said he chose to become involved to grow in understanding and to help build relationships.
“Trust is the foundation of public institutions, which depend on community unity,” Koepke said.
The eight-day Equity Challenge, which runs through Nov. 21, allows will allow participants to receive daily emails or text messages with links to videos, podcasts and/or reading assignments, each aimed at exploring the impact of systemic racism in the following areas:
Day 1 — Implicit bias and wealth gap
Day 2 — Business
Day 3 — Criminal Justice
Day 4 — Education
Day 5 — Employment
Day 6 — Healthcare
Day 7 — Housing
Day 8 — Mental health
Sign up for the challenge here.
If anyone has signed up for the challenge and not received an email, organizers ask they check their “spam” folder on their email service.
