YASP helps keep teens in Philly out of adult prisons and on the right track

Jan. 27, 2020

For many teens, turning 18 is a milestone marked by commemoration, a rite of passage that comes with a sense of independence, freedom and excitement about the time to come.

On William Bentley'southward 18th birthday, he woke up in the juvenile unit of a Philadelphia prison house and was told he'd be moving to an all-adult unit of measurement, where he'd continue to exist held until he could put up his bail.

Knowing this twenty-four hours would come up, Bentley, who had been charged with aggravated assault, had been eating equally much as he could and working out equally hard every bit possible, hoping to get stronger and ward off fights.

But when he got to the developed unit of measurement, he realized no corporeality of pushups could've helped him: "These were full-grown men. I'm not going to prevarication: It was scary," he says.

Only the men didn't go after him; instead, Bentley was looked after past older inmates, men who said that Bentley reminded them of their sons, their grandsons.

"You're a baby, they'd say. If anyone tried to brand trouble with me, someone would speak up and tell them not to mess with Young Bull," Bentley recalls.

In 2019, 143 immature people had cases that started out in the adult system. That number rose from 106 in 2018.

Instead, information technology was the prison medical system that nearly price Bentley his life.

For 8 days, the teenager was given the wrong pill, a purple one in place of the teal one he typically took to manage his depression and anxiety.

By the eighth day, he started having muscle spasms; he couldn't walk, he couldn't talk. His tongue swelled, making animate difficult. He spoke up, only no one believed him. They said he was faking. They sent him to the mental health advisor, who promptly returned him to his cell.

Family unit on the exterior called Pennsylvania Prison Society, which ultimately got Bentley sent for testing and evaluation at the prison hospital.

For ii months, he slept in a prison infirmary bed, 1 ankle and the opposite wrist handcuffed to his bed, IV fluids working through his organisation to flush out the toxins he'd ingested because of the medical error.

He felt hopeless, ready to take a bargain that would send him to state prison for what he hoped would be no more than seven years, if he maintained good behavior.

Then ii representatives from Philadelphia Community Bond Fund came to see him, and told him that, for the 2022 Vacation Bail Out, Sarah wanted to bond him out.

"Sarah?" he said. "You mean the person who does the fine art with the states?"

Sarah is Sarah Morris, the co-managing director and i of the 5 co-founders of the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP).

The nonprofit's efforts are multifaceted: They agree Saturday art and poesy workshops every single week without exception for youth who are being held in adult prisons. Through the workshops, they get young people expressing themselves in ways they may never have done before.

"That's ane of the issues with our communities in full general," says YASP co-founder and co-director Josh Glenn, who'd also been arrested and held at both youth and developed facilities. "A lot of folks are taught not to cry, not to show their emotions, and I think that bottles information technology up and creates conflict."

That YASP spends fourth dimension with young people on State Road, for case, gives them a sense of the rings of support and community that are being built around them.

Studies accept shown the benefits of fine art on incarcerated people, and Joanna Visser Adjoian, co-director of Youth Sentencing and Reentry Projection (YSRP), says that the impact of YASP'southward work is readily credible.

That YASP spends fourth dimension with young people on State Route, for example, gives them a sense of the rings of support and community that are beingness built around them.

"The fact that YASP provides those powerful workshops that they practice, on Saturdays, when other programming's not being brought in, specifically designed and aimed at the young people who are in adult custody, has a profound affect on the fourth dimension that they're being forced to stay at that place, merely also on the broader advocacy efforts that are happening on their behalves," Visser Adjoian says.

There is also the Tuesday Youth Justice Hub, workshops to help youth charged with crimes and their families understand and navigate the complex court process.

There is the guide they've created to assist youth coming out of the criminal justice arrangement detect essential resources, from mental health support to employment.

YASP regularly welcomes youth coming from the system to work for them as community organizers, long-term or until YASP has helped them uncover their bigger-moving-picture show passion.

And there is the advancement work they're doing to repeal Act 33, a country police force that allows young people's cases to exist filed directly in developed courtroom, despite scientific bear witness—and even a Supreme Courtroom ruling—that brain role is not fully developed until people are 25 years old.

That Supreme Court case, in 2017, banned the practice of sentencing juveniles to prison for life without parole—something specially egregious in Philadelphia.

"For a youth case to be filed in adult courtroom should be the rare exception, not the norm," says Morris. She and her team were heartened, at a rally on MLK Day, to hear Councilmember Helen Gym call on District Attorney Larry Krasner to stop filing then many cases, and speak up about how shameful it is that Philly is property youth in adult jails.

Glenn, also every bit Jasmine Jackson, Victor Saez and Zachary Banks, were all arrested as minors and spent time in developed prisons; they met Morris when she was a fellow for a now-defunct system that brought poets and artists to the prisons.

When Glenn, Jackson, Saez and Banks were released, they and Morris got together to talk about the importance of continuing the workshops, and working toward big-picture system change that would assistance youth get the back up they need to avert the criminal justice system.

They formed YASP in 2006, and have grown it from a side projection to a nonprofit that'south funded through grants and personal donations like those from Bread & Roses Community Fund, Public Welfare Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy, the Hive at Jump Point (which is also a supporter of The Citizen), the Eagles, the Philadelphia Foundation's Youthadelphia Fund, Resist Inc, and the Circumvolve for Justice Innovations.

Last year, they reached 75 youth through their fine art programs; bailed out xi more through their partnership with Philly Community Bail Fund; supported 26 families through the youth participatory defence force hub; provided direct reentry support to 15; and they have employed twenty formerly incarcerated youth at YASP since 2006. They as well connect with approximately 500 young people each year through workshops in local loftier schools.

"If we lock a young person up, we concur them back from connecting to all of the resources that could assistance them change and grow," Glenn says. "We need to change the process."

Glenn says that one time he was released and took on the task of learning virtually the history of minorities—black people, brown people, Latino people, Jewish people, and more than—at that place was no turning back. "I looked at all the ways that the arrangement has held our communities back, and I but had to exercise something nigh information technology," he says. "And we all take that power, that ability to alter minds and change hearts and empower people."

YASP has seen progress in their time doing this work, merely not plenty. At whatever given time in Philly, at that place are about twenty people who were arrested as youth sitting in adult facilities.

20 may not seem like a lot on paper, but, every bit YSRP's Visser Adjoian explains, over the course of a year, that'due south several hundred lives that are forever changed, each of which has a ripple throughout his or her family and community.

In 2019, 143 young people had cases that started out in the adult organization (that number rose from 106 in 2018).

"Our goal is to repeal Act 33, but the longer-term goal is to get young people out of prison house—menstruation. We need to transform our arrangement to 1 that holds people answerable, but also helps them heal," says Glenn.

Morris notes that if you expect at the reasons why most young people commit crimes—the need for coin, or trauma or anger that they don't know how to deal with—most are reinforced by putting someone in jail. Particularly in adult jails, young people are exposed to more trauma, which makes them less able to sustain themselves legally once they have a felony conviction.

"We desire to show the young people we work with that we come across them and don't merely see these pieces of paper of whatsoever the accuse is," she says. "They're still a child, they're still a young person who has potential and who we shouldn't plow our backs on because they made a error or may have been caught upward in something that wasn't their fault."

Amidst the team of YASP employees who now runs the Tuesday Youth Justice Hubs: William Bentley, now 19. YASP, he says, gave him promise. "They gave me that power and that will to keep going."

Freed final January, he was released in the clothes in which he'd been arrested—a T-shirt and no jacket—in the dead of winter. He fabricated his fashion dwelling and chosen Morris, who invited him to come to YASP'south Chinatown-based office to meet with her and the team.

There he met Glenn and staffer David Harrington. "They asked me what I wanted to do, and I told them I want to modify the system," Bentley says. "Nobody should always be treated the way I was, whether they're guilty or not."

Harrington and Glenn saw Bentley's determination and invited him to join the YASP team. All of them are determined to use their experiences to help others.

"If nosotros lock a young person up, we concur them back from connecting to all of the resource that could help them alter and grow," Glenn says. "We need to change the process."

Want more smart prison reform news? Read these related articles:

• Can basketball keep youth out of prison? It's working in Richmond, Virginia.
• Let'due south abolish prisons and spend that money to help prevent criminal offence in the kickoff place
• Reentry Project looks at how to keep the recently incarcerated out of prison house

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated where William Bentley was on the morning of his 18th birthday. He was in the juvenile unit of measurement of an developed prison house. It also failed to mention that Josh Glenn is co-executive director of YASP.

Photograph courtesy YAS Project

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/yasp-philadelphia/

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