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MANHOOD & VIOLENCE: FATAL PERIL Addresses AECF’s Core Results
Core Results AECF hopes that children will be healthier and do better in school; that more parents will be working and have good jobs; that more families will be able to save for the future; that more residents will be involved in community groups and activities. It also hopes people will feel safer and more connected, and as importantly, have a voice in decisions that affect their families and communities. To achieve these kinds of results, the local Casey sites are moving toward specific, measurable results for children, families, and neighborhoods. The following information suggests “matches” for MANHOOD & VIOLENCE: FATAL PERIL that can assist stations/sites in discussing and achieving specific Core Results related to Economic Opportunity, Social Networks, and Quality Services and Supports. This documentary, produced by Hudson River Film & Video, is part of the MCMOI’s Reentry National Outreach Campaign. Documentary subjects
Inmates in the San Francisco County Jail; participants in a manalive group session:
Another group session in the jail:
Victim Impact Session:
Hamish Sinclair: That is the moment that precedes every violent
incident. It happens when someone challenges your authority, your
whole sense of yourself as a male-role authority. Your hands come
up, it’s a moment of shock, and it’s a signal for the
guys that, at that moment, they are now going to move into a violent
moment.
Jean O’Hara: The only thing I could do is everybody I talked to (one after the other, Jean takes the hand of each of the men sitting in the row in front of her): ‘Did you hear about my grandson and daughter?’ ‘Did you hear what happened to my daughter and my little baby?’ ‘Did you hear what happened to my daughter?’ Couldn’t hold a job. Couldn’t concentrate. I could drink a lot, though. Good old vodka helps a lot in a case like that. Barry: When I first got out, I didn’t have but forty dollars to my name. I didn’t want to go back to what I knew [drug and robbery offenses]. I didn’t want to go back, but I didn’t really know nothing else. I didn’t know what else to do. I had to have something. I had to make it. So, therefore, the first couple days I went back to doing what I do best, which was, you know, using and whatever. Urban Poole: Jail doesn’t really prepare you to be functional in the outside world because it’s a totally dependent environment. Somebody tells you when to get up….Somebody cooks your meals for you….So many decision-making processes are taken over for you that your own ability to make decisions becomes kind of atrophied. Barry: I still have plans of going back to school. I want to get what they call a KDAC. It’s a drug and alcohol certification. I want to incorporate manalive. I gotta dream of maybe one day having a program for men getting out of prison that incorporates not just drug and alcohol but manalive into it. Aaron: I saw a guy one night – I was going to see a punk rock band play – outside of a club. The guy stopped in mid-rap, looked at me and….gave me a big hug and he had a lot of booze on his breath. But the one thing he said to me was, ‘You know, I used to rob people for money and now I’m doing my art for money and I know I’m drinking right now and I know you’re probably upset about that.’ And I said, ‘Sure, man. I wish you weren’t drinking as heavily as you are right now, but you’re not pulling guns on people and you’re rapping for money, then I guess I feel a lot better about what you do as far as working.’
Chance: I’ve noticed whenever I spend too much time thinking about what I should be doing and what I need to be doing for people on the outside, it takes me off the focus of what I really do [need to] change—which is myself, which is my mind and my behavior. The thing that I found that gives me fulfillment is to realize that the best thing I can do for those on the outside is to do for myself while I’m here. Everything else is going to take its course. Chance: It’s difficult to untrain myself from that negativity and that behavior and to retrain myself. But, really, I think it takes the willingness and I think it takes the repetition and the proper skills. Jean O’Hara: Jack put his key in the lock and as he started to open the door, we could see two people lying on the living room floor and it looked as though they were watching television. A little TV was playing. Jack stepped over them, touched Nancy’s elbow and said to me, ‘She’s gone.’ And Jesse was gone, too. How many of you have lost a loved one to murder? Every one of you know how I feel. I’m sure you do. Delia Ginorio: I know there are a lot of people in here in recovery also. So I get a little afraid when I hear, ‘Was drugs part of the problem?’ because, again, what we learn here in the program is that making that decision to use the drugs in the first place is a violence to yourself. And when we violate ourselves, it’s easier to violate other people. So, I just want to make it clear it is a really strong position of the program not to blame drug and alcohol for your violence. Okay? Jeff: Now I understand that emotions are very important to every human. It’s how you deal with your emotions that count. I feel shameful. I can honestly say, for being in custody, for my actions, I feel very hurt and I’m sad. Mainly because my marriage is probably over behind my actions. I look at myself as being blessed to be in this program. I never knew how to be validated for your feelings. I never knew anything about being accountable. Barry: You know, a year from now was a dream for me, it was going to be a dream. I didn’t think I was going to be clean and sober and have two vehicles, a wife, and a life. You know what I mean? To me, that was all stuff that was fairy tales. This is the first time since I was 14 years old that I’ve been on the streets for a year – a whole calendar you could say – and I haven’t been either in custody or on the run or doing something where the cops are looking for me. Aaron Moskowitz: But I think that after two years of working inside of a jail, it starts to wear you out. For me, presently, I want to start working in the gay community more and start opening up my own classes with manalive. Whatever I have to do to be happy, that’s what I gotta do….That’s what I learned in the program in the third stage of it – you gotta create your own fulfillment. It’s nobody’s responsibility to empower you. People can hand you tools or information but you’ve got to really take it and run.
Jean O’Hara: Gentlemen, Richard took more than three lives that night. My husband has never cried because of the loss of Nancy and Jesse. And because he’s stuffed all of this pain and he’s held it down and held it down and pushed it down—this year, he has had all kinds of surgeries, all kinds of health problems. My coming here and talking to you allows me to take another little piece of it and put it aside. And for that, I thank you. Thank you gentlemen, for hearing my story and sharing my pain. Urban Poole: Victim Impact, when Jean O’Hara came in and started telling her story about her daughter being murdered and her grandson is stabbed to death on the floor. And you feel her emotions coming just off of her in waves, vibes. Eventually, it just breaks your heart. Barry [to Jean in Victim Impact session]: I want to just thank you. I really don’t have no questions. I just want to thank you for coming in here and sharing it. I can just pray for you. And just thank you. Sunny Schwartz: It’s not just a crime being done to the state. A crime was done to a human being and it’s about bringing human beings into the system and giving voice to victims who’ve been lost in the system. Jean O’Hara: We felt that it would all be over with and then we could go back to our lives. And, once we went back to our lives, it would all go away. And it has not, and now we know that it never will. Agnes Mercurio [in Victim Impact feedback group session]: So, there’s no minimization, no blaming, denial, or collusion—what’s justifying your behavior? You’ll feel it, you’ll be able to feel it in your body, okay, when you start to do this stuff. Jeff: Every time I hear a victim’s story, I just get, it lets me see that violence is wrong. And I feel bad for my violence. Neighborhoods support families through informal supports and networks. Barry: Can I get an agreement from you? If you need somebody to talk to or anything I can help you with, I’ll be here to help you with it. Just come and talk to me anytime. Charles: What I need from the group is support to keep learning.
Hamish Sinclair: Ninety percent of all the homicides in the United States are done by men to men. And out of the remaining 10%, 90% of all those are done by men to women and children. Dr. James Gilligan: One program whose purpose is to deconstruct what they call ‘the male-role belief system’ has played a major role in helping these violent inmates in the San Francisco jails to stop being violent. Hamish Sinclair: In the county jail, the men we’re dealing with are not murderers. And I guess what we’re hoping we’ll do here in the county jail is to interrupt the process that might escalate into homicide or murder. Aaron Moskowitz: I was able to look back in my life and notice that every time I was being arrested, I was going to worse and worse places—from the honor farm to medium security, getting in a race-riot there, to maximum security. From maximum security moving to the downtown gang unit jail. Getting in fights there and going to the hole until I finally end up in the minimax in the whole county where I had a two-man cell lock-down for 23 hours a day….And for a lotta years, my neighborhood was a jail. That was my community. I did a lotta time. Perfecto: I get out this week….But since I have been in this program, I found myself, who I am. Because of this program, I get some knowledge….I’m going to attend the program outside like in here: alcoholic, drugs, and psychology counseling. I hope that God will help me for that. Because I don’t want to come back here anymore. Michael Hennessey: I’ve always been of the opinion that the traditional approach to jailing and incarceration doesn’t really work. That’s why we have a 70% or higher recidivism rate. That would suggest to me that it fails. And, so, as sheriff, I’ve always wanted to do different. I wanted to do better than that and try things that weren’t traditionally done in jails and prisons, first of all. Second of all, I try to let everyone know that there’s a perspective they should keep, and that is that people in jail get out of jail and come back into the community. Sunny Schwartz: So we can have disagreement and discussion about should we have a chain gang or should we not. What we know for sure is that folks are getting out. And we find, based on logic and based on our preliminary findings and our evaluation, that violence is learned and could be unlearned. Dr. Gilligan: Our research compared the re-arrest rates for violent crimes between two groups of violent inmates during the first year after their release. Both groups were identical in terms of ethnic group, prior criminal history, age, and so on. What we discovered was that the group that had participated in this program [RSVP] for at least four months, had a re-arrest rate for violent crimes that was 80% lower than the other group. Urban Poole: When I was in my addiction, I would do twenty felonies a day and ten of them would have immediate violent victims to them, where I was just taking people’s stuff. My recovery is selfish. I feel really good about having four years clean, but I don’t know how many – perhaps ten thousand victims – there aren’t in the world today because I’m not participating in that other behavior. Sunny Schwartz: People may hear this and say, ‘Ah, that’s a bunch of coddling prisoners,’ and ‘they get more education than my child gets.’ We’re not in the business whatsoever of coddling prisoners. Coddling prisoners to me is, letting them sleep all day, lift weights, watch Woody Woodpecker all nigh, and figure out how to get over each other and the staff. That to me is coddling. And insulting. It’s insulting to us as a law enforcement agency and it’s insulting to the taxpayers who are paying a lot of money to basically promote a monster factory. Leo Bruenn: Perfecto, can I remind you that it’s also your violence that put you here in this program, too. That it’s your actions that put you here in this program, too. Right? It’s your actions that got you arrested, your actions that got you placed in jail. And because of your record of violence, you were classified into this program, too. So, the restraining order is put there to keep your partner safe and it’s also there to give you an opportunity to do work on yourself. Okay? Dr. Gilligan: What is amazing is how quickly these men get the point and are actually grateful that someone has helped them to understand what’s going on. Maleek: They mandated me to the RSVP program. I’ve been in the program for a week and a half now. And, within that week and a half, it’s really touched me here (indicates his heart) and here (indicates his head). It’s more like a community and we deal with these other feelings and emotions even though we’re men. I’m a violent man, you know. Jean O’Hara: Paul’s father apparently thought of committing suicide to get away from his pain [murder of his son]. Fortunately, he called the Parents of Murdered Children chapter leader in Oakland and talked to her. Barry [to Urban Poole]: I came into his office at the Sheriff’s Department and I told him, ‘You know what, man, I gotta get out of this life [drugs and robbery]. I just can’t take it no more. I don’t want to go to prison for life. I want more out of life than this.’ Urban Poole [talking about Barry asking for help]: What a significant part of his own internal process to take a leap of faith that somebody will actually help if I ask for it. There’s the male-role-belief systems that says, ‘I’m not going to ask for help.’ Christy Henzi: Barry took advantage of the RSVP program and then went to other programs out in the streets and he is doing an exceptional job. He is the reason I still have hope for my clients. Daniel: When I look at that scar [his wife’s stab wound], it brings a lot of memories and it hurts. It really hurts. That’s why I’m still going to domestic violence classes now because a lot of things I’m still learning. I don’t have to go, but I’m going on my own. I’m trying to be a better person toward her.
Barry: I stuffed myself away because little Barry liked people, didn’t want to fight, just wanted to be accepted and there was no room for that little child anymore. I had to stand up and be a man. Michael Thompson: When boys are raised to be steered away from their feelings and to measure everything they do on the dimension of weakness to strength – and by the age of eight or nine – that’s what a boy is doing. Everything he does or says is measured on this dimension: ‘Am I going to look weak or am I going to look strong.’ Chance: My mother died when I was young and my father didn’t want me in his life too much. Growing up through the different things I have, I was probably really hard to keep around also. Charles: What I’m saying is controlling or nurturing is something good. Jeff: Violence doesn’t necessarily have to be physical, it could be verbal as well. Sometimes you could say something to your mate and it’s just as damaging. It causes a lot of problems within the whole family structure, especially when little kids are involved. They don’t know what’s going on: ‘Why is Mommy crying all the time, what did Daddy do?’ Hamish Sinclair: I think, in general, we have an enormous political problem to look at and a responsibility. How do we pull together to develop our own creative approach to running a community…that is safe for us to raise children in. I think if you use that as a measure of a goal for political community, it’s not a bad yardstick to think about. What could I do now that would contribute to the safety and nurturing of my children? What would this community have to look like and what would I have to do on this very day to create that place that would be safe for me to raise a family.
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