Transitioning Justice Lab

Reflecting on Faces of Resilience

Walking into the Faces of Resilience exhibit in Buchanan Hall at George Mason’s Fairfax, VA campus is an immediate transportation into the personal experiences and reflections of current and previously incarcerated artists. This is an incredibly poignant exhibit that compels viewers to take a deeper look into the carceral experience and its impact on individuals, families and society writ large. It encourages viewers to consider what might be done to prevent incarceration and promote healing.

In conjunction with this exhibit, Mason Exhibitions and the Carter School for Peace & Conflict Resolution hosted a one-day symposium with panel presentations from partners, artists and scholarly experts on Saturday, October 14th, 2023. In the first panel, attendees heard from the Barnes Foundation, Mural Arts Philly and Mason Exhibitions. Attendees heard from artists Ron Connelly and Suave Gonzalez of Faces of Resilience, as well as members of organizations Performing Statistics and Poetry Alive during the second panel. The final panel featured academics in the field of criminal justice advocacy and prison reform. You can read more about the Faces of Resilience exhibit and associated events on the Mason Exhibitions website.

A few members of the Transitioning Justice Lab at the Carter School were able to attend the symposium and are sharing what was learned during each panel, as well as some of our personal reflections from this powerful event below.

Panel 1: Exhibition Partner Panel with the Barnes Foundation, The Carter School, Mural Arts Philly and Mason Exhibitions, panelists William Perthes, Yassmin Salem, Patricia Maulden, Donald Russell, facilitated by Michael Smith.

This discussion focused on what brought the partner team together in relation to art, creativity, the issues of mass incarceration, bringing art into carceral spaces, the roles of grief, and so on. The discussion surfaced individual stories, hopes, and struggles. The focus on art as not only a creative accomplishment but also as a political necessity given current conditions and the emotional costs, dangers, and challenges to those accomplishments/actions provided a point of departure for the panels that followed.

Panel 2: Artist Panel with Ron Connelly and Suave Gonzalez from Faces of Resilience, Mark Strandquist from Performing Statistics and Nick Ritter and Victoria Mendoza from Poetry Alive! which was facilitated by Donald Russell.

Both Ron and Suave explained how their creative processes and stylistic preferences developed during their time at State Correctional Institute (SCI) Phoenix. They emphasized the importance of having access to art while incarcerated: it provided a release and a means to continue. It offered a way to connect with the outside world about real experiences on the inside. They reflected on how much art was valued by those around them in SCI Phoenix; they would paint portraits of others and help make holiday cards for their peers to send to their families.

Mark from Performing Statistics shared the impacts of interactive art, created by youth, as visual activism. The youth-led art installations have been featured in several cities – as wall murals, billboards, bus art and on city halls – and they bring humanity to the forefront in creative ways. These art installations are bold and powerful; they empower youth with their message and their stated aim or seeking to end youth incarceration. One of the many compelling elements of the work of this group is their singular focus on ending youth incarceration; their success is partly a credit to the clarity of their goals.

Nick and Victoria from Poetry Alive! described the impacts of working with youth in juvenile detention. Providing space for youth to be themselves and lean into expression through poetry offered them the opportunity to feel heard and build confidence. They shared that in their work they sometimes have to be as comfortable with silence as with poetic words, and that silence is also communication.

Panel 3: Scholarly Panel with Dr. Keesha Middlemass (Howard University), Dr. Janani Umamaheswar (GMU), Maria Valdovinos (PhD candidate, GMU) and Liz Komar (Sentencing Project), facilitated by Patricia Maulden

To begin, panelists spoke of their work in relation to mass incarceration, projects and programs that seek to break down the walls preventing successful re-entry, to reduce the impact of the prison industrial complex as an important player in local economies and to reduce the act of incarcerating individuals as a source of wealth. The investment of carceral spaces has been the case during the 50 years since mass incarceration started booming in the United States. While we are currently seeing a modest decline, it would take 75 years to end mass incarceration at the rate of decline we are seeing now. In exploring re-entry, it was pointed out that 96% of incarcerated people will come home. With this in mind, how do ‘we’ (politicians, organizations, communities and individuals) support those returning to allow a successful re-entry into society?

This panel emphasized the gravity of the system of incarceration in the United States and opened conversation for short- and long-term opportunities for reform. Some significant points during the discussion were:

  • Individuals who are wrongfully convicted do not receive support for re-entry. For incarcerated individuals who do not receive re-entry support, the difficulties of return are significantly more challenging.
    • Some audience members who were previously incarcerated shared their own life experiences and reflections on their time incarcerated as well as the re-entry process. As an example, an I.D. received upon release is not considered as a valid state I.D. and does not serve as an I.D. that is useful for purposes outside the prison. Given this dynamic, how can we strengthen the re-entry process and remove barriers to success?
  • Panelists and attendees commented on the use of language (specifically the ‘superpredator’ myth and ‘social death’) and how it affects whose humanity is prioritized and whose is not.
    • The ‘superpredator’ myth became popular in the 1990s and predicted that an increasing amount of urban youth would commit violent crimes. While this has been completely debunked, we continue to hear that term used today. The framing of Black/Brown youth as inherently violent, sub-human, and therefore beyond redemption became a social and political rallying cry for mass incarceration. Further discussion focused on how we can shift folks culturally and make clear to all that that every human has value and the superpredator framing was meant to do harm and accomplished that goal all too well.
    • “Social death,” coined in 1985 by sociologist Orlando Patterson in his text Slavery and Social Death, refers to the condition of people not accepted as fully human by the wider society. If a person is framed as not fully human, or basically as an animal, that allows for a myriad of violent carceral practices negatively impacting millions of individuals, communities, and families. Upon the lives of those individuals the prison industrial complex was constructed.
  • There was also a vibrant conversation around community and connectivity, encouraging attendees to think about ways to increase connectivity for currently incarcerated persons (e.g. providing healthier and better food options, access to more and longer phone calls) as well as for those previously incarcerated (e.g. connecting employers with incarcerated persons to build their network and access to employment post-incarceration).
  • Other opportunities for reform include an emphasis on “Second Look” laws, which offer the possibility of reevaluating long sentences for potential reduction, and maximum sentencing laws, which would cap sentences to 20 years (examples of which can be found in Germany and Norway).

General Reflections from the Day:

I was able to see the art itself before the panelists spoke. One thing that struck me was the amount of self-portraiture that was displayed. Expression and communication were made through creatively portraying their own faces. To put faces with the artists that I will never meet, but that are existing now in these spaces, and then to come face to face personally with the men who had been through this experience of being in carceral spaces, discovering art while there, and developing their own programs of making art was a powerful experience of connection and discovering another sense of humanity.

One of the panelists answered the question, “What do you think young prisoners need to hear now? What would you like to have heard when you were in prison?” (The question was in aim of support to incarcerated individuals.) He answered in his own deep emotion that he felt like they just needed to know that they were loved and that they are not forgotten.

During the second panel, it was heartening to learn about the opportunities for art to empower incarcerated youth as much as it does incarcerated adults. Beyond that, the second panel demonstrated how critical it is that people who are incarcerated have ways in which they can express their humanity and creativity, as well as connect and communicate with others.

Some of the artwork from the Faces of Resilience exhibit was on view at the Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Lecture, which took place on November 17th. The Lynch Lecture was delivered by Professor Marc Howard from Georgetown University, whose lecture is entitled: Humanity in the Inhumane: Finding Inspiration in American Prisons.

Justice for Ukrainians Means Justice for Syrians Too

In recent years, Russian forces have killed tens of thousands of Syrians, bombed thousands of houses and hospitals, and deployed horrible war tactics against Syrian civilians. [1]Up to now, despite the different attempts, no one from the Syrian regime or the Russian government has been held accountable for any of these violations. [2]

It’s not only that no one has been held accountable, but also few have condemned Russia’s actions in Syria, the exceptions being international law experts and international human rights organizations working in the field. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have written many reports about the Russian war crimes in Syria, but the lack of public interest in these crimes and these reports has meant that the reports ended up on the laptops of human rights experts and the digital archives of institutes. 

The Russian military used Syria to test its weapons and to provide its soldiers and commanders with valuable experience. For years the Russians attacked schools, hospitals, markets, and other places where civilians gather. They used banned weapons similar to what they are doing now in Ukraine. Maybe if the international community had paid enough attention to the Russian crimes in Syria, the Russian invasion of Ukraine might not have happened at all. 

According to agencies of the United Nations, at least 10 million Ukrainians have had to leave their homes and are displaced internally or in neighboring countries; almost half of them are children. It’s the same case for Syrians: millions of Syrians were displaced as a result of the Syrian regime and its ally—Russia—by crimes against them. 

I’m not talking here about the Western double standard in the treatment of Ukrainian refugees, on the one hand, and Syrian and Iraqi ones on the other. But what I want to emphasize is that, if the suffering of Syrians had gained enough attention from the world, I am almost sure the Ukrainian tragedy would not have happened. 

The American military and the State Department announced that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine. I think it is very significant that the United States understands the importance of international law and the International Criminal Court; however, it is more important to use international law and the ICC to hold the Russians accountable not only for their crimes in Ukraine, but definitely in Syria also. I know that many will argue that the US itself committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I am almost sure that this is the case. At the same time this does not mean that, if we are unable to hold the US accountable for its war crimes, we should ignore when others commit them. Russia committed war crimes and should be held accountable for them. 

In Syria, Putin used the “war on terror” as an excuse for his crimes against civilians. Incredibly, the West ignored these crimes because they thought that the “terror” that Putin was fighting more important than the tens of thousands of innocent civilians who were killed by the Russian forces. Putin sees this moment as an opportunity to re-build the Russian empire. He thinks that by using a similar claim–fighting the Nazis in Ukraine—he will get the same support from the west or at least they will allow him to do what he did in Syria. 

Putin’s defeat in Ukraine is not a victory only for the Ukrainians. It is a victory for the Syrian victims who suffered for years from his crimes, and it is a victory for all of those who believe that dictators should be held accountable. 

What happened in Ukraine might be a good lesson for us all not to ignore any crimes against a group of people because they are living far away from us or have a different skin and eye color. The criminal who harmed them will do it to us one day. 

The victims of Putin and the Syrian regime have waited years for justice. Maybe now the world will hold Putin and Bashar Al-Assad accountable for their crimes against Ukraine and against Syrians.