Take a Stand! Sit In! Flash Talks
2:15 – 2:30 pm
Is Today’s Legal System the Same as Debtor’s Prison of the 19th Century? And what can be done!
With Tamara McDiarmid, Director Public Service Careers
This session will look at the current ways our legal system handles poor and marginalized communities while comparing it to the debtor’s prisons of the 19th century. Has anything really changed? And some suggestions as to what can be done.
Bio: Tamara worked 25 years in local corrections as a corrections officer and sergeant at the Kent County Sheriff’s Department. She retired in 2015 and came to LCC to become the Lead Faculty/Advisor for the Criminal Justice-Adult Corrections Program. In July of 2023, Tamara became Interim Program Director which became permanent in March of 2024. She is married with six children and three grandchildren.
References:
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- Hampson, C. D. (2016). The New American Debtors’ Prisons. American Journal of Criminal Law, 44(1), 1–48.
- ACLU (2010). In for a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtor’s Prisons, 1-92
2:35 – 2:50 pm
Michigan Incarceration by the Numbers
With Nadia El-Anani, Reference and Instruction Librarian
In this session, Nadia will share her experiences as a Correction Education Student Specialist and Criminal Justice Reform Advocate. She will give an overview of her experience inside prisons in Michigan’s lower region and provide statistics on incarceration and mindsets related to incarceration. Finally, Nadia will discuss Michigan’s “Second Look Legislation”, what it means, and how it can improve many things in our communities and for the state of Michigan.
Bio: In her work, Nadia supports students with research, resource navigation, and many other forms of information access. After 2 years of volunteering in Higher Education for prisons in the state of Michigan and providing advocacy, her life changed. She learned the communities within prisons are similar to those outside of prisons, just in smaller spaces, and more confined. There are good, bad, decent, and indecent people as there are in our “free world” ( how those inside refer to the world outside the walls). “Michigan Incarceration by the Numbers” is what opened her eyes to our society, justice system, and humanity as communities.
Resources:
2:55 – 3:10 pm
Transition Houses: Community-based Rehabilitation Alternatives to Incarceration
With Elizabeth Clifford, Social Sciences, and Humanities Lead Tutor in the Learning Commons
When someone gets out of prison with no family support, where can they go? Who is there to help people build a new life? Transition programs are local, supportive communal homes that provide structure and accountability. Transition programs aid people coming out of the corrections system to build a new life on the outside. These programs are an alternative to incarceration that can be used by the courts or can be entered voluntarily by someone who would like additional support. In this session, Elizabeth will share her experience volunteering with local transition homes and how she has seen “lives changed in amazing ways.”
Bio: Elizabeth Clifford is a Lead Tutor in Social Science and Humanities in the Learning Commons. Outside of LCC, she has been involved as a volunteer and mentor in local transition homes as a part of the faith-based substance abuse recovery community for over a decade, specifically Endeavor House men’s and women’s programs. She also worked in services for the unhoused at City Rescue Mission for three years before starting at Advent House Ministries for a year, where she currently maintains a volunteer role.
3:15 -3:30 pm
Incarceration in the American Imagination
With Benjamin Garrett, Scholar and Activist
In this session, Benjamin Garrett will discuss the real and imagined perception of prisons in the United States and how that “idea of Prison” plays a crucial role in establishing political, social and cultural expectations on different people and communities in the United States.
Bio: Benjamin Garrett is a scholar and activist who has been researching carceral systems in the United States for over 20 years.
