Why Go Behind Bars?

We each have our own personal motivations for working in the criminal justice system, but at our core we are both motivated to enact social change. Through our work with Carrie, we have been absolutely horrified to see first-hand the injustices and disparities in the criminal justice system. Carrie says that the two biggest issues in criminal justice today are racism and classism. It's common knowledge that African American males are disproportionately arrested and sentenced, but perhaps less commonly known are the abysmal employment rates specifically in St. Louis for African Americans (check out the graph below).

We also included a graph with arrest data for St. Louis City and St. Louis County that Carrie asked for last semester as part of a paper. There are obviously a ton of crime types, so we only included the most popular ones (which is why the total numbers are off), but the important thing to look at is the proportion of arrests by race vs. in the population as a whole—especially in St. Louis County, where the black population is 1/3 the size of the white population. Crazy, right?

We get to help both with increasing employment and (we hope) with lowering rearrest rates by administering TEP. Job readiness programming is one aspect of reentry from prison to community that helps to lower reincarceration rates, and we are also giving these men the skills to obtain and retain employment.

One group at one facility can't singlehandedly change the system, but it's nice to know that we are a part of the social change that is coming and that we are doing what we can with where we are. If you feel passionate about this cause as well, you can get involved! Many of the programs in jails and prisons are administered by volunteers from the community, which means that you can do it, too. If you are an artist, a teacher, play an instrument, or have any skills that would be beneficial to an incarcerated population (hint: any and all skills are accepted and helpful), you can contact your city/county jail or state/federal prison to ask about their current programming needs. And there are always community organizations that partner with correctional facilities that you can be a part of. We've listed these resources for the St. Louis area on our Resources page!

Population stats: 

Total Population: 318,416

Female: 164,302

Male: 154,114

White: 147,745

Black: 152,521

Asian: 9,870
Pacific: ?

AI/AN:  955

Population Stats:

Total Population: 1,001,444

Male: 473,684

Female: 527,760

White: 704,015

Black: 237,342

Asian: 38,054

Pacific: ?

AI/AN: 2,002