Honored to be part of documenting the history of the neighborhood grew up in, Olney.
Check out the new Audio Olney Podcast at the link: https://youtu.be/_zZQ4jYvxyA
Tag: Philadelphia
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Philly is failing to protect domestic violence victims | Opinion
From the article at The Inquirer The current system is set up so that victims of domestic violence are treated like criminals and their abusers are given power.
Read full article at the link.
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A Thanksgiving to Remember in Philadelphia
Philadelphia has entered lockdown part deux just before the cold weather holidays. Some thoughts on spending Thanksgiving alone, or alone with family, from a lifelong Holiday outsider loner.
Thanksgiving 2009, photo by my son Jackson. There are notorious Beech Family Holidays that saw fistfights knocking over Christmas trees, police calls and arrests, and people jumping out of windows on so many occasions I could write a book alone of Beeches jumping from house windows. So, long before I was born, some of my extended family had decided there were days that were better spent in the company of no one.
The fact that I was trained for loneliness and making the best of a bad situation cannot be underestimated. Living with a disability, estranged families, and two divorces can do that over time. When I was young, I would sit in my wheelchair and watch people running or even just walking on grass, it made me adept at watching others enjoy themselves, from a distance. Yes it was isolating, yes it was sometimes sad, but I learned to live set apart and have survived. In fact, deep loathing and self-reflection is something everyone should engage in to stay humble. Sometimes. At least I strongly believe in doing that about twice a year.
My grandmother, Florence Beech, her birthday is November 27. We always called her Nana. She passed in 2011. There were many years we spent celebrating with her on Thanksgiving. She had eight children; one was my father. All eight children and the myriad of grandchildren that followed did not always attend these. Really, only a few people would ever be invited down at once.
One of the last Thanksgiving and Birthday Celebrations for my Grandmother Florence Beech (seated) with some of our family. Photo by my son Jackson. One of the fistfight incidents happened at her house on Christmas Eve in the early 70s. She put an end to large family gatherings looking at blue and red lights flashing in circles outside on a cold, dark Bucks County road she was finally ready to leave behind. After that, she moved to Margate, New Jersey, and by the time I was born, a condominium looking out at the sea was her home.
“You don’t have to go through this world two-by-two,” Nana would say. Be discerning about who You spend time with, and do not waste time. With anyone. Ever. The extended family that was invited to celebrate this birthday were my closest family. When my grandmother passed it was difficult to continue the tradition of getting together on Thanksgiving, but my Aunt Mary and I always try our best to.
Whether I was unable to be with another person on a Holiday or I was at a Holiday, feeling set aside, I started to move through the hurt of spending Holidays alone years ago. Let me suggest how to work through some things if You are alone this Thanksgiving. A holiday that I took a long time adjusting to spending alone.
Cry.
Crying can be a great release. There are quantifiable positive outcomes from crying. It can actually help you feel better after you let it all out. But You should be careful not to wallow in misery too much. Only a bit of wallowing in sadness is needed. When You are ready to engage in such a healing activity be sure to do a few things:
Cold Spoons – Keep spoons in the freezer, they will help reduce swelling around your eyes. It feels really good and helps you look less puffy very quickly.
Coconut Oil – My oldest son asked me recently: Mom, what is that stuff you cover yourself in to feel better? Coconut oil baby, it is called coconut oil. Tears will not moisturize your face, and if you cry anything like me, many tissues will be needed. Just keep some coconut oil nearby and rub it on your face, eyes, hair, elbows. I use an organic kind you can cook with, so that if any runs in my eyes (you know, because of all the crying) it is gentle, natural, and non-toxic.
Smells – Coconut oil has a smell that I love, other smells can help a person feel comforted. That is always individual. When I smell Christmas Trees, like Pines, it makes me so happy. I also use rose and lavender. For example, you could spray a favorite perfume on some blankets and get under them and just stop thinking. If one were so inclined to do such things.
Clean – Take one shower, maybe two. This is a good place to cry. It also helps facilitate getting properly hydrated and moisturized with coconut oil. This is also the best place to cry if you are in a house with other people. Sweeping, mopping the floor, washing dishes by hand, and organizing can all be therapeutic activities.
Drink Fluids – Try to take in enough water and fluids in general. I like coffee, but that can make anxiety and sadness much worse, so a tea without caffeine is generally best. No matter what, when You go to take a drink You will not be able to physically cry. You may start again after taking a drink, but if you feel you cannot stop crying get a glass of water and drink. You will stop crying temporarily and it has stress-reducing benefits.
Throw a ball – another trick to help end the bought of crying is to throw a ball. Emotional crying can exasperate your amygdala and all of a sudden, your brain is flooded with terrible memories that seem difficult to manage. Simply tossing an object can help stop your brain from processing these thoughts from that part of your brain and switch to your pre-frontal cortex to start thinking rationally again because you want your hand to catch the ball. One of my personal favorites is to toss a ball straight up, clap when I think it is as high as it will go, and then catch it. Very really, you can switch your brain on and off in various parts by activities you do, or do not do. And voila, we are freed from thought once again.
It is important to take care of Yourself and those around You. That means embracing real emotions and traumas so that we can all grow and heal. As families, friends, communities, cities, and countries. Have a good cry in the shower and get under the comforter for Thanksgiving. Stay safe.
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Reflecting on 2018
Every day, I strive to be better. A better mother, a better community member, a better writer. Instead of enjoying many things I create, I find any flaw in it to correct, to improve as I continue on. It reminds me of the Yves Bonnefoy poem L’imperfection est la cime (Imperfection is the summit). Something I always get from that poem is that recognizing your own imperfection is the height of awareness, in part because it causes you to work harder. To always be better.
Love perfection because it is the threshold
But deny it once known, once dead forget it
Yet, with that, accomplishments can get lost. It can be hard to simply sit and enjoy the moment. At the end of every year, some people make various resolutions and declarations that the coming year will be so much more. Today I want to look back and see how much was made of 2018. To sit for a minute and recognize things that were accomplished, reflect on successes, and think about entering 2019 building off of positive work.
So here are a few moments in my 2018 career I am reflecting on with joy:
On March 1, 2018 a resolution I helped draft to Philadelphia city council, thanks to Councilman at Large Al Taubenberger, called the Resolution on Disability Day of Mourning, was passed unanimously.
Later in March, my support of resources for sexual assault survivors was part of an article about fantastic cabaret singer Shannon Turner at the Philadelphia Gay News.
In May, I was in good company for another A.D. Amorosi piece, this one at the Philadelphia Metro about a vote on mandatory sexual harassment training for City of Philadelphia employees. Women, LGBT activists support sex harassment training for Philly city employees, Philadelphia Metro, May 14, 2018.
I had the honor of appearing on Christine Flowers’ talk radio program twice. In June, I joined a discussion with Christine and PennLive editor John L. Micek to discuss the Down Syndrome Abortion Act. In September Christine and I spoke about the importance of after school programs, not only for educational opportunities, but to keep youth safe and curb gun violence.
In August, I was honored to be mentioned in Helen Ubinas’ article Meet the tireless Philadelphians who give their all to make the city safer, Philadelphia Inquirer.
A few weeks after that, my piece “How to keep kids safe from gun violence: keep them after school” was published at PennLive and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
I’m truly looking forward to what 2019 has in store, for everyone.
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Honored to be included among these volunteers
Many thanks to the wonderful Helen Ubinas for her coverage of those providing services, as volunteers, to people in need in Philadelphia. You can read the full Philadelphia Inquirer Article here.
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Prostitution: a photo gallery in black and white
This article first appeared July 19, 2017 at AL DIA NEWS
Ada Luisa Trillo was born in El Paso Texas and spent much of her youth in Juarez, Mexico. After studying in San Francisco and across Europe, she settled in Philadelphia, but her culture and the areas where she spent her youth were always close to her art. Her primary artistic medium is painting rich with gold leafing and symbolism of Latin America.
After studying photography at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia Trillo wanted to photograph immigration along the borderlands from Mexico in North America, but found it too risky for those involved in crossing. While at a church in Juarez she met a maid they called Luli. Luli shared with Trillo that she was a former prostitute and offered to take her to visit the brothels in an effort to bring more awareness to the plight of the young women there.
In The Brothels of Juarez“It is a very dangerous zone, so you need to go with somebody and I wasn’t too aware of that.” Trillo said while at her studio surrounded by many of the photos she took. “I thought it was going to be just a bunch of young cute girls with glitter miniskirts but it wasn’t like that, it was the contrary. It’s women that are completely exploited, their addiction to heroin is such that it becomes their lives. Their only reason for survival is drugs. They’re trapped; they don’t have their own money and mostly they are suffering.”
After meeting the women for the first time, it became important to Trillo that they tell their stories. She wanted to portray their dignity while also showing the truth of their harsh conditions. Trillo wanted to do something to help them, and thought that what she could offer was helping these women find their voice through her art. In this way, she realized would not be recasting their stories through her own perspective, but that through the images, could tell their own stories through her lens.
“I am not an activist,” Trillo said, “I am an artist, and art for me, it is very important that it gives you a feeling. When you see art, you have to feel something, if you see it and you feel nothing then it does not touch you.”
Trillo spent three to four months at a time over 3 three years with the women of Juarez brothels. Starting in early 2015, she went to visit the girls. While laws vary from State to State, of the 31 States in Mexico 13 have laws regulating prostitution and, according to the United States State Department, only 22 of those States have laws against sex trafficking, but they are rarely enforced. Trillo saw this for herself in Juarez.
“The cops are everywhere in the zone,” she said of what she witnessed while taking photographs “they are outside of brothels just kicking it.”
The areas where prostitution is decriminalized are commonly referred to as “zonas de tolerancia”. Sex work by those over the age of 18 is generally accepted, sex with a minor under the age of 18 is expressly illegal throughout all States in Mexico. All the women in the photographs would tell Trillo they were 27 because of these age restrictions. They do this to protect themselves, as they could be legally held accountable should the owner of a brothel say the workers lied about their age. From the photos, it is clear many of them were very young and some admitted during interviews to coming to Juarez as unaccompanied minors. The majority of the women at the brothels were not from Juarez originally, many coming from States further south or from other areas of Latin America all together.
Trillo said that while none of the women would readily admit their true age or felt free to explain that they did not mean to settle in Juarez, it was clear to her that none of them intended to end up at the brothels. “It is pretty obvious when a woman says ‘I started when I was 13, and I am from Guadalajara and my parents are in the United States.’”
Withdrawal into the unknownYet, even if many of these women did intend to cross the border into the United States and succeed, there would be no guarantee they would be free from the drug cartels, human trafficking, or sex work. The numbers of women and children transported throughout Mexico and into the United States for sex work have been obscured for years. A study of human trafficking(link is external) from 2010-2013, conducted by Observatorio Nacional Ciudadano, was only able to obtain information from 16 of the 31 States in Mexico; the remaining 15 States would not provide any trafficking statistics.
A study conducted by the University of Texas, and released in 2017, estimates that over 79,000 children and youth are victims of sex trafficking(link is external) through the state of Texas. Juarez is just over the Rio Grande, about a half an hour drive from El Paso. The same study found that Texas ranks 2nd in human trafficking in the United States, with 1 out of every 5 human trafficking victims passing through the State. While statistics involving only women being sex trafficked throughout Mexico and those trafficked into the United States still evade many studies because of the lack of substantial data, some organizations, like InSight Crime, estimate that as many as 87% of the people trafficked into the United States from Mexico(link is external) are women and that over 80% of that human trafficking is sex trafficking.
A US State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report identified that “Child sex tourism persists in Mexico(link is external), especially in tourist areas… and in northern border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Many child sex tourists are from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, though some are Mexican citizens.”
The same report also said that it was “difficult to assess government efforts to identify and assist victims” as there were “no comprehensive statistics available” on exactly how many women and children were victims of human trafficking or sex trafficking in Mexico or from Mexico and into the United States.
Sex trafficking is not only legal in some States in Mexico, but also has levels of legality in Texas. According to the anti-human trafficking group New Friends New Life(link is external), Texas law does not prosecute individuals that assist or operate in transporting sex workers. Due to these vague and relaxed laws in Mexico and Texas certain borderlands experience sex tourism. Trillo explained that, while those women closer to the border are also in difficult situations, the situations are very different further into Juarez.
“The sex tourism you see is in another area of town that is closer to the border. A lot of the soldiers from Fort Bliss are in the desert between Texas and New Mexico and many of them are the ones who come have sex with the girls and go back.” Trillo explained of the difference between “zonas de tolerancia” throughout Ciudad Juarez.
“Those girls are not in the same position; the girl that engages in relations with Americans is charging maybe $25 or $30. The girls I take pictures of charge $3 or $5. It is a different world.”
According to Dr. Laura Bamford, board-certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases and currently working at Philadelphia Fight, “Sex workers throughout the world share the commonality of often being forced into the work by human trafficking, economic survival, and substance use disorder.” Beyond substance abuse affecting the physical health of these women and the communities they live in, the sex work itself negatively affects these women, as their options for health care in many areas are often very limited. “The enormous and multilayered stigma of sex work routinely prevents these individuals from safely accessing essential medical services like substance abuse disorder treatment, treatment and prevention of HIV infection and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and Hepatitis C infection.”
Beyond the borderlands in Juarez, Articulo Journal of Urban Research estimates that since 2009 as many as 10,000 businesses closed, resulting in as many 230,000 residents leaving the city. Much of the movement from the city, according to Articulo, has been attributed to the drug related violence and gang activity that rose in the area in that time. They also estimate that in 2010 alone over 3,000 people were killed in Juarez. La Jornada En Linea and Proceso have reported that about 800 women sex workers are known to have been disappeared or murdered in the city between 2010 and 2014. Trillo witnessed this as well.
Voices of the SilencedWhile the idea for the photography project started as an immigration issue on the Southwest border, for Trillo, the brothels she photographed are not a border issue. At issue is drug abuse and abuse against young women. Of the 23 photos of 20 women that will be in the exhibit 2 were disappeared since she began the project. One woman photographed, Claudia, disappeared and was never seen again, another, called Bonita, was murdered.
“Luli told me that this girl was abducted,” Trillo said in her studio pointing to a large framed photograph of Bonita wrapped in clear plastic to keep it safe as it traveled to Twenty-Two Gallery, 236 South 22nd St., where the work has been on display since last Thursday until August 6, “she looked different from the other girls. She was a little bit blonder, with hazel eyes. When we interviewed her she was very shy, but she still wanted to do it because she wanted to buy crack. The last time I went back, I asked, can I take a picture with Bonita? The owners said no, they killed her. It was very sad for me.”
The silencing of the voices of those young women touched Trillo, who is the mother of two teenaged daughters. “What happens with the women that are disappeared,” she said “they all follow the same profile, young, lower class, because they have no voice.”
These experiences encouraged Trillo to donate all of the proceeds from the sale of any photographs from the exhibit, and Twenty-Two Gallery(link is external) owner Shawn Murray was in full agreement. All proceeds from any sales will be donated to The Coalition Against Trafficking Women, a global nonprofit network focused on ending sex trafficking centered on survivors’ and victims’ rights, and the Mother Antonia Center of the Oblate Sisters of the Most Holy Redeemer, Mexico City, a religious organization that started in Madrid in 1864 that focuses on assisting prostituted and drug dependent adult women and their families.
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Puerto Rican artist: first Latino honored by the Woodmere Art Museum
This article first appeared July 3, 2017 at AL DIA NEWS
At 18 years old, Diego Hiromi Rodríguez Carrión moved from Luquillo, Puerto Rico to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, PAFA. In the four years since arriving in Philadelphia he has won many prestigious awards including the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel Scholarship, the Rose and Nathan Rubinson Prize, and the Woodmere Art Museum Purchase Prize. Now, at 21, Rodríguez Carrión is not only the youngest recipient of the Woodmere Art Museum Purchase Prize, he is the first native of Puerto Rico to win the distinguished award, and his piece, titled Exodus, will now be part of the permanent collection of the museum, located on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia.
Each year the director of the Woodmere Museum, Assistant Curator Rachel McCay, and the collections committee, comprised of non-staff members, attend the Annual Student Exhibition at PAFA and select a work for the Woodmere Art Museum Purchase Prize. Since 2012, the Woodmere Museum has awarded the Purchase Prize to ten artists in an effort to continue the support of artists that have studied or lived in the Philadelphia area and to grow the permanent collection with diverse new artists. In past years they have selected multiple artists for the prize, this year Rodríguez Carrión was the sole recipient of the prize.
Born in 1995, Rodríguez Carrión eventually studied painting techniques at the Atelier San Juan under the guidance of artists Luis Borrero and Amber Lia-Kloppel He learned what he calls “Old Master” techniques in drawing and painting. In 2013, Rodríguez Carrión left his homeland to study at PAFA. The notoriety of the school in the art world and his attraction to figurative painting influenced his decision to study in a new city with instructors who primarily taught in English. He achieved his Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art studies at the school with a focus in painting. While his concentration was in oil painting, he also enjoys working with woodcuts. “I knew that PAFA is well-known because of this type art, that was one of the reasons why I decided to get enrolled in son I can improve my technique while I develop my vision of art,” Rodríguez Carrión said.
Rodríguez Carrión is the first native of Puerto Rico to be awarded the Woodmere Art Museum Purchase Prize. On that honor, and the honor of having a piece as a permanent part of a museum collection at such a young age, he said “this award is a blessing and a pride, not only for me but for my family. I am excited because, at my age (21), the [Woodmere Art Museum] bought one of my works and included it in their collection.”
“We are thrilled to include this work and for it to be awarded the purchase prize this year.” McCay said of Exodus. “We focus on Philadelphia’s artists and being able to represent one of the oldest institutions in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is important to us and to represent their growing student body.” The piece will be included in an upcoming exhibition, Cutting Edge: Recent Acquisitions in Woodcut, which will be on view from early September through October 2017. The Woodmere Museum considers the work by Rodríguez Carrión, and the other artists in the exhibition, to expand the understanding of working in wood as an artistic medium.
“We have work by a lot of prominent printmakers and artists that work with wood as a medium,” McCay said, “this piece adds significantly to that aspect of our collection. The work is an impressive monumental tryptic that we are looking forward to including in exhibitions and being part of the collection, it’s incredible and the scale and the mastery of the medium is very clear and the entire committee was unanimous in awarding the prize to Diego.”
Exodus is a triptych, meaning it consists of three art panels each depicting a specific theme on its own, while telling a larger story as an entire piece. The wood engraving stands at 6 feet tall and a total of 2 feet wide, each panel is 6 feet by 4 feet and, along with the wood, contains elements of coal, pencil and engraving ink. Art created in the style of a triptych have been popular in Christian art for hundreds of years as a way to relay religious themes and stories from the Bible, but can relay many themes and stories within its panels. For Rodriguez Carrión Exodus is about addressing political and financial issues causing immigration from the island of Puerto Rico to mainland United States, and the future of his homeland of the island itself, along with the strong cultural heritage, if it is abandoned by generations of inhabitants.
“I decided to do this project in wood-engraving since it reminds me Puerto Rico. The theme of “Exodus” is about the economic situation that Puerto Rico is going through, in which the government declared itself in bankruptcy. It is about the emigration of many Puerto Rican families to the United States because of the lack of jobs and money there. The first panel illustrates two elderly people with gestures of sadness because their generation migrates to another country looking for a better future, while they are left alone. The elderly couple represents the current Puerto Rico. The second panel depicts how nature takes control of banana plantations (bananas are part of the Puerto Rican diet) by abandoning the land. If there are no people who cultivate the land all the fruit is lost and there is no food. The last panel is an empty bed in between two curtains. The light falls on the middle of the bed representing the line between life and death. With this panel I want to say that if the future, which is the youth and this generation, is leaving Puerto Rico, the country dies with no future.”
While Rodríguez Carrión plans on visiting areas of Spain, including Madrid, Toledo, Seville, and Barcelona with his Cresson Scholarship to expand his artistic outlook and practice, he believes Philadelphia is an important place to see and discover art, both in the city and within yourself as an artist.
For him, all of his work is about his identification with his heritage, culture, family and devotion to his religious beliefs. Exodus exemplifies all of these things for Rodriguez Carrión. “I am a family guy, my family is a big part of me and the person that I am. It is important for me to fully represent them and Puerto Rico. I want my family and my country to be proud of me.” He said.
More about the art of Diego Hiromi Rodríguez Carrión can be found at www.diegohiromi.com/(link is external)
Cutting Edge: Recent Acquisitions in Woodcut will be on view at the Woodmere Art Museum, 9201 Germantown Ave. September 2 through October 29, 2017.
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Bail an injustice for Philadelphia’s poor
This essay first appeared AUGUST 11, 2015 on ESSAYWORKS at WHYY NEWSWORKS
It is estimated that up to 65 percent of those in prison in Philadelphia are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of any crime. Many of them simply cannot afford to pay their bail.
“There is supposed to be some common sense in the law,” says Tim Devlin, an ex-convict who has seen Philadelphia’s unfair bail system from the inside, “and I think a lot of that has been forgotten.”
Fortunately, it has not been forgotten by everyone. A bill to “eliminate pre-trial detention for failure to post bail” is being drafted right now in the office of State Sen. Daylin Leach, a Democrat who represents parts of Montgomery and Delaware Counties.
“People who struggle to make ends meet often face challenges that may not be obvious to the rest of us,” Steve Hoenstine, director of communications for Leach, says of the motivation for the bill. “If you aren’t poor or haven’t been through the criminal justice system, you probably wouldn’t be aware of the grave injustice that our current bail system imposes on the poor.”
What sticks with people
Devlin has a lot to look forward to these days. The father of three will be getting married soon. His third-shift job, working overnight, can take its toll, but he always makes time for his family and his music. He did not always have this outlook, though. When he was between the ages of 18 and 22, he amassed quite a rap sheet for possession, of drugs and weapons, vandalism, criminal mischief, and more.
“I’m 36 years old,” Devlin says. “I haven’t been convicted of a crime since 2002. That’s a long time. My fiancée even tells me, ‘A lot of time, when you do things, I can tell you’re really apprehensive about it because you’re scared of stepping out of the line.’ If I step over the line a little bit, it’s like: He’s been convicted. We got him. It sticks with you for a long time.”
What sticks with people is the entire jail experience, from beginning to end. Not everyone is privy to the ins and outs of the justice system, until they are within the justice system, and at that point there is very little you can do. Devlin says what he saw was that “a lot of the time you’re just trying to exercise your rights, and they try to use that against you.”
The case of Sandra Bland in Texas, and the trouble she faced trying to make $500 bail, has brought some of the issues about prohibitive bail to light recently across America. When it comes to prison issues, Philadelphia is too close to the top of a very undistinguished list. We have one of the highest prison populations in the nation.
One of the first encounters with the court system after arrest is a bail hearing.
“You have people who are unemployed or minimum wage, and they give them $30,000 bail for possession of marijuana,” Devlin says of his experience. That number, though, is not far off. The typical bail request in Philadelphia is $20,000. As for making that bail, Devlin continues that “in Philadelphia you have to pay 10 percent. So that would be $3,000 that they have to pay, but still, you know what I mean. You take someone that is unemployed or maybe has one or two other arrests for possession of drugs or something, and they give them something they can’t possibly make.”
If a person cannot make bail, there is only one choice: to remain in jail.
In Devlin’s experience, “You have 24 hours after you see the bail commissioner to pay bail. If you don’t make it, you go up State Road, once you get to county up there. Then you sit on State Road. If you can’t make bail, you just sit there until your court date. But the problem is … I’ve seen people on State Road for a year for a nick bag of weed.”
‘Speedy justice’ lags on
Statistics show that 15 percent of pretrial inmates are in jail for 120 days or longer awaiting trial. Philadelphia pretrial holdings for bail have increased 40 percent since the time Devlin was last in prison, and even then he says he noticed the issues with high bail, and who they seemed most applied to — not just at bail hearings, but while in prison.
“I’ve been in the prison system in California, in Jersey — it’s always pretty much the same any way you go,” Devlin says. “But in Philly, you got guards who don’t even want to be there, and just for no reason, won’t let people out on the block, so they can’t call their family or something. Like, you could have court the next day and they just don’t feel like letting people out, they just won’t. You can’t call your family, you can’t prepare for things, the law library that they just won’t let you to. You can’t even get access.”
Month after month, hearing after hearing, the entire process, which purports speedy justice, lags on, breaking people down — keeping them from their loved ones, causing them to lose legitimate jobs, on charges that are sometimes dropped altogether, simply because they cannot pay a fee.
“I think that there is a racial aspect to Philly as well.” He tells me, “I can remember being in the district, with people with the same charges who are black, and I would get ROR [released on own recognizance], and they would go up and get the $3,000. You know what I mean? It’s like, damn, it’s kinda crazy.”
In Philadelphia, about 40 percent of arrests get ROR, while 60 percent get bail. And 66 percent of the entire inmate population is African-American.
Once a person is able to make bail, and appears in court, they do not get the entire bail returned to them. Only 70 percent of a bail posted is returned to the person who posted it in Philadelphia. That means that on a $3,000 bail, even if the person arrested is found innocent, it will end up costing them $900.
“You have the privatization of prisons now,” Devlin says, “and it just seems like the punishments are harsher, especially financially.”
Taxpayers’ savings
Hoenstine says that Leach’s bill intends only to “eliminate pre-trial imprisonment unless a judge finds the defendant is a danger to themselves or the community, has a history of flight, or is charged with a capital crime. Defendants who do not fit that criteria would be released and expected to appear in court. If they fail to appear in court, they’d be subject to a monetary penalty set by the judge.”
With all of the costs associated with being in the prison system for inmates, it is still estimated that of every tax dollar paid in Philadelphia, seven cents goes to the prison system, where over half of those interred are awaiting trial. The financial advantages of eliminating specific bail circumstances are still being considered, and Hoenstine says Leach is trying to reach across lines to find support for this bill and is even “eager to work with members of the Republican Party — particularly fiscal conservatives who know how much money this could save taxpayers — to produce language that can pass.”
“They say they’re basing [bail] off your record. They’re supposed to take your income as a factor,” Devlin told me. “Sometimes with the crimes, it seems like they’re targeting low-income people.” With a change to bail, Philadelphia can stop confining its poorest residents and look to join some more prestigious lists, lists of cities lowering their prison population.
Aja Beech 