The United States imprisons 2.4 million men, women, and children – one out of every 100 Americans. The U.S. has largest prison population in the world, both in total numbers and as a percentage of its population. With only five per cent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for nearly a quarter of all prisoners in the world.

These alarming incarceration rates disproportionately affect people of color. Representing only 30 per cent of our population, people of color comprise almost 60 per cent of those imprisoned. One in 15 African American men and one in 36 Hispanic men is incarcerated, and one out of every three African American men in this country can expect to go to prison at some point during his lifetime.

Why? Who benefits from this state of mass incarceration? Who suffers? What are the social costs of putting so many behind bars?

What alternatives exist? How are communities moving toward dismantling this wasteful and destructive machine and ameliorating the conditions of those caught in its gears? What are communities of color doing? Quakers? Other faith communities? Legislation, direct action, education, engagement?

How can each of us best use our gifts and resources to help turn our society from fear, revenge, and throwing people away, toward valuing and respecting every human being and seeking healing justice and restoration to community?

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Michelle Alexander, in her best-selling book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, provides a penetrating analysis of the current system of policing, law enforcement, and criminal justice that shows why and how these systems have evolved and been manipulated to create an undercaste of poor people of color. Pendle Hill is deeply honored to have Michelle Alexander as our keynote speaker. She will address the “why” questions and show how critical a sustained mass social movement is to changing this situation. Click to read a short bio of Michelle.

The Conference will include Workshops and Interest Groups led by experienced and engaged activists and scholars, providing opportunities for deeper exploration of the following areas of concern:

• Root causes of mass incarceration of people of color: fear-based politics of white supremacy and “tough-on-crime” rhetoric; implicit racial bias suffusing all aspects of the law enforcement, criminal justice, and prison systems; media representation of youth of color; and the punishment paradigm.
• Paths to incarceration: school-to-prison pipeline, zero tolerance, racial profiling, policing patterns, stop-and-frisk, prison privatization, bond policies, discretionary charging, mandatory sentencing, three-strikes-you’re out, sentencing disparities, drug zone sentence enhancement, and immigrant detention.
• Conditions of confinement: solitary confinement, death sentences, life without parole, children tried as adults, incidence of mental illness among prison population, aging prison population and access to health care, and lack of educational and rehabilitative programs.
• Reentry and reintegration into community: Overcoming/dismantling collateral consequences of conviction, voting, employment, housing, education, food stamps, jury service, schooling, and licensing.

Quaker Network to End Mass Incarceration
Many Quakers have been awakened to the injustices of mass incarceration through reading and discussing The New Jim Crow. Others have been involved in prison ministry, Alternatives to Violence Project, prison visitation, or behind-bars education programs over the years. Still others have been engaged in reform efforts against the death penalty, life without parole, the use of solitary confinement, and incarcerating juveniles and the mentally ill. Together, a number of Friends were inspired to begin affiliating in a Quaker Network to End Mass Incarceration last summer. The Steering Committee for this Network has been conferring via telephone calls since the Friends General Conference Summer Gathering in 2014 and intends that network members will have an opportunity to meet face-to-face during this conference.

Register Online

Call Us For More Information!

610-566-4507

Scholarships for Conference
First, thanks to generous support from some donors, we are able to keep our fees lower than expected. Everyone’s fees have been subsidized to some extent in order to allow the maximum number of registrants to participate in the conference.

In addition, some funds are available for matching scholarships. We are able to match up to half of the conference fee for registrants whose non-profit sponsoring organization provides funds for them to attend the conference. We cannot provide matching funds for travel.

If you are seeking matching funds, please call 610-566-4507, ext. 137, to register. When we have received payment from the sponsoring organization or assurance of payment by letter, fax, or email from an authorized person from the sponsoring organization, we will confirm your registration and matching grant.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill.