Category: Criminal Justice Reform

All Faiths Justice Alliance

Mission, Vision and Objectives (3/2/2017)

Mission

The All Faiths Justice Alliance is a working group of representatives from a coalition of religious communities in New Jersey dedicated to ensuring fair and racially equitable policing in the application of criminal justice by forging stronger, more positive ties with communities of color and local law enforcement professionals.  Our members include:

Charlene Marable, UU Congregation of Montclair

Rev. Vernon Williams, Assoc. Pastor, Fountain Baptist Church, Summit

Prof. Johanna Foster, Monmouth State Univ. and UU Congregation of Montclair

Jane Gaertner, UU Congregation of Montclair

Rabbi Ariann Weitzman, Congregation B’nai Keshet, Montclair

Dr. Ali Chaudry, President, Islamic Society of Basking Ridge

Sally Gellert, Central Unitarian Church, Paramus

Rev. Rob Gregson, Exec. Director, UU FaithAction NJ

Rev. Kathryn Irwin, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Nutley 

Al Stawsky, UU Congregation of the Palisades, Englewood

Dr. Laura Myhr, Beacon UU Congregation, Summit

Dr. Claudia Cohen, Columbia Univ. and Beacon UU Congregation, Summit

Vision

With a shared understanding of the historical roots of bias against people of color within our broader culture and our shared legal/law enforcement system, we aim to build a beloved community in partnership with existing and overlapping faith communities, community-of-color activist organizations, and law enforcement allies in order to decrease prejudice and violence resulting from that shared history.  We understand that while prejudice, discrimination and violence disproportionately affect people of color throughout the larger society, our particular focus is on racial inequities in law enforcement.  Equally important, we understand that just as violence begets violence, the de-escalation of violence, and the recognition of our shared humanity, creates safer communities for us all. 

Objectives

As a first step, the working group aims to develop a community education and organizing toolkit. This toolkit will encourage and equip congregations statewide to form sustainable relationships with their local law enforcement agencies for the purpose of bringing about racial justice and more positive relations in local policing.  More specifically, the toolkit aims to provide:

Relevant educational and consciousness-raising curricula on the presence and impact of structural racism in the U.S. past and present in general, and specifically how it has affected local policing habits and trends;

Tips and guidelines on forming partnerships, both with anti-racism organizations in communities of color, and with our local police officers, emphasizing inquiry and empathy;

A multi-competency roadmap of steps and strategies for further relationship building, including issue selection and action that take into account the diversity in starting positions of local congregations;

A resource guide to local and statewide social movement organizations working to ensure that all people, not just those with race and class privilege, are afforded their fundamental right to be protected and served by those enforcing the law.

Congregational Toolkit for Engaging Racism and Local Policing: Table of Contents

• The Beginning – An Introduction
• Chapter 1: Grounding Antiracism in Our Ethics and Faith
• Chapter 2: A History of Racism and Police Practices 
• Chapter 3: Changing the Powerful Requires Power
• Chapter 4: Build a Coalition to Build Power
• Chapter 5: What’s the Particular Change We Seek?
• Chapter 6: Who’s Got the Power? 
• Chapter 7: Determine Actions to Take
• Chapter 8: Begin, Evaluate, and Determine What’s Next
• The End: How Long will it Take?

The Beginning – An Introduction

How We Began

In early July 2016, video went viral of an unarmed Philando Castile being shot by police outside Minneapolis.  Mr. Castile was shot and killed while seated in the front seat of his car. His girlfriend took the video of the fatal encounter while sitting next to him; her young daughter witnessed the scene from the back seat.

Alton Sterling shot by two policemen in Baton Rouge, LA while being pinned to the ground.  Sandra Bland appears to have taken her own life in a Texas jail cell after being arrested by a policeman, apparently for not taking a cigarette out of her mouth.

All this wanton death, and more, in one month’s time.  No police officer was ever convicted or spent time in jail for what to the world appeared to be excessive use of force leading to death.  Why?

A group of 30 Unitarian Universalists, lay and clergy, gathered that same July to figure out what we were called to do, as religious people, given the ongoing epidemic of fatal shootings of largely black Americans by largely white police officers. It was clear to us that something beyond stress and the pressure of any given encounter on police was at work.  We wanted to confront the specter of racism and racial bias in policing. But what, realistically, could this one small group from a small denomination do?

We quickly realized that, whatever action we chose to take, it would be far more effective if we reached out to partner with other faith communities and activists from communities long affected by racialized violence.  Within a month or two, representatives from within the Baptist, Jewish, Lutheran, and Muslim traditions came together. We agreed that we drew our strength and exerted the most positive influence from three sources:

1. Our faith traditions that all spoke of the merits of peacemaking, of the need for justice as well as mercy, and that held its members in tight-knit, multigenerational communities.
2. Our congregations, firmly rooted and invested in specific places with multiple, often longstanding ties to local leaders, politicians and other faith groups in our neighborhoods.
3. A core of potential volunteers, with a history of concern for social justice.  Sometimes these members would be well-organized on Social Justice committees; sometimes they would simply be interested in a given issue and want to do something to make it better.

This was our initial start.  Nearly 2 years later, after more meetings than we can count, hours of research and multiple drafts of this toolkit, we have turned our analysis of the effects of 350 years of systemic, institutionalized racism into this toolkit.  It is our common hope–and yes, our common faith–that we have an ethical and religious obligation to confront and transform that historical and ongoing heartache into hope. All people deserve to be treated with dignity and to go home safe and alive every day–people of color and law enforcement officers.  Our fervent hope is that this toolkit might do some small part to make that a reality for all. 

Who We Have Become

All Faiths Justice Coalition is a gathering of clergy and religious personnel from the Central New Jersey area coming together to develop a toolkit for engaging local police departments concerning racism. We acknowledge the disparate treatment by local police departments on people of color. This disparate treatment can and has led to inordinate numbers of stops, incarceration, beatings and even death of far too many people of color. What is particularly urgent for us to address is the rate at which unarmed people of color are shot and killed by law enforcement. This action has an effect of terrorizing the very people law enforcement personnel have taken an oath to protect and serve. All Faiths recognizes that not all law enforcement engages in inappropriate or abusive behavior. However, the small percentage that do engage in abusive behavior and use of excessive force is far too many. We further acknowledge that too often these abuses go unreported and unaddressed when reported. This causes the community to resent law enforcement and refuse coöperation.

Communities want to feel safe, respected and proud of the men and women who courageously place their lives on the line for the areas in which they patrol and serve. This is true in the urban communities as well as in the suburban and rural communities. People of color wish to be treated with the same respect and human dignity that their white counterparts are treated with. Unfortunately, statistics show that African-Americans are incarcerated at 10 times the rate of whites and 3 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than whites.

Therefore, All Faiths Justice Coalition has developed a toolkit for you to organize around and provide a road map to engage your local police department to improve or eliminate racial disparity in policing. The answer is not for law enforcement to begin treating whites with the indignity and inhumanity for which they treat blacks. But rather, for law enforcement to begin treating people of color with the dignity and respect for humanity of their white counterparts.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/ 

Excerpt from Chapter 2: A History of Racism and Police Practices: Anti-racism Efforts in New Jersey 

This picture is far from complete without the history of progressive and anti-racist resistance. 

New Jersey today also has a reputation as being one of the most progressive states in the nation. The strong activity of many organizations has made some significant progress toward changing the picture—notably, for example, in places like Newark and Camden. 

Just as police policy and practices can be influenced negatively by political and public pressure and new laws, so can they be influenced positively in similar ways. This is possible even short of basic systemic changes of political and economic structures. In the past for example, the protests against Fugitive Slave Laws saw some Northern towns and law enforcement authorities that would not comply. The strong support for the Abolitionist movement often had a significant effect throughout that period. Today, efforts to combat police racism are strengthened by the history of democratic advances and the strong American tradition of individual rights, as well as appeals to the justice and morality of racial equality. In recent times several cities notorious for racist practices consented to various steps leading to change in accords with the federal Department of Justice (DoJ). Since 2009, there have been 15 city consent decrees with the DoJ including Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, the District of Columbia, and Ferguson, MO. In New Jersey, a strong police oversight authority was instituted in Newark; this included community anti-racist organization representation. In Camden the entire police force was discharged and replaced with a county force that is 50% Black. Pressure from the public and anti-racist justice organizations led to such changes as banning of racial profiling by N.J. state troopers in traffic stops, adoption of car cameras and body cameras by police, adoption of police training programs such subjects as sensitivity to diversity, behavior of mentally ill individuals, and de-escalation techniques in person-to-person contact. Also important is for the community to make it clear  that police behavior is being closely watched, that misconduct will be called out, and that there will be reaction and consequences. 

 

Changes in long-standing police culture and practice are not easy. They are shaped by a history to the present day of enforcing racist laws and social structures, and more recently of a strong militaristic influence that discourages proper interaction with communities. The most effective level of contact to influence change would seem to be on the local level. In New Jersey there are some 550 separate police departments, each serving its own township, village, borough, or city. 

These police departments are a part of the structure of government. This dictates and shapes their function and performance. However, they are not all the same and there can be significant variation in their practices. 

In smaller communities, it is more possible to have direct contact and communication with police and to find those areas of common understanding and trust that may exist. There can be a more personal way to register complaints and discuss solutions and to develop more of a community policing atmosphere, as well as more immediate sensitivity and response to community pressure and demands. It is this area that is especially the target of this program. 

Congregational Questions 

What are the demographics and existing political structure of your community? What is the history of racism and of police–community relations? 

What organizations, groups, faith communities would join in an effort to move forward toward racial equity and justice in police–community relations? 

What educational activities are needed? 

What are some of the issues that may be raised for discussion and around which your community might organize? 

References 

(1) Turner, et. al., “Ignoring the Past Coverage of Slavery and Slave Patrols in Criminal Justice Texts”, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 2006, 17. 

(2) Cooper HL, “War on Drugs Policing and Police Brutality”, Substance Use and Misuse, 2015:50.