Behind the razor wire
Bruce Reilly served nearly 12 years in Rhode Island’s Adult Correctional Institution (ACI) for killing a community college professor in 1992. Now out of jail, he recently sat in a small meeting room in the J. Walter Wilson building on the Brown campus with about a dozen Brown students, talking of his experiences with racial divisions in prison and his current work advocating for better treatment of inmates.
Reilly’s visit was sponsored by the Prison Discussion Group, a new student organization that meets every Sunday night to learn about current issues and conditions in Rhode Island prisons. Coordinated by Becky Mer ’10, the group grew out of concerns among members of a Swearer Center service activity, SPACE, that brings arts into local prisons.
Each meeting features a speaker who has worked with prison inmates, followed by questions and then discussions of often controversial aspects of prison management and life. Topics of the meetings include legal, social, and political background on the Rhode Island criminal justice and prison systems, details on how the ACI operates, federal laws pertaining to prisons, the international criminal justice system, and undocumented immigrants in the criminal justice system.
As an organizer of the Behind the Walls Committee of DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality), a community-based watchdog group that focuses on police and correctional human-rights concerns, Reilly told the students about his experiences “on the front lines of racial tensions” at the ACI, where he stood out because he was a white man who refrained from aggressive behavior toward inmates of other races. At DARE, Reilly is an organizer on behalf of better treatment for inmates.
Other speakers this fall have included the Rev. Joyce Penfield, chaplain of women’s and men’s minimum security at the ACI and co-founder of the spiritually based reentry project The Blessing Way; A.T. Wall, director of the ACI; Arthur Matuszewski ’11, coordinator of the Brown Education Link Lecture Series that sends a different Brown professor to the ACI each weekend to lead a discussion with inmates; and Associate Professor of Political Science Ross E. Cheit, who teaches ethics to inmates in the ACI’s Sex Offenders Treatment Program.
Attendance at the Sunday-night meetings varies between 15 and 20, most of whom are regulars. Often the revelations about prison conditions are startling: many people aren’t aware, for example, that prisoners in solitary confinement may spend their first five days without taking a shower. Statistics about prisoner abuse by correctional officers also can be eye-opening. Reilly himself witnessed prisoners having their jaws broken or eye sockets damaged by guards after they complained about their treatment, he notes on the DARE Web site.
“Prison matters are always at the back of people’s minds,” says Frank Rinaldi ’12, who attended Reilly’s talk. The discussion group “is a good way of bringing them to students’ attention.”
“It is an eye-opening experience,” agrees Ana Maria Bermudez ’12. “What is surprising is finding out how little you really know about prisons.”
The Prison Discussion Group’s meetings, held Sundays at 8 pm in J. Walter Wilson 502, are open to all. A schedule is available at the group’s Facebook site.