We know the school-to-prison pipeline exists, and the distance between our education system and youth incarceration system is even shorter for some. Freedom Fox Richardson understands this better than most people. Freedom calls himself a “super-volunteer” with Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) because he believes he easily could have been one of the youth locked up in the prisons he has visited as part of his volunteer work with FFLIC. Instead, he is a political science major at Loyola University in his senior year and is serving as the Student Government President.

Statistically, he is right. He was always a few steps closer to prison just because who he is and what his parents have experienced. As a Black youth in Louisiana, he is seven times more likely than his white peers to be incarcerated and as a child of parents who both were incarcerated, he is more likely to be incarcerated himself and less likely to graduate high school.

This is why it made sense to him in the fall of 2020 to do the “Freedom Ride,” where along with FFLIC’s youth organizer, Antoniqua Roberson, he dropped off personal protective equipment (PPE) to incarcerated youth in five of Louisiana’s state and local prisons.

“For me, doing the trip, it was about visiting the youth facilities myself...There is valuable experience to be gained when you are looking at what could have been you and what studies say should have been you, and then being able to assist and have an opportunity to reflect in a way that further fuels the work you do.”

The work Freedom does and hopes to continue to do is in policy and advocacy and it started when he was just a child. At a young age his mother, Sibil Fox Richardson (also known as Fox Rich) exposed him to testifying before state and local committees, campaigns, and talking to policymakers as part of her efforts to free her husband, Freedom’s father, who was serving a 60-year prison sentence. It is through his mother’s advocacy that Freedom became involved with FFLIC. Additionally, FFLIC put his mother Fox into contact with Director Garrett Bradley who went on to create the award-winning documentary, “Time,” which follows Fox as she perseveres in her husband’s case. In the film, one can catch glimpses of Freedom as a child witnessing his parents’ struggles and then as a young adult debating his views at Loyola University. 

But Freedom also recognizes that his relationship with advocacy, though inextricably tied to his parents, is still his own.

Reflecting on his journey into advocacy Freedom said, “You do something long enough that you either stop doing it because you decide it’s not for you or you decide to push forward and give it your all.”

Along with his parents and five brothers, he says his understanding and strength is also derived from his grandmother,  who was a public school teacher for more than thirty years. She taught in underserved areas of Shreveport and believed, “if a student is not succeeding in my class, that’s a reflection of my teaching approach.” As a teacher, she would take time after school to drive to a student’s home to talk with a parent if a student was turning in homework late or having an issue in her class.

Freedom explains how his grandmother’s “hands-on approach” as a teacher has to be applied to our elected leaders in Louisiana and how they handle public policy, including the school-to-prison pipeline.  “Clearly what we are doing isn’t working. And yet the elected leaders have yet to go to Angola or to the youth correctional facilities to ask, what are we doing wrong, how are we failing...and at the end of the day, how do we get to the core of the issue?”

This is why Freedom drove twelve hours in one day to drop off PPE to the youth facilities in remote areas throughout Louisiana. He wanted to highlight the burden, disconnection, and isolation that the system causes for incarcerated youth and their families. At the fourth stop, the Swanson Center for Youth at Columbia, he offered some thoughts on Instagram: “There is no way to seriously talk about rehabilitating our youth and keep them so far removed from society....We’ve got to do better.”

He also recognizes his own role in making the situation better: “Poor decision-making is a result of folks who have no connectivity to our issues being the ones who speak on behalf of them...Whenever you are missing perspectives like that around the table, you can either complain that they’re not there, or you become the defacto solution.”

Though his future and next steps in policy are still unfolding, one thing is clear. Freedom is determined to find a way to help those impacted by incarceration. He spoke of watching the TV show “Underground” and really understanding the “clarion call” that, “We’re not free until we’re all free.” Reflecting on its meaning, he says, “There should be a shared responsibility to your neighbor that once you are free, there is a moral inclination, some value alignment, to make certain that once you’re free, you find a way to free others..”

This is just one reason he continues to make himself available to FFLIC, knowing that serving the organization is a way to serve youth who do not have their interests represented by our elected leaders. “FFLIC has just always for me been a beacon of ideation and advocacy that our communities have long benefited from...FFLIC has been there for the people who have needed them, including my family.” 

In case you missed it!

To see pictures and watch videos about the “Freedom Ride” visit the Facebook event’s page and view the “Discussion” at: https://fb.me/e/IH3uye7S. 

FFLIC is also celebrating its 20th year anniversary! Stay tuned for more details on what our celebration will entail this year!

Nearly 20 years ago, families and loved ones of incarcerated children united to achieve the unthinkable-- close the country’s worst youth prison, Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth. This collective action ultimately led to the founding of FFLIC and the passage of Act 1225 of 2003 that created the Juvenile Justice Reform Act Implementation Commission (JJRAIC) to address the root causes of incarceration and called for:

• Divestment from ineffective systems
• Reinvestment in community-based alternatives to incarceration
• Creation of rehabilitative pathways for youth
• Improved access to mental health and supportive services that families need to be healthy and whole

However, following the initial momentum, the JJRAIC eventually gave up on the work and left children and families to deal with a broken and abusive system. (Learn more about the JJRAIC here.) 

Now, we are frustrated and angry to learn that state and local leaders are calling for the building of new youth prisons.

THAT'S GOING TO CHANGE. In the end of 2020, Representative Candace Newell in partnership with FFLIC and Southern Poverty Law Center, pushed through House Bill 100, which added FFLIC to the Vice-Chair position and called for the JJRAIC to meet four times a year, beginning in January of 2021. Before that, the JJRAIC had not met since 2016, even amid a pandemic when it's critical to coordinate care to secure the protection and health of children. The JJRAIC held their first meeting since the passage of the 2020 legislation in January 2021. The committee questioned, and ultimately delayed, OJJ's plans to build two new youth prisons. 

WE STILL HAVE WORK TO DO. We must continue to advocate for the closure of youth prisons and stop the building of new ones, and the JJRAIC is key to our advocacy efforts. 

JOIN US. FFLIC, along with our partner, the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice will host an online conversation on Tuesday, February 23, from 6:00 - 7:30 PM, "Challenging Youth Incarceration in Louisiana: A 20-year Journey". Join us to learn more about FFLIC's past and current efforts, the JJRAIC and what it can do, and how we can work together to close youth prisons.We will hear from State Representative Royce Duplessis, FFLIC Executive Director Gina Womack (Chair and Vice Chair respectively of the JJRAIC) as well as those impacted by the youth incarceration system.

Register HERE.

View and share the event via our Facebook event page and flyer available here.

The Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention helps states implement the JJDPA -- but they need the staff power to most effectively support states and protect youth. Tell Congress to invest in youth & increase OJJDP staff: act4jj.org/take-action

By signing on to the Youth Mandate for Education and Liberation we are uplifting and supporting the voices of Black and Brown youth from across the country in calling on the Presidential Administration, Congress, and local governments to create police-free schools; and dismantle the school-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline.

The platform has three key elements: (1) Fund education, not incarceration; (2) Restore and strengthen the civil rights of students; and (3) Uplift public education; end the private takeover of schools.

Learn more about the Youth Mandate and stay tuned for updates at: https://www.populardemocracy.org/blog/youth-leaders-release-mandate-presidential-candidates

LOCAL

Learn more about the status of youth serving life without parole sentenced in New Orleans in this article. In summary, since taking office on Jan. 11, the new New Orleans District Attorney, Jason Williams, has begun pulling some of the previous DA's motions to re-impose life sentences to youth who were given sentences of life without parole. Throughout the campaign, Williams promised to take a more restorative approach to juvenile justice and not to seek life sentences for youth. A U.S. Supreme Court decision previously declared life without parole is unconstitutional when applied to youth, except in the "worst of worst" cases but left it up to states to decide which of the youth serving life in prison would get a chance at freedom. The Louisiana legislature has decided to leave it up to local district attorneys and judges whether or not to allow those youth to seek parole. And of course, the Parole Board can still deny release.

Louisiana state educators are launching a program aimed at trimming Louisiana's rate of out-of-school suspensions, including the fact that more than twice as many Black students are suspended than their white peers. Public school leaders will undergo 30 hours of training, including how changes can translate into better performance in the classroom in a state long plagued by low academic achievement.

NATIONAL

In Maryland, "Tensions flared" after the Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Delores G. Kelley (D-Baltimore County) presented a bill Tuesday that would prohibit judges from sentencing youth to life without the possibility of parole. The article also gives a good national overview of the issue.

Youths from across Massachusetts held colorful signs on the stairs of the State House Thursday morning and later took to Zoom to demand legislators act to create more jobs for them, improve juvenile justice, stabilize housing costs, and support comprehensive sex education in public schools.

The DREAM Act, which gives a pathway to citizenship to children who were brought to the U.S. without documentation, may be headed towards another introduction in the House before March 12, 2021 and the drafters are considering whether to keep controversial youth criminalization provisions that were in a previous version of the bill, HR6 of 2019. Stay tuned for updates and in the meantime learn about the provisions in this article: "The New Dream Act Holds Some Dreamers’ Pasts Against Them."