NAACP President Ben Jealous Speaks on the Scott Sisters Case

NAACP President Ben Jealous took the important step of publicly expressing his thoughts on the recent release of Jamie and Gladys Scott, two sisters who'd been imprisoned for more than 16 years for an alleged robbery that netted just $11. The NAACP president eloquently and carefully laid out the significance of the victory in the Scott case and informed the public that the NAACP plans to work to persuade other governors across the country to use their powers of clemency to free those who are deserving.

"During the past two weeks, in response to successful grassroots campaigns, two governors have released black Americans who had been railroaded by our nation's criminal justice system," Jealous said. "Together, these cases speak to the urgent need for the work the NAACP and our allies are doing to encourage more governors to use their clemency authority as our nation's founding fathers intended by freeing more deserving people more frequently."

Jealous went on to define the long-term objectives of the NAACP as it relates to pushing for broader reform:

"Our eyes remain firmly focused on the prize: assisting the Scott sisters in getting the freedom they have won, the health care they need and the pardon they deserve. ... Like the struggle to win justice for the Scott sisters, the struggle for full and fair usage of clemency powers is as urgent as it has been long. For more than a century, the NAACP has pushed governors and presidents publicly and privately to use their clemency powers to advance justice. Yet, the roots of this struggle go much deeper."

Jealous is correct that the push for reform must go far beyond the Scott sisters. While it is important to celebrate smaller symbolic victories like this one, we must remember that there are thousands of other cases where the inmates do not have relatives relentlessly advocating for their release. One example is the case of Rodney K. Stanberry, who was falsely accused of murder more than 13 years ago. In spite of significant evidence to the contrary, Stanberry continues to grow old in an Alabama prison after being sentenced for a crime I do not believe he committed.

The point here (and I'm sure Jealous agrees) is that reform of the criminal justice system is going to require a very deep and significant effort to dig to the root of the injustice and extensive use of clemency on individual cases should only be a first step. As of 2008, there were 846,000 African American males held in state and federal prisons or local jails in the United States. More than 14 percent of the African American male population is currently disenfranchised from American economic, political and educational systems as a result of having a criminal record. Given that one out of every three black boys born this decade is expected to go to state or federal prison during his lifetime, legislators at the highest levels must be reminded of the importance of confronting the prison problem here in America.

Therefore, the Scott sisters were two women who were fortunate enough to have been freed by a governor (Haley Barbour), who seems to think that releasing the women might be a way to help erase some of his racial missteps in recent weeks. But Gov. Barbour should not be made, for one second, to feel that freeing two women disconnects him and the state of Mississippi from the role they've played in ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of families by becoming such ardent supporters of the prison industrial complex.

In the article 'Slavery, the Prison/Industrial Complex, and American Hypocrisy,' the author (whose name is simply given as Richard), made this telling statement about America's prisons:

"In today's America, drug laws have become the new Jim Crow laws, the prison/industrial complex has become the new plantation, and the warden has become the new overseer. America's newest slaves aren't picking cotton. They're assembling computers, making women's lingerie, booking airline flights over the phone, telemarketing for major corporations, and doing all kinds of tasks that free Americans used to be employed at doing. What appeared to be a normal plant closing by U.S. Technologies when it sold its electronics plant in Austin, was actually the company relocating its operations to a nearby Austin prison."

There is a great deal of work to do on this matter. I told the NAACP today that those of us with the "Never Going Back" initiative within the Your Black World Coalition are interested in supporting them as much as we possibly can. Also, this matter should be approached with a full understanding that this is a problem that will probably not be solved in our lifetimes. With Jamie and Gladys, we've got two exonerations down, and another million to go. There's a lot of work in front of us.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce's commentary delivered to your e-mail, please click here.