The special chronicles the voices of NBA players, alongside ARC's Sam Lewis, and covers family separation, life sentences, and policing in America.
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ARC's Sam Lewis, alongside ARC Founder Scott Budnick, inside Racine Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, featured last night on ESPN.
Dear John xxxxxx,
Last night on primetime television, ESPN and The Undefeated ([link removed][UNIQID]) presented "Playing for Justice," ([link removed][UNIQID]) which featured NBA players from the Sacramento Kings and Milwaukee Bucks going inside Folsom State Prison (CA) and Racine Correctional Institution (WI) to listen to and lift up our incarcerated community members. Our Executive Director Sam Lewis was interviewed for the special and had the opportunity to speak about topics such as:
* family separation and its particular severity in the American criminal justice system
* extreme sentencing
* policing and Blackness
We encourage you to watch the 30 minute special HERE ([link removed][UNIQID]) .
Held in December 2019, the NBA "Play for Justice" events included a basketball game inside a prison and also featured a roundtable with incarcerated community members. The events were produced by Represent Justice and Plus One Society in partnership with ARC.
Here are some notable quotes from Sam on last night's program:
"[In America] we’re talking about separation of families at the border—it’s also a criminal justice issue. We’re not stopping to say, wait a minute, if we lock mom or dad up, what’s going to happen to the child. If you trace back to just how our system was built, you can trace this all the way back to slavery. Families have been separated continuously and those are scars that don’t go away."
"The longer you’re inside, the more difficult it is to reunite with your family. It’s especially hard on children and the majority of people in both state and federal correctional facilities are parents of minors. I literally got to know my daughter in prison visiting rooms. She grew up without me. First birthdays, first steps, first lost tooth, I wasn’t there for any of those things. Watching her struggle with me not being there was hugely difficult. I’ve been home now eight years, and we still struggle with a lot of the scars of me not being there."
"More people are currently serving life sentences today than all of the people who were in prison in 1970."
"Life sentences can be directly linked to the vestiges of institutional racism in our country and slavery. It’s a conversation no one wants to have and we have not owned it as a country."
We hope you'll take some time to watch the program ([link removed][UNIQID]) , where you'll also hear from individuals incarcerated in Folsom and Racine, 2019 NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, former NBA player Caron Butler, in addition to our partners at the ACLU Trone Center for Justice and Equality, The Sentencing Project, The Milwaukee Bucks, the Sacramento Kings, ACLU Wisconsin, and Represent Justice.
Thank you so much for your support of our work to end mass incarceration, reunite families, and change the narrative around what it means to be incarcerated in America.
Sincerely,
Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC)
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