Civility in Juvenile Detention Center

Setting of the Institution

St. Charles Juvenile Detention Center is a medium security facility, an hour and a half outside of Evanston and two hours from the city where many of the incarcerated youth grew up. IYC St. Charles opened in 1904 and has the capacity to house 348 young boys. Currenty they are tranferring to a Phoenix Emerging Adult Career & Education (PEACE) Center for high school graduates.

The tutoring session is every other Saturday from 10-12. The classroom space is very bare, with one large table. The staff sit in the corner, usually on their phone to monitor the session and ensure both mentors and incarcerated students are acting within the guidlines of the space (think civility). The program intends to bring college preparatory workshops, assignments, and discussions to incarcerated youth who have earned a high school diploma or passed the GED and are undertaking community college courses, vocational training, or life skills classes. The usual group is 3 incarcerated students, and a mixture of peer mentors. At the day of observation (January 27th) there were 4 peer mentors (2 identifying as Asian American, 1 white, and 1 Latina).

Setting of Classroom Space

Criminalization of the "uncivil"

Link between civility and carcerality

The carceral state relies on the seperation between those who needs to be surveilled and those who deserves to be protected. Prisons additionally have the ability to remove "unwanted" or "deviant" bodies from main society. This disproportunately includes incarceration on the basis of race, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. This connects to the construction of uncivil placed on certain bodies as highlighted by Espiritu and Puar.

Connection to Readings: Evyn Lê Espiritu and Jasbir K. Puar's "Civility, Academic Freedom, and the Project of Decolonization"“that certain bodies are constructed to simply be, a priori, uncivil. That is to say, it is not merely that the accusation of uncivil behavior is more likely thrown at bodies of color, of immigrants, or queers. More trenchantly, these bodies are always already suspect—always seen as primed toward uncivil behavior. They demonstrate for us what incivility is by virtue of the sheer presence of their non- normativity” (Espiritu and Puar, 64) Additional Readings about how prisons reinforce hegemony and heteronormativity as civil:

Law as Civil Profession

As I learned more about M, and her reasons for joining this peer mentor program I found out that we had very similar trajectories and aspirations to be public defenders. This made me question if being a lawyer/attorney is the civil or respectable occupation to embody to address the issue of mass incarceration? Are M and I 'passing for perfect' and conforming to an acceptable occupation to be made visible to the community? (Ninh 11,13)

Background: Asian Americans make up 5% of the profession and are the largest minority group in prominent law firms, but lowest ranking minority group to make partner or into leadership positions (Chung). A study on Asian American success frame named becoming an attorney one of four acceptable professions---alongside doctor, pharmacist, and engineer (Lee).

This moment was steep with civility and put into question how I was defining it in this space. I personally viewed this act as uncivil and impolited because the students could infer that she didn’t want to be there or that it was a burden for her to join us. But if civility is defined by the facility and the state as those in power, then the incarcerated students are positioned outside of citizenship. M's action does not violate the civility expected of us. The guard's gaze is not focused on this moment to symbolize how it was not viewed as outside of the norm in this space to disrespect the students. No one from the facility has followed up with me about this instance despite a staff member witnessing it.

Moment of Interest:

The other Asian American tutor (M) fell asleep in the middle of the session.

All the staff that I have interacted with at the facility are staff of color, specifically Black people. This suprises many of the new peer mentors because there is the assumption of prison guards as being white because of their obligation to uphold and enforce the law (think white normative dominant system). While incarceration disproportionality impacts the Black community, any person can uphold and subscribe to the logics of the criminal justice system as a means to enforce civility and order.

State Actor

For the first session, the students were placed on the oopposite side of the table. This placement enforced an unspoken seperation between the incarcerated students and the peer mentors. To bridge this divide and dispell the insider/outsider construction of the space, I paired mentors with the incarcerated students, so that the table became a more mutual and balanced space and connections were made one-on-one, which violated an order from the staff to only share necessary academic information and not allow any personal details to be shared.

Structure of the Lesson

Definition of Civility

In the Juvenile Detention Center

There is no one set definition of civility/incivility. Williams et. al defines civility as “a set of social behaviors that govern conversation including politeness and ethical consideration” and incivility as “a social interaction that involves discourteous treatment, is lacking in respect, and displays general disregard for either party's dignity (Williams et. al 7). Itagaki names civility as "the foundation or goal of deliberative democracies; however, it also has disciplinary, repressive effects in maintaining or exacerbating racial, gendered, heteronormative, and ableist hierarchies that distinguish some populations for full citizenship and others for partial rights and protections" (Itagaki 1171) While individuals might hold differing definitions of civility in the space, the definition backed by institutions of power set the boundaries of the space.

For one, as a carceral space there are inherent actors who have been deemed uncivil and therefor not deserving of rights. Secondly, the student org of UPEP has a large turnout of Asian American students participating in general meetings, signing up to be peer mentors, and stepping into leadership roles. 25% of all Executive members and 60% of the consistent peer mentors identify as Asian American. I am curious about how the model minority identity functions in this space that can't decide whether it is abolitionist or academic.

Why Does this Space Matter?

Education as "civilizing"

Moment of Interest: M, claimed that the students at Stateville (the maximum security adult prison she also volunteers at) are more engaged with the material and therefor makes her more engaged. In short, she claims the incarcerated youth students inability to focus as a measurement to her engagement and effort. M's sentiments are reminiscent of meritocracy logic which is tied to the model minority identity and the boundaries of civility; “One manifestation of these purported crises of civility has been the privileging of meritocracy, over equality, which has created an imagined community of the deserving, civil few” (Itagaki 67). There is extensive research that ties civility, education, and prison together. They follow the idea of education as having the power to create civil, production members of society out of uncivil people who are only then deemed worthy of early release, privileges, and democratic rights.

Roshanravan positions Asian American woman as "the 'least political among 'women of color" (Roshanravan 262). She then poses the question "how do we need to rethink what visibility should mean for Asian Americans who have benefited from the model-minority racial project at Black Americans’ expense?” (Roshanraven 263). How can we mobilize our visibility and incivility in this space? How do we beneift from being the model minority and perceived as such in this space? How can we subvert the imposition of "criminal" onto the incarcerated students?

How can we understand our role in this space, understanding how civility is at play?

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Bibliography

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