North Star Collective: Mapping Verdant Pipelines

• In Event: Women of Convict Criminology: Session 1

Abstract

Arizona incarceration trends reveal deepening disparities. Sixty percent of those currently incarcerated draws from two under-resourced, and historically marginalized communities of color in Arizona, South Tucson, and South Phoenix.  Communities stripped of resources and abandoned by the state- except as sites of racialized social control and surveillance- face disproportionate rates of system involvement The impact of systemic racism is enshrined in xenophobic, profit-driven legislation such as Arizona’s draconian “Show me your Papers Law” (SB 1070) and the “Anti-Ethnic Studies Law” (HB 2281).  Arizona's continued reliance on methods that systematically reduce life for Black and Latino communities create a need to organize directly impacted people and communities to disrupt and redirect these pipelines.  This paper introduces North Star: Mapping Verdant Pipelines (MVP) which aims to transform individual and community relationships to the punishment system by building connections between ongoing environmental and social justice work in South Tucson and South Phoenix. By shifting away from system-led responses to recidivism reduction, we create space to gather situated insight around what leads and keeps people out of prison, thereby creating new evidence upon which to base practices.

Author

• Grace Gamez, American Friends Service Committee