Surveillance A vast system of technological tools used by police agencies to monitor the public with little oversight. Surveillance tools can include CCTV cameras, automatic license plate readers, and cell phone tracking devices.
System impacted A term used by anti-carceral advocacy groups to refer to people affected by the criminal justice system but who have not been prosecuted or incarcerated. The most common system-impacted individual is one whose loved one is directly impacted.
Three Strikes law A legal statute derived from baseball terminology. The Three Strikes law varies in application from state to state—it currently exists in twenty-eight states, as well as the federal criminal code—but essentially imposes mandatory long-term sentencing for defendants convicted of “serious felonies” three times.8 To finish the terminology, they are “out” after three strikes, as many are sentenced to life in prison. The law has not proven to decrease crime.
Acknowledgments
When searching for a foreword writer, it was important to me to frame the book in a Black feminist lens. Throughout my writing journey, I had come to embrace this particular theory of change—partly because of my own experiences as a woman, but mostly because of the relationships I’d made—and was eager to infuse the foundation for Reimagining the Revolution with the sense of strength and determination I’d seen exemplified by Black women in this space. When Ilyasah Shabazz replied affirmatively, I literally fell out of my chair.
Ilyasah is an incredible human being, and I’m deeply honored and humbled to have her introduce my work. Not only does she do justice to the work of her mother, Dr. Betty Shabazz, and her father, Malcolm X, through her work at the Shabazz Center, she has carved out a space for herself as an individual with her own contributions to the work of racial justice and liberation. I am forever grateful for her grace in our interactions and for her invaluable contribution to this project.
Like many stories, mine began with a mother and a father, William and Sandra Lehman. And while I certainly “didn’t come with instructions,” as my mother likes to say, they supported my unconventional career path, read versions of my manuscript, offered feedback, and celebrated milestones. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your support.
I started this project in quarantine with my husband, James, and my son, Isaac. We both had full-time jobs and it seemed absolutely insane to start writing a book. But James has always believed in me, long before I believed in myself. It is his unwavering faith and fantastic co-parenting skills that allowed me to make this dream a reality.
The first leap of faith was to start my career as an author, which, as a parent, seemed irresponsible. Undeterred, I launched a Kickstarter for the book. The backers of that project allowed me to pursue this full-time. A huge thanks to: Barry J. Schneider, Spencer Ferebee, Josh Lehman, Michelle Killmer, Francine Patterson, Nancy Levin, Sally Breckenridge, Sam Adams, Jenna Scalmanini, CT Turney-Lewis, Carol Schwartz, Ben Summers, Tom Adkins, Margot Edelman, Libby, Scott Ewing, Heather Yeager, Rachel Comerford, Clint and Rebecca Allen, Nadeen Reinecke, Riry Jones, Ciro Scotti, Kalene Kobs, Win Bennett, Billy Doyle, Sara O’Sullivan, AJ Snow, Francine Klein, Jordy Velasquez, Paige Midstokke, Samuel Salzinger, Doug Hills, Debra Schneider, Donald Lehman, Shane Nelson, Stephen Salisbury, Jeanne Mariani, Jacob Hartman, Marcie Burros, Susan Dreyfus, Abhishek Sheth, RJ Marshall, Riley Lehman, Fool’s Moon Entertainment Inc., Basil Carr, Tiffany Seeler, Linda Latman, Cindy Opdyke, Jimmy D’Amico, Kathy Hendrickson, Lanny, Brittany, Sarah, Terry Schneider, Katie Greene, Han-Hui Ling, David Ettinger, Jack Fitzsimmons, Ali Wallick, Colin Chazen, Shelley Mendelsohn, Bookwyrmkim, Heath Shuford, Taube Kravitz, Travis Allen, Sarah Kalloch, Emmo Lütringer, Brent Sisson, Milton A. Early, John Szymanski, Allan Hoving, Jay Sherman, Kathleen Adkins, Nathan, Michael Roosevelt, Drew Raine, Jackson, Joyce Guse, Dani, Sebastien Tilmans, Sarah Smith, MYS, Michael Kazin, Katie Talwar, Heather Lehman, Hilary Rosen, Spencer Lawrence, JoAnne Hammes, Jeannette Spangler, Brian Bondurant, The Creative Fund by BackerKit, George D. Cochrane, and John Miyasato.
Three other individuals contributed to the Kickstarter: My loving and eternally gorgeous grandmother Audrey Schneider and my beautiful girls, Rebecca Lubart and Molly Schroeder. You are the women who lift me up and keep me afloat when the tides rise and fall.
I could not have written a word in this volume if it wasn’t for the insight of Ken Oliver, who opened my mind to the world of revolution and challenged me to think differently about the world around me. He is a beacon of hope and an example of what can be achieved if you believe in yourself and never give up.
Thanks to my writing partner, Jason Masino, who Ubered all the way out to the burbs for lengthy writing sessions and went over several drafts. I also want to thank my sponsor, John, whose faith I’ve borrowed several times throughout this process.
A special thanks to Keith Donnell Jr. for assisting in the editing process as a sensitivity reader and, at times, calling me out on my own unintentional biases.
Finally, I want to acknowledge North Atlantic Books and my editor, Shayna Keyles, in particular, for bringing this book to the world. They took a chance on an unagented, debut author because they believed in the importance of and the need for these stories. I am eternally grateful for their commitment to bringing marginalized voices closer to rooms where real change can be affected.
Notes
Author’s Note: About the Artists
1 Diane Khan, “Gerald Morgan, 25 Years Inside,” Humans of San Quentin, n.d., https://humansofsanquentin.org/beyond-story/gerald-morgan-25-years-inside/.
2 Scott Smith, “COVID Creature,” All of Us or None, September 2020, 4.
3 Scott Smith, “Why the Statue of Liberty Is an Imposter,” Prison Journalism Project, May 2, 2023, https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2023/05/10/everyone-i-know-in-prison-poor/.
Preface
1 Paula Lehman-Ewing and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, “Involuntary Servitude: Life as Civilly Dead,” All of Us or None, June 2020.
2 “California Proposition 57, Parole for Non-Violent Criminals and Juvenile Court Trial Requirements (2016),” Ballotpedia, n.d., https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_57,_Parole_for_Non-Violent_Criminals_and_Juvenile_Court_Trial_Requirements_(2016).
3 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Grove, 2008), xiv.
4 “Black Codes - Definition, Dates & Jim Crow Laws | HISTORY,” HISTORY, June 1, 2010, https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-codes.
5 Christopher Uggen, Ryan Larson, Sarah Shannon, and Robert Stewart, “Locked Out 2022: Estimates of People Denied Voting Rights,” Sentencing Project, November 23, 2022, www.sentencingproject.org/reports/locked-out-2022-estimates-of-people-denied-voting-rights/.
Chapter 1: The Way We Move
1 Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press, 2010), 180.
2 Dani Anguiano, “US Prison Workers Produce $11bn Worth of Goods and Services a Year for Pittance,” Guardian, June 15, 2022, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited.
3 Uggen et al., “Locked Out 2022.”
4 Emily Widra and Tiana Herring, “States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2021,” Prison Policy Initiative, September 2021, www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html.
5 “Crime Survivors Speak: The First-Ever National Survey of Survivors of Crime,” Alliance for Safety and Justice, 2022, https://allianceforsafetyandjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/Crime%20Survivors%20Speak%20Report.pdf.
6 Larry Buchanan, Quoctrung Bui, and Jugal Patel, “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History,” New York Times, July 3, 2020, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html.
7 Mapping Police Violence website, n.d., https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/.
8 “Clark County, Nevada Covid Case and Risk Tracker,” New York Times, April 1, 2021, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/clark-nevada-covid-cases.html.
9 Paula Lehman-Ewing, “Analysis of LA County Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools Raises Questions,” Los Angeles Daily Journal, December 5, 2018.
10 Sam Reisman, “The Rise of the Progressive Prosecutor,” Law360, April 7, 2019, www.law360.com/articles/1145615/the-rise-of-the-progressive-prosecutor.
11 Mapping Police Violence.
12 Catroiona Harvey-Jenner, “‘Elizabeth from Knoxville’ Goes Viral after Video Shows Rioter Complaining about Being Pepper Sprayed,” Cosmopolitan, January 7, 2021.
13 Alexander, New Jim Crow, 235.
Chapter 2: Systems of Oppression
