MEET LA'Frisko Lewis - Discussionist, July 26, 2014

July 10, 2014
Milwaukee - Milwaukee Professionals Association LLC 4-Month Invoked Atonement #4 Assembly was held on Saturday, July 26, 2014, Center Street Library, 2727 W. Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, WI  53210.

Theme:
War on Incarceration, Employment and Vision 2050

La'Frisko Lewis, Business Student, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee was the Discussionist on:

Black Males Incarceration Rate in Wisconsin

He wrote about the findings found in the recent report, "Wisconsin’s Mass Incarceration of African American Males: 
Workforce Challenges for 2013" by:  John Pawasarat and Lois M. Quinn, Employment and Training Institute, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, his research observations and personal experience.

He gave nine (9) reasons for the Incarceration rate and 4 solutions. 

Reasons
According to La’Frisko Lewis, there are 9 reasons that lead to the high Incarceration of Black Males.  They are:

1.         Police Traffic Stops

2.         Revoked Driver’s Licenses and Transportation

3.         Limited Job opportunities

4.         Racial segregation to Racial divide

5.         Parking tickets - issuance and building debt

6.         Drug laws - all of them

7.         Mandatory sentencing

Seventy-five to eight-five (75%-85%) percent of all inmates in Wisconsin prison are related to drugs

8.         Unemployment among Black Men in Milwaukee, WI

9.         Recidivism - Go back to prison within 3 years.

There are four (4) solutions.  They are:

Lewis provided 4 sets of solutions for Black male incarcerations.  They are:  I). Employment; II). Laws and Policies; III).  Education Programs; and,  IV). Medical Programs.

I.       Employment Programs

•              Better opportunities in and out of the city of Milwaukee for family-supporting jobs.

•              Better opportunities for public transportation to jobs in and outside of the city.

•              Better communication centers for information sharing of labor, incarceration laws, probation and revoked licenses.

II.       Laws and Policies

•              Revisit laws and regulations that allow harassing and profiling of African American and others with replacements of laws and regulations for Code of Conduct that disallow abuse of power, discrimination, violation of rights with punishment of police officers that disobey.

•              Strict enforcement of civil rights laws of 1964, Amendment 13 and Amendment 14.

•              Revisit parking violation laws that constantly add amounts - this creates problems for those who do not have jobs and/or cannot pay.

•              Revisit ALL the laws that have strict mandates where the violation or crime does not match the punishment.

•              Use of ways to seek restitution from offenders that are outside of the prison system and can be contributions to society through work programs.

•              Less funding to the thriving business of prisons

Funding the corporations of prisons are promoting the increase in imprisonment and wasting taxpayer money. Let’s find a way for prisons and prisoners can pay for their stay and more money can be spent on educating people on how not to go to prison.

III.       Education Programs

•              Provide training of laws regarding “stop and seizure” is one way to start educating the consumer.  This would include the recent Supreme Court decision regarding police use of data on “cell phones”.

•              More after school programs that are affordable and accessible for education advancement, exposure to marketplace variety, improvement (including drug-free courses) can help curve and end the massive incarceration among Milwaukee young African American males.

•              More vocational training

Creating more programs like Job corps can help the young black men. Even job corps is not publicizing for the youth know there are other options and they never failed to short to succeed.

IV.     Medical Programs

•           Substance abuse treatment (Probation)

This is a MAJOR problem I believe investing more into substance abuse treatment programs can help decrease the violation of probation. Substance abuse is one of the main reasons young males in Milwaukee returns back to prison.

•           Stop cutting funding to counseling

Cutting funds to counseling is a major problem considering the fact that a lot of young black men who sell deals also use of drugs.  Counseling can help in numerical cases.  Disable families, molestation, orphans, etc.  Most substance abuse is created from situation just stated.

•           Stopping the process early in childhood (mandatory to take drug-free classes throughout

            school)

Make it Mandatory to take drug-free classes throughout school, creating an awareness of the consequences of selling and using drugs.

•           Substance abuse treatment (Probation)

            

            This is a MAJOR problem I believe investing more into substance abuse treatment programs can                   help decrease the violation of probation. Substance abuse is one of the main reasons young males in               Milwaukee returns back to prison.

•          Stop cutting funding to counseling

          

           Cutting funds to counseling is a major problem considering the fact that a lot of young black men who            sell deals also use of drugs.  Counseling can help in numerical cases.  Disable families, molestation,                orphans, etc.  Most substance abuse is created from situation just stated.

•         Stopping the process early in childhood (mandatory to take drug-free classes throughout school)

          

           Make it Mandatory to take drug-free classes throughout school, creating an awareness of the                        consequences of selling and using drugs.

More information on crime awareness in the community.