I’m incredibly excited that one of my favorite organizations – International Bridges to Justice – has launched a TED talk by Founder & CEO, Karen Tse. IBJ is also featured as #3 on Huffington Post’s “Best of TED 2011 Countdown.” Take a few minutes to watch Karen’s talk below — and to join us in the movement to end torture.

During my time interning with International Bridges to Justice and speaking with Karen, I have been truly inspired by their vision to end torture in our lifetime — and their model of strengthening legal systems, training and funding lawyers and legal aid centers, and providing legal awareness to citizens, prison officials, prisoners, and police officers to ensure that torture is ended as an investigative tool. IBJ works to ensure that all prisoners have access to competent legal representation at an early stage, because providing legal aid has been proven to be a powerful tool to end torture. Defenders have begun to stand up and conduct thorough investigations with the help of training and resources from IBJ.

IBJ’s aim is to strengthen and give teeth to laws that many developing countries already have. IBJ helps governments implement rule of law on the ground:

Despite the historic spread of democracy in the past two decades, the rule of law remains a dream for the majority of the poor. Legal protections from arbitrary detention and torture have never been realized.

The good news is that laws prohibiting this practice exist in 93 of the 113 countries that continue to practice torture routinely as an investigative tool. This means that the prevalence of investigative torture today is completely preventable if we commit to working with these countries toward implementing their own domestic laws. The fundamental rights these laws are intended to protect are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed more than 60 years ago. Unfortunately, we have not prioritized the implementation of these rights and torture continues as the cheapest form of investigation. If we make a concrete commitment and ensure the necessary resources to build local legal infrastructure, we can breathe life into the very laws that ensure the protection of individuals.

Related posts:

1. Karen Tse at TEDxZurich: On how to end torture worldwide
2. Interview with Maren Dougherty, from Survivors of Torture, International
3. The power of the human rights framework

I was thrilled to find this TEDxZurich talk by Karen Tse, Founder and CEO of International Bridges to Justice (IBJ). I previously interned with IBJ and to this day, credit my time there for sparking my passion for access to justice issues. IBJ is an incredible and innovative organization that works to end torture worldwide by helping countries strengthen their criminal justice systems and train effective criminal defense lawyers.

Karen is the recipient of so many awards – Skoll, Echoing Green, Ashoka, and the list goes on. More importantly, her work is truly inspiring and fills a necessary gap. IBJ is addressing a need that is clear to me — the rights of prisoners and the accused worldwide. Going from naming/shaming countries to working hand-in-hand with them, and with local leaders, to implement the laws in their books, on the ground.

Listen to this talk; I love it. Very inspiring and highlights how much work we need to do to end torture– but also provides hope that it can be done.

Related posts:

1. A vision to end torture
2. Interview with Maren Dougherty, from Survivors of Torture, International

In the past year, I’ve found myself increasingly focusing on women’s rights, sexual/gender-based violence issues, and the legal system in relation to protecting women’s rights. In large part, this is due to my volunteer work with JFAO, a rule of law organization providing legal services to women in Afghanistan. I can’t tell you how much I love this work, and how much I have learned in the process.

But somehow, I wonder if I have lost my purpose or my way. The initial reason I was attracted to international human rights and access to justice was due to the work of IBJ and other organizations working to improve criminal justice systems across developing countries. I was drawn to the problem of prison conditions in poor countries, and even the injustice within the flawed criminal justice system in the U.S.

As an undergrad at Northwestern, I studied access to justice and the prison system in Malawi and researched death penalty laws across the world. I read mitigation memos of prisoners in Malawi and wondered if the system was serving them well. In Afghanistan, I met women at a detention center; my heart broke hearing about the injustices they experienced. Most of them were in prison for ‘adultery’ or ‘running away’ – a cruel punishment for often, what is not even a crime under the law. Some of these women had their young children with them. The system was depriving not just women of a fruitful life, but also their innocent children of prospects of a normal childhood. Some of these women did have lawyers, but most of them were not able to challenge the system in a significant manner.

In Washington D.C., I see people being arrested for simply being black, for being an immigrant or an undocumented worker. I have worked on cases where immigrants have literally been left to die a slow, torturous death in detention centers, being denied lifesaving medicine or treatment for infection even while at the doorstep of death. Their cries have been systematically ignored by a system that couldn’t care less about the rights of undocumented immigrants. In D.C., I hear stories of teenage mothers having to suffer alone as the father of their children are being arrested for burglary. I have heard accounts of police brutality, of policemen literally beating people with batons or handcuffing them and kicking them to the ground if they dare show the slightest bit of resistance. I have seen lives devastated by involvement in the criminal justice system. I have seen how it seemed that at least 90% of inmates at the D.C. jail were African American. With my own eyes I have witnessed the injustice of the criminal “justice” system, in my own country, the supposed bastion of freedom and equality.

I still see criminal justice work – including ensuring access to trained criminal defense attorneys, improving conditions in prisons and detention centers, ensuring rehabilitative and social-service options for those released from prison and juvenile detainees, and reducing the backlog of cases – as incredibly important, particularly so in poor countries where legal infrastructure is lacking. This is needed to prevent wrongful imprisonment, years of pre-trial detention, and ensure successful reintegration into society. Prisoners deserve human rights too. Yet, the rights of prisoners are often ignored amid the more pressing concerns of women’s rights, healthcare, microfinance, and so on. I understand this, yet I feel sad & frustrated as I see how criminal justice is NOT a priority for most development aid organizations and governments, alike. The ‘neglected’ nature of this issue and problem is what led me to the idea of practicing in the legal field, in the first place.

Yet, my focus has shifted from solely criminal justice, to a broader view as to what the rule of law and expanding access to justice can facilitate. And so, I now feel as though I’m betraying this ’cause’ which I still sincerely believe in — and which has fewer advocates compared to issues like women’s rights.

So, I have two questions for you:

1. How does one choose what issue to focus on? How much does one have to specialize?

My passion is far-ranging. I would like to attend law school and ultimately, focus on expanding access to justice, and holistic legal and social services, for poor and disadvantaged communities. But within the broad area of ‘access to justice’ and rule of law, I find I’m interested in domestic violence issues, criminal justice, and immigrant/refugee rights. Can one be interested in all of the above, or must I focus on one to the exclusion of others? How important is being a specialist versus being a generalist? In my all-too-short career, I have the uncomfortable feeling of being pulled in a hundred different directions, and feeling frustrated that I have not been able to pin down my varied passions into one concise focus. But I ask: how much focus is necessary?

2. As an activist and advocate, is focusing one’s attention on the most neglected issues the most important approach? An effective approach?

As an activist, I have been drawn to work on those issues that were receiving less attention. As I mentioned, this is why I became drawn to work improving prisoner’s rights and the functioning of the criminal justice system in poor countries. But now that I find myself entering the realm of women’s rights — I almost feel like my work in this area is going to be a ‘drop in the ocean’ – since the worldwide feminist movement is already gaining SO much steam, and because there are so many individuals talking about investing in women, empowering women, ending rape/sexual violence as a tool of war, and ending domestic violence. I feel like there is already a full-force women’s rights movement, and so I am ever-so slightly uncomfortable with my role here. Am I really needed? Would my work have a greater impact if I was, say, working on prisoner’s rights, immigrant/refugee rights, or other issues that have fewer advocates than the women’s movement currently does?

These are questions in my own career and life that I do not yet have answers to. Questions I’ll be figuring out as time goes on. But in the meantime, I will follow my heart.

Related posts:

1. Questioning the international development system
2. The rich get richer, the poor get prison…

My work with legal and access to justice non-profits has starkly highlighted to me the importance and necessity of holistic advocacy, and yet the unfortunate rarity of the practice. As I’ve written here before, holistic advocacy is simply the idea that social problems are all deeply interrelated and thus require service delivery non-profits to focus on an individual as a whole, in a comprehensive manner, in order to effectively solve their problems, help pull them out of poverty, and affect true change.

I’ve drawn this model from the Bronx Defenders, who have a brilliant “Center for Holistic Defense.” They define holistic defense as:

A client-centered and interdisciplinary model of public defense that addresses the circumstances driving poor people into the criminal justice system and the consequences of that involvement by offering criminal and civil legal representation, social work support, and advocacy in the client community.

Such a model of interdisciplinary advocacy on behalf of the client can be applied in a wide range of legal aid fields (not just criminal defense), to ensure the client is pulled out of poverty in a truly sustainable manner. Sadly, most legal organizations don’t seem to take this approach, instead choosing to solely solve a client’s narrow legal problem – by representing an individual in a discrimination claim, criminal charge, asylum application, or divorce proceeding – for example. But quite honestly, I still cannot fathom how an organization can help clients with one narrow legal problem, and then ignore other aspects of their lives.

And yet, it happens all. the. time.

Let me give three key examples where the need for holistic, comprehensive advocacy by legal service providers is clearly needed.

1) Domestic and gender-based violence:

Say a legal aid organization provides assistance for a survivor of domestic or gender-based violence, helping her get a divorce or “separation due to harm” from an abusive spouse. Say the NGO goes further to help the woman obtain custody over her children and ensure she is receiving alimony payments as required by the law. Often, the organization stops there and pats itself on the back for a job well done. But no, this is not enough! If we are true advocates, we cannot stop there. Because what happens when the client gets a divorce? Does she have adequate and affordable housing? Is she remaining safe from stalking or additional violence from an ex-spouse or ex-boyfriend? Does she feel safe? Does she have employment to support herself and her children? Does she have medical or psychological needs relating to the trauma of violence and abuse she has experienced? Does she have sufficient education to get the types of jobs she wants, and needs? Is she a legal resident in the U.S. or does she need assistance with her immigration status?

There are so many “collateral” problems that result after a survivor of domestic abuse has received legal aid, that simply addressing the solely “legal” aspects of her life cannot be enough to truly pull the client out of poverty and to fully solve the original legal problem. After all, in the U.S., many women end up homeless after leaving a spouse, and many of them remain traumatized by their past abusive relationship. Indeed, many women return to abusive partners for these reasons – fear, guilt, and financial difficulties. So, it’s clear that simply getting a woman a divorce is not enough; a more holistic approach is necessary.

In the developing world, the status of divorced women is further precarious; not only are women even more likely to be financially dependent on their spouse, and thus likely to end up homeless or without a source of income after divorce, but they are more likely to be social outcasts and experience significant social stigma. In many countries, divorced or separated women are looked down upon, cast out by their family, and often further abused should they attempt to return to their family.

When the situation is so serious, how can legal organizations and service providers seriously help a woman with one aspect of the problem – the divorce or child custody alone – and ignore the rest? Yet, many seem to do just that.

2) Criminal defense

The Center for Holistic Defense, where the definition of ‘holistic defense’ has originated, clearly focuses on the criminal defense aspect of legal services. And the ‘collateral’ consequences that result from a criminal conviction should be clear.

Poverty and forays into the criminal justice system, at least in the U.S., are deeply related. Many end up in the criminal justice system due to drug use and gang activity. Beyond that, many who end up in jail once continue to cycle in and out of the system, which in its current state seems to exacerbate rather than solve the problem of crime. In order to reduce recidivism and crime rates, one has to address the needs of the criminal client in a truly holistic manner.

Focusing on re-entry is thus, extremely important. When a client is released from prison, often they face significant difficulty in finding a job, obtaining affordable housing, and not getting drawn into criminal behavior once again. Discrimination against ex-offenders plays a part in making it exceedingly difficult for those to re-enter society with dignity, and to make a decent living. The resulting poverty and even homelessness often pushes people back into criminal behavior and the prison system, leaving them few alternatives.

Clearly, we have to address the roots of the problem and focus on re-entry and rehabilitation for ex-offenders. When someone has been released from prison, case workers and legal aid providers should work together & ask the following questions: Does this individual have affordable housing? Does he have a job to pay the bills? Does he have the education needed to achieve his goals? Does he have meaningful goals to work towards? Does this individual have a support system to turn to? Is he an undocumented immigrant, or does he need immigration assistance? Is this person receiving any government benefits he or she is entitled to? Is this person receiving necessary health care?

All these factors play into rehabilitation and re-entry into society. But often, the holistic approach is not taken; an individual is represented, serves his or her sentence, and is simply released without sufficient focus on ensuring that he or she is truly rehabilitated, and living a stable life.

Check out Robin Steinberg’s video, speaking about this need:

Click here to view the embedded video.

3) Asylum claims

My third example runs along similar lines, so I’ll keep it short. Many legal aid/service organizations provide representation to individuals seeking asylum in the U.S. Often, these individuals face political or religious persecution, or violent repercussions in their home countries and need asylum to stay in the U.S. legally, seeking a better life for themselves and often their families. Asylum is often a matter of life and death.

However, legal aid organizations routinely seem to represent someone in an asylum claim, and if it is successful, have their role end there. This simply doesn’t cut it, in my book. The same questions come up again: Has the client found a job? Has he/she managed to find an affordable place to stay? Does the client have psychological needs or unaddressed trauma resulting from the violent situations he/she is fleeing from? Does the client need medical or psychological assistance? Does the client have health care? Has the client managed to stay out of poverty, even after gaining the legal right to stay in the U.S.? Does the client know English, how to use the computer, and other basic life skills?

There are a wide range of issues which new immigrants to the U.S. face, and those arriving here without legal status are often in an even more precarious position. Have you read the moving story – “Strength in What Remains” – of Deo, a medical student in Burundi, who fled the genocide only to come to the U.S. and end up homeless in Central Park? How can we accept this and let this happen? Legal aid providers should go beyond just providing asylum representation to more holistically considering the needs of the immigrant in adjusting to a new life in a new country.

So…what’s next?

Organizations, both legal and social services, need to stop saying: “this is not my responsibility, my only responsibility is to provide [insert X service here] .” This happens too often, and I feel I have a responsibility to speak out against the inefficiency and yes, injustice of such a sub-par approach. As advocates and activists, we should be working towards social justice – not just a narrow type of justice that fits the aims of our organizations.

We don’t need the piecemeal legal and social service model that currently exists in much of the U.S. and the world. We need something better. I see too few organizations that are willing to solve problems through a truly holistic mindset.

We need seamlessness & comprehensiveness in legal and social services, as the Center for Holistic Defense aptly describes:

There is no complex intake or eligibility process to be repeated when guiding a client to other services or advocates, thereby relieving the client of the burden of having to retell her story while enduring yet another exhausting intake process. If there is administrative complexity, it is borne by the holistic defender, not by the client in need of help.

Holistic advocacy requires legal and social service organizations to re-assess their methodology and slowly begin adding more interdisciplinary teams to their staff. Legal organizations should have people on staff to address myriad client needs – social workers, immigration lawyers, housing specialists, domestic violence attorneys.

We need to begin keeping tabs on clients for the long run – don’t just solve their legal problem and say see ya later- that’s one more success story to tell donors! Keep records. Follow up. Ensure they are on track to achieve progress and goals, to pull themselves out of poverty or the criminal justice system in a long-term sustainable manner. And if not, do something to change that and connect them with the right services and opportunities they need.

We need to begin understanding the needs of a community as a whole. Where does your client come from? What factors in his/her community is leading to their legal problems? And how can we address the roots of these problems at the community-level?

This is a global problem, a worldwide paradigm shift to be made. We need more holistic advocacy, and I intend to dedicate a significant part of my life towards addressing this gap.

Let’s make this a movement.

Related posts:

1. The need for “holistic advocacy”
2. Holistic Advocacy… in Afghanistan?
3. Feature Friday: Sanctuary for Families

My inspiring story of the day (other than, you know, all the protests happening in Bahrain, Wisconsin, etc..) was about an innovative mobile gender justice court prosecuting perpetrators of sexual violence and rape in Congo.

The court is trying eleven soldiers, responsible for a mass rape on New Year’s Day of dozens of women and girls in the town of Fizi, DRC. The court, run by the Open Society Institute, is charging them with rape as a crime against humanity. Find below, some excerpts from the OSI blog post written by Kelly Askin:

I first came to eastern Congo in 2008, looking for a way to help end impunity for the sexual violence rampant in the country. Congo was already widely known as the “rape capital of the world.” Some form of local justice was needed to complement the cases before the International Criminal Court, which does not have the capacity to handle more than a handful of the most senior perpetrators of international crimes.

My idea was to design a mobile court that would travel to very remote areas and provide recourse for victims otherwise without access to a formal justice process. The mobile court would focus on sexual violence but have discretion to hear other crimes and have both civilian and military jurisdiction.

The project is being implemented by the Open Society Justice Initiative and the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative, and was piloted in 2009.

The project held nine mobile gender courts in 2010, hearing a total of 186 cases. Out of the 115 rape cases, 95 resulted in convictions and sentences from 3 to 20 years. It sounds like the court has been relatively successful at fighting impunity for perpetrators in the DRC, and has been more effective than the domestic courts in doing so. Askin writes:

This afternoon, we were allowed to observe the closed session hearing with the sex crime survivors. We heard heart-wrenching testimony from young girls and elderly women who had their lives and families shattered by horrific violence. Often rejected by their husbands and shunned by their communities, they were extremely traumatized, and in both physical and emotional pain. They fretted over basic survival needs, including how to feed themselves and their children, and whether other soldiers would retaliate against them or their families.

Despite all these concerns, one woman said that even though she’d never seen a trial before, she thought it was a necessary ingredient to bring peace to her country. I felt like a proud mother, listening to someone praise her baby.

On Monday, when the judgment is delivered, my hope is that the court will bring a measure of justice to the DRC and the verdict a measure of peace to the survivors.

Certainly, this innovative mobile court sounds like an excellent model and seems like it has helped in reducing impunity for perpetrators. However, in the long-run, international organizations and NGOs cannot be solely responsible for the functioning of such courts.

The long-run goal should be to (1) train legal stakeholders like local lawyers, judges, and police officers; (2) build up local legal infrastructure like courthouses, police stations, humane prisons, and rehabilitative alternatives, and (3) ensure that the court system is run efficiently by the government.

Of course, this is no easy task and much easier said than done, but it reminds me that while in the short-run such mobile gender courts can be an amazing (and necessary!) accomplishment, in the long-run, we should strive to empower local stakeholders and integrate these types of courts into the national justice system. Either way, this project sounds like a well-designed effort to combat gender-based violence in the DRC, and should certainly be applauded.

Photo Credit: Open Society Institute

Related posts:

1. Feature Friday: Center for Court Innovation
2. Please, don’t tweet rape
3. Feature Friday: Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti

This quote from an article I read a few weeks ago, “Making Good on the Girl Effect” truly stuck with me. It echoed thoughts that have been rattling around inside my brain for quite a while, but which never quite made it to the computer screen.

We must globalize the local and localize the global. While sex slavery is certainly a critical issue in Cambodia, it’s also a problem in Cleveland. Education can uplift the girls of Afghanistan, but it can also be a launching pad for girls in Louisiana. Our realities are intertwined and so must be our approach to social change. That means sharing funding and best practices among organizations operating millions of miles apart, and championing local leaders who can customize the intervention to best fit her own community’s needs. Those of us prone to looking far afield for our causes need to ensure we are not neglecting the girls and women in our own cities who need our attention and resources. We must also trust that women from far away are experts on their own communities, and empower them to create homegrown change rather than imposing our own models.

How true this is, that we so often put an artificial divide between different issues – the local and the global, men’s issues and women’s issues, the criminal and the victim…

We must move away from this horribly limiting, choking mindset, to one that is more holistic in nature.

The domestic v. the international: How often do we look far away, at the “poor” in India or Rwanda or Cambodia, while neglecting similar issues at home? What about people who are mired in the local, while forgetting how we are all interconnected, how there is so much to do at the global level? Poverty, inequality and injustice exists everywhere – and we must realize that the divide between the local and global is simply artificial. We must open our minds and hearts, and work together – because we are all working towards the same thing, the same vision of a more just world.

Men’s v. women’s issues: Being a woman, I certainly gravitate towards women’s issues; there are commonalities in the shared experience of being a woman. I can relate more easily to women, I can more readily understand the struggle for women’s rights and liberation, and I can imagine the pain and suffering of women caught in situations of abuse and violence… I am thankful to be a very lucky woman, but nonetheless, I am a woman. I will deal, in my lifetime, with the ramifications of this fact; the glass ceiling, the very real difficulties of grappling with being everything – a nurturing wife and mother, a career woman who embraces her life of freedom & opportunity – all at once. But for so many, it becomes about women’s rights and feminism and all too often, the role of men is pushed aside. Feminism is about equality, we say, but in many cases, activists forget about the broader context – of what it means to be a man, of the role men can and should play in the women’s movement, and most of all, the common shared experiences of being human. There is a need for women’s rights activists, but we must also work to expand the space for recognizing the commonality of the human experience, and the importance of social justice for for all - not just women. We should recognize the interdependence of human nature. Such a broader, more holistic focus is needed if we are to truly break barriers and change social paradigms.

The criminal v. the victim: Within the American criminal justice system, it is often the public defender pitted against the prosecutor in battle, the condemnation of the criminal’s acts versus sympathy for the victim’s family. The criminal justice system in the U.S. is highly adversarial, and while this can lead to useful evidence being uncovered, sometimes I feel it is detrimental to the overall outcome of a more fair justice system. In many developing countries, I discovered that the criminal justice system is far more collaborative, and that because the number of lawyers is so small, they all work closely together – regardless of whether they are a defender or prosecutor. Additionally, we have to stop condemning the criminal / sympathizing with the victim, because this simply doesn’t solve the problem; it’s not so black and white. Indeed, collaboration among both sides to actually attack the causes of crime is necessary for better outcomes.

Business/growth v. charity: With the rise of the social business/entrepreneurship movement, has come an increasing emphasis on economic development, markets, and the bottom of the pyramid. One movement emphasis economic growth a la Dambisa Moyo.  On the other hand, there is the traditional “aid” and “charity” model which has been roundly condemned for stunting growth. Honestly, I think both are needed. Is it really one or the other? We need a strong social safety net, but we also need economic growth for development to occur. Why battle, instead of pursuing both through better collaboration: effective growth + business, plus effective aid and social services.

At the same time, I do acknowledge: we need to remember the differences of context, and devise programs that are fine tuned to the very specific needs, cultures, backgrounds, experiences of the population, group, or community we are working with. Of course, solutions to any social problem cannot be one-size-fits-all. Yet, greater collaboration across sectors and groups – rather than further polarization – is necessary for effective social change to occur.

What do you think? Are we too divided in our social change efforts?

Related posts:

1. New mobile gender justice court tries rape case in Congo
2. What does race have to do with it? The case for South Asians in public interest law

I loved the idea of the Center for Court Innovation, a non-profit and think tank, the first time I ran across it. The organization, created via a public/private partnership, works to improve the functioning of the court system by using innovative methods and structures.  The focus is primarily on helping courts and criminal justice agencies assist victims, reduce crime, and improve public trust in the justice system.

In New York, the Center creates “demonstration projects” to test out new ideas. The projects include:

• drug courts
• reentry courts
• domestic violence courts
• mental health courts

They widely distribute the lessons learned, aiming to help other practitioners around the country implement successful models. Here’s a fascinating look at one of their youth justice courts:

Almost all the roughly 300 cases the Staten Island youth court has heard since it was started last year began as real crimes with real arrests. Cases are referred by local criminal courts, the police and probation officers seeking to divert low-level offenders: petty larceny, vandalism and possession of marijuana are a constant at youth court.

“We’d never a take case like armed robbery or murder,” said Melissa Gelber, of the Center for Court Innovation, which runs the Staten Island youth court along with three similar ones in New York City. “That’s not appropriate for our model.”

The 20 or so teenagers who are part of the court act as judge, jury, prosecutor and defense lawyer for defendants who have already admitted to their crimes.

What’s more, they provide consulting and technical assistance to organizations and governments all over the world, training them on how to best improve the functioning of their courts and criminal justice system. Through this initiative, they’ve provided advice to Trinidad & Tobago on best practices in domestic violence court, trained South Africans on community prosecution and restorative justice, and helped Armenia set up community-based juvenile justice centers that use restorative models.

Even better, they have a whole section on the website called “Failure.” They are completely willing to acknowledge their failures, and they go further to research to understand why certain projects failed to achieve the results they wanted. It’s rare to see a non-profit engage in such a candid discussion about failure, and I’m once again impressed.

Many legal organizations are resistant to change, or at least are usually the last to change their practices. I am so impressed that the Center for Court Innovation manages to use the law as a tool for change, is willing to take risks to create innovative models for the justice sector, and also leverages this experience to help improve justice systems internationally. I’m excited to learn more about their work and will be keeping tabs on their future findings.

Related posts:

1. Feature Friday: Southern Center for Human Rights
2. New mobile gender justice court tries rape case in Congo
3. Feature Friday: Youth Represent

In the past few months in D.C., I have worked with a diverse range of people – low income individuals, the working class, minorities, crime victims, criminals, disabled individuals, immigrants – both documented and not, victims of police brutality, people of color, abused women, and the homeless. I have listened to stories that have made me cry, and I have watched people cry as they told me their stories.

I have felt truly powerless at times, and truly powerful to affect change in people’s lives at other turns. I have worked as an advocate, and tried to find appropriate services for people in need. I have viewed human and civil rights issues through the lens of the law – and have found the law to be both a positive force and yet, ultimately too narrow.

What I’ve learned:

• Lawyers can be an incredible force for social change: I’ve seen firsthand the power a pro-bono lawyer can have in the life of a low-income individual. Lawyers can prevent people from being evicted, ensure they receive their government benefits, and correct injustices such as housing discrimination and police misconduct. Lawyers can help people stay in the country by getting them asylum, can ensure undocumented wage laborers receive fair pay, prevent innocent people from being imprisoned, and allow children to stay with their parents. Even by providing a little bit of advice, lawyers can help low-income people and minorities navigate a system that can at first be overwhelming, daunting, and cold. A good lawyer can work as an advocate, can empower their clients and show them that someone cares about them. A good lawyer can fight for the rights of the forgotten and thus, try to level the unequal playing field as much as possible (after all, the legal system usually caters to the rich and powerful). After seeing the impact lawyers can have in the U.S. at least, I’m convinced that law is a powerful tool in the fight for social justice.

• And yet, lawyers are not enough – we need more holistic programs: The law is oftentimes, far too narrow to adequately address the needs of people. I’ve spoken to countless people who narrate to me their problems ranging from difficulty finding affordable and stable housing, mental illness, physical disability, lack of a job and income, substance abuse problems, and so on. The problems people face are often serious and debilitating, but the legal route and litigation is often not the best way to help them overcome such challenges. In addition to legal representation and assistance, people need social workers and case managers to help them navigate the complex social service system and help them achieve greater stability in life. That’s why I love the model Bronx Defenders employs – they pair lawyers with a team of investigators, case managers and social workers to ensure that all the client’s needs are addressed in a holistic manner. They don’t just address a client’s criminal or legal problems, but also a client’s problems ranging from housing to income to disability. We have to understand that even if a person is released from prison or solves a housing discrimination problem, he/she might still have other problems that keep him/her in poverty. We also must understand that all these issues are deeply interrelated. Human beings don’t just have legal issues to be solved, and shouldn’t be sent on their way after that. People need holistic and well-rounded support to help them achieve stability and growth in all aspects of life.

• There is a need for better coordination between legal and social service agencies: We turn people away too much. I have people call me for help, saying they’ve been turned away by 30 different social service & legal organizations and referred to other ones! Is it just me, or is this ridiculous? We need to stop turning people away! Instead, we need to do our best to make sure people get the assistance they desperately require. This requires better coordination between various social service agencies and non-profits. When we refer someone to another organization, we should follow up and make sure they’ve received assistance. Organizations need to work with each other more closely to ensure that people don’t continue falling through the cracks. There are so many non-profits and government agencies out there – there is no reason people should still be left out in the cold. This is one reason I love LIFT - they never turn a person away and do their best to help the individual navigate the social service system until they receive the help they are looking for. LIFT doesn’t let people fall through the cracks. And LIFT is truly holistic; people can go there with virtually any problem (housing, domestic violence, legal issues, job search) and get assistance or at least, the help of someone willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the individual receives proper help. When LIFT refers someone elsewhere, they do the referral themselves to make sure the client is actually receiving help. Non-profits need to stop turning people away, and instead need to better collaborate with other social/legal service organizations to ensure people stop falling through the cracks.

By observing the operation of legal and social service agencies in the U.S., I have also come to think about how access to justice programs could function in the developing world – a far different beast to tackle. In the U.S., public interest law firms and legal aid agencies can function relatively effectively due to the presence of rule of law and a strong court and legal system as a whole.

In the developing world, however, the problems include:

• Lack of a functioning legal system: Lack of everything from trained lawyers and law schools to sufficient judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, legal aid agencies, and even courthouses. In these places, the focus on access to justice work must begin from scratch – with training of lawyers and judges, establishment of courts and law schools, and creation/expansion of government-funded legal aid and public defense systems to serve public need. Only after establishing a basic legal system can we begin to ensure fair trials and just outcomes for the poor and victims of human rights abuses. And only after this can we begin combining the legal system with the social service system, as I described above in relation to the U.S.

• Corruption in the legal system: In countries like India, the legal system does exist and there are plenty of lawyers in the system. There is legal infrastructure in place, but the fast resolution of cases is prevented by a very slow legal system, severe backlog of cases, and corruption; sometimes, cases simply do not proceed without bribes being paid (to judges, lawyers, etc), and outcomes can be unjust due to behind-the-scene bribes taking place. Police forces can also be corrupt, leading to unfair arrests and lack of rule of law. In some cases, training (of lawyers, judges, police) can help begin to solve these challenges. In other cases, independent human rights commissions and bodies (like an office of police complaints) can help. But corruption and the sluggish functioning of the legal system are truly among the most difficult issues to tackle, and I am still learning what the best solutions are to this problem.

• Absence of acceptance of the law as a tool for conflict resolution: Sometimes, culture works against the law; in many countries and situations, people prefer to solve disputes within their own community through a wide range of customs and traditions. In some countries like in parts of Afghanistan, criminal defense lawyers are seen as aiding and abetting criminals – not as a force for equal justice. Here, we have to tread softly. We don’t want to disrupt culture and traditional dispute resolution mechanisms, and we shouldn’t try to impose our own idea of what a legal system should look like if the current systems are working fine. But, if we do take a closer look and find that traditional processes are unjust, unequal, or patriarchal in any way (which often, they are – one example is the jirga system in Afghanistan led by elderly men, where women completely lack a voice), then we should slowly explore the role a formal legal system can play in righting injustices and promoting fair trials, equal justice, and human rights.

There are no easy solutions to these problems – but these are some of the lessons I have learned in my work in access to justice both in the U.S. and in the developing world. My next step? Figuring out how to best play a role in solving some of these myriad problems I recognize.

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned from ‘Three Cups of Tea’
2. New UN Women report: Women still lack access to justice
3. Feature Friday: Timap for Justice

Today, I want to feature an excellent program that I just heard of yesterday – The Public Defender Corps! It’s a program created in partnership between the Southern Public Defender Training Center (SPDTC) and Equal Justice Works. The program recruits recent law school graduates, providing them with an intensive three-year training and mentorship program that is designed to help them become better leaders in the field. From their website:

Criminal justice systems throughout our country fail to afford poor people accused of crimes the representation to which they are entitled. In many places, years of neglect have led professionals operating in these systems to accept this lesser standard of justice for those with the least means. All of society bears the exorbitant cost of sub-par legal representation including expensive and often wrongful incarceration, a values system that fails to honor standards of due process and equal treatment, and the community divisiveness and diminished sense of well-being that results from ignoring the needs and rights of our least fortunate citizens.

To address this problem, the Southern Public Defender Training Center (SPDTC) has partnered with Equal Justice Works (EJW) to develop a national public defender fellowship program called Public Defender Corps (PDC). PDC is based on the philosophy that through its advocacy, a committed, conscientious, and competent community of public defenders can drive systemic reform by raising the system’s expectations of the quality of representation poor people deserve.

PDC will partner with public defender offices that confront challenges to their ability to provide every client the representation and equal treatment our Constitution guarantees. Through a rigorous nationwide recruitment effort, we will identify recent law graduates qualified to help carry out this mission and, in collaboration with our partner offices, place these lawyers in host sites. Fellows will then participate in an intensive, three-year training and mentorship program designed to both make them better public defenders and support their ability to become strong leaders in the field of indigent defense.

Sounds like an excellent opportunity, and I highly support their mission. We’ve all heard the horror stories of public defenders simply not doing their job (sleeping in court, in one of the worst cases), or doing it poorly (failing to uncover critical evidence, not doing sufficient investigation – although it is admittedly difficult to do a bang up job when you are juggling more than 50 cases at a time). This training program promises to make defenders far more effective. Just like the movement towards better teaching and the emphasis on good teaching to improve educational attainment, the movement towards rigor and training in the criminal defense sphere is an excellent paradigm shift. International Bridges to Justice has been, since the beginning of the decade, pioneering a similar mentality of training for legal aid lawyers in the developing world. A different set of challenges – but the same tools.

Friday Links:

I’ve been encountering a whole lot of excellent articles in the past few days, so instead of blogging about each one, let me just pass on the links:

• From Nothing to Something – a beautiful post on religion, and spirituality (on that note, why don’t we Gen Yers ever bring up religion?)
• For Afghan Wives, a Desperate, Fiery Way Out – article on suicide, by fire, and depression among Afghan women
• After 2 Sluggish Years, Nonprofits are Hiring Again – some good news! Finally!
• What’s Missing from the DIY Aid Debate? On the role of local indigenous groups.
• Can Technology End Poverty? (Hint: the author says no, and it’s a worthwhile topic to debate).
• Photos documenting middle-class life in Africa. Awesome project!
• Decriminalizing Fundraising – also, a thought provoking topic.
• Proficiency of Black Students far lower than expected
• Life in Shadows for Mentally Ill in China – I read this yesterday and was horrified. Yet, I think the situation for the mentally ill is quite horrible in many developing countries; and not just China.

Enjoy, and I hope everyone has a great Friday!

Related posts:

1. A public defender’s mission
2. Feature Friday: Southern Center for Human Rights
3. Feature Friday: Equal Justice Initiative

On September 16, the Foreign Prison Conditions Improvement Act of 2010 (S.3798, H.R.6153) was introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy and Sam Brownback, and Congressmen Bill Delahunt and Joseph Pitts. I am very impressed by the bill, which would help reduce inhumane prison conditions across the globe. You can read the entire text of the bill here.

Poor prison conditions, often leading to sickness, human rights violations, and death, is a cause I care deeply about. In the past I’ve worked with International Bridges to Justice (IBJ), a human rights NGO aiming to provide legal representation to the accused in the developing world. I’ve mentioned before that in many countries, prisoners are unjustly imprisoned, have no right to legal counsel, cannot contact family members, are subjected to torture and mistreatment as a coercive form of interrogation, lack sufficient food and water, lack sanitary living conditions and medical care, and are infected by the spread of diseases. Prisons are often overcrowded, with women, children, and remand prisoners often housed along with convicts, men and adults.

The Foreign Prison Conditions Improvement Act aims to help ensure that the U.S. government does not support such mistreatment of prisoners and detainees by ensuring that U.S. foreign assistance does not fund these prisons. The Act would enable the U.S. government to take steps towards helping governments improve prison conditions and particularly, would fund governments that are addressing prison conditions in their countries, thus providing incentives to address justice reform.

Please go to Amnesty’s website to sign your name and easily send a letter to your representatives, encouraging them to pass this bill. Click here to send an email or a letter! It takes only a second to have your voice heard, so please take action today.

This is an excellent development and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that criminal justice is being brought to the forefront of the international human rights debate! You will find below, selected excerpts from the bill itself:

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Millions of incarcerated people in the world suffer inhumane conditions in prisons and other detention facilities that are overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsafe to the point of endangering their lives.

(2) According to a 2009 International Centre for Prison Studies report, there are an estimated 9,800,000 people held in penal institutions in the world, with prison populations increasing in 71 percent of the over 200 countries surveyed.

(3) Rates of malnutrition, disease, and death among prisoners and other detainees far exceed those of the general population, and medical treatment for serious illness or injury is, in many instances, non-existent or grossly inadequate.

(4) These conditions are compounded by severe overcrowding in prisons and other detention facilities. Excessive pre-trial detention and dysfunctional justice systems frequently result in prisoners and other detainees spending years in such conditions before their cases are adjudicated. In some countries, such facilities are filled to capacity many times over resulting in conditions so cramped that individual prisoners cannot move without all doing so en masse.

(5) Amnesty International’s 2009 State of the World’s Human Rights Report documented widespread inhumane prison conditions, including overcrowding, inadequate food and water, no access to hygiene products or medical care, juveniles detained with adults, and denial of visits from family.

(6) Some governments fail to provide even the most rudimentary sanitation in prisons and other detention facilities, putting prisoners and other detainees at even greater risk of easily preventable and often life-threatening diseases. Toilets are few or non-existent and human waste repositories often are located among the general prison population, forcing prisoners to eat, sleep, and live in grossly unsanitary conditions.

(7) According to a 2009 report by the United Nations Economic and Social Council’s Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, former prisoners are likely to spread diseases contracted in prison to the local population.

(8) Some governments fail to permit prisoners and other detainees reasonable exercise of religious worship or contact with family members or other visitors.

(9) According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2009 Annual Report, religious prisoners have been confined to overcrowded cells, exposed to extreme temperature fluctuations, denied adequate food and medical care, and denied access to clergy and religious literature.

(10) Inhumane conditions in prisons and other detention facilities often exist in countries where resources for law enforcement are limited and only a small fraction of such resources are made available for the operation and maintenance of prisons and other detention facilities. Inadequate, misplaced, or lost prison records often result in prisoners and detainees being incarcerated indefinitely because of never being tried or otherwise adjudicated, and being held long after their sentences have expired thereby further swelling prison populations. Allocating the relatively modest resources necessary to provide for the basic human needs of prisoners and other detainees and to remediate the inhumane conditions under which such prisoners are held is often a low priority.

(11) The United States Government currently provides significant amounts of assistance to countries whose governments operate prisons and other detention facilities that, because of their inhumane conditions, seriously jeopardize the lives of prisoners and other detainees held under their authority.

(12) The Department of State’s 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices reported prison conditions as poor, inhumane, or life threatening in more than 100 countries, all of which receive United States assistance.

(13) The United States Government should use its influence and resources to help ensure that governments that receive United States assistance do not operate prisons and other detention facilities under inhumane conditions. The United States Government also should assist countries that are making significant efforts to eliminate inhumane conditions in prisons and other detention facilities.

SEC. 4. ACTIONS TO HELP ELIMINATE INHUMANE CONDITIONS IN FOREIGN PRISONS AND OTHER DETENTION FACILITIES.

(b) Assistance for Governments Making Significant Efforts To Eliminate Inhumane Conditions in Prisons and Other Detention Facilities-

(1) IN GENERAL- The Secretary of State and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development should furnish assistance for the purpose of helping to eliminate inhumane conditions in prisons and other detention facilities to countries whose governments do not meet minimum standards for the elimination of inhumane conditions in prisons and other detention facilities but are making significant efforts to comply.

(2) INAPPLICABILITY OF FOREIGN ASSISTANCE ACT PROHIBITION- The prohibitions under section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2420) shall not be applicable to assistance furnished to carry out the provisions of paragraph (1).

(3) GRANT FUNDS- Grants made under this subsection shall be designated and used exclusively to help eliminate inhumane conditions in the country receiving the grant, but may not include the construction of new prisons. Funds made available under this section shall be subject to the regular notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

(c) Negotiations With Governments Not Making Significant Efforts To Eliminate Inhumane Conditions in Prisons and Other Detention Facilities-

(1) NEGOTIATIONS- In the case of a government receiving United States assistance that is listed in the report submitted under subsection (a)(1)(B) as not making significant efforts to eliminate inhumane conditions in prisons and other detention facilities, the Secretary of State shall, not later than 90 days after the date such report is submitted, enter into negotiations with such government to achieve the purposes of this Act.

(2) ACTIONS REGARDING ASSISTANCE AND VISAS-

(A) ASSISTANCE- The Secretary of State and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development may restructure, reprogram, or reduce United States assistance for a government described in paragraph (1) to achieve the purposes of this Act.

(B) VISAS- The Secretary of State may issue or deny visas for travel to the United States by officials of a government described in paragraph (1) to achieve the purposes of this Act.

(3) REPORT- Not later than 180 days after the beginning of the negotiations required under paragraph (1), the Secretary shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report describing the actions taken or agreed to be taken, if any, during such negotiations by the government of that country that constitute significant efforts to eliminate inhumane conditions in prisons and other detention facilities and the actions taken, or that will be taken, by the United States pursuant to paragraph (2) regarding assistance and visas. If the Secretary determines that United States assistance to such government should not be restructured, reprogrammed, or reduced, or that visas should be issued or denied to officials of such government, the report shall contain a detailed explanation for that decision.

SEC. 5. TRAINING FOR FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS.

Section 708 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (22 U.S.C. 4028) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘(d) The Secretary of State, with the assistance of other relevant officials, shall establish as part of the standard training provided for chiefs of mission, deputy chiefs of mission, and other officers of the Service who are or will be involved in the assessment of conditions in foreign prisons and other detention facilities or the drafting of the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, instruction on matters related to conditions in such prisons and other detention facilities and the substance of the Foreign Prison Conditions Improvement Act of 2010.’.

SEC. 6. NEW POSITION TO MONITOR FOREIGN PRISON CONDITIONS.

The Secretary of State shall establish, within the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, a new full-time equivalent Deputy Assistant Secretary level position which shall have responsibility for advancing the purposes of this Act.

Related posts:

1. Commit war crimes and live in comfort. Steal a chicken and die in prison?
2. Educational inequity & the school-to-prison pipeline
3. Bringing criminal justice to the forefront of the human rights debate