S2, Episode 5: Connecting Incarcerated Patrons to Library Services w/ Jody Redifer, Enrique Rivera & Trevor Walraven

*There were technical issues during the recording of this episode. We apologize for any minor disruptions*

In this episode of Overdue, we talk with Jody Redifer, Program Specialist at Multnomah County Library; Enrique Rivera, Library Outreach Specialist at Multnomah County Library*, and Trevor Walraven, Associate Director of Policy and Prison Outreach for the Oregon Justice Resource Center, about their work with patrons experiencing Oregon’s carceral system .

These three individuals share their experiences, as well as provide guidance around providing  access to library and information services, helping incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people with resources and readily available information that is lacking in the current justice system.

Date of Interview: June 7, 2023
Hosts: Bryan Miyagishima & Brittany Young

*Enrique Rivera will be transitioning into the role of Director of Higher Education in Prison at Portland State University on August 1, 2023

Transcript

[Intro Music Playing] 

 Bryan Miyagishima:

Welcome to Overdue, Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries, a podcast produced by the Oregon Library Association's Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Committee. My name's Bryan Miyagishima, I'm a reference and instruction librarian at Linn Benton Community College, and I am joined by my co-host, Brittany Young.

Brittany Young:

Hi, I'm Brittany Young and I am the Lane County Law librarian in Eugene, Oregon. My pronouns are she/her/hers. And our guests today are Jody Redifer, pronouns, he/him, program specialist at Multnomah County Library. Enrique Rivera pronouns, he/him, library outreach specialist at Multnomah County Library. And Trevor Walraven, pronouns he/him, associate director policy and prison outreach team with the Oregon Justice Resource Center. We are very excited to have you three as guest today, so thank you. Our first question is going to be to all three of you and that question is, we had the honor of meeting you all and hearing you speak at the Oregon Library Association Conference this past April. The presentation was inspiring and clearly memorable. Will each of you tell us how you became involved with library outreach to people experiencing the carceral system? And we'll start with Trevor.

Trevor Walraven:

Hi. Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure to be here. My involvement really kind of dates back to my entry into the system as a juvenile at 14 years old, and being waived into adult court for making some horrible choices, and navigating nearly 18 years in nine facilities throughout the state of Oregon. And then gaining the opportunity to find freedom and then getting involved with the legal community and working with individuals transitioning into, out of custody, transitioning from short-term facilities to long-term facilities, being involved on legal teams where clients are faced with violent offenses and being tried as adults even though they're juveniles. And recognizing the importance of language and reading and communication and how there's oftentimes deficits in clients that we work with, and wanting to be able to be a resource in whatever way is possible so that these young folks are able to better navigate the systems that they become involved in. And ultimately big goal is to have them, when they reenter communities, and as they're navigating the communities, that the system involvement requires that they're able to do so as successfully as possible.

Brittany Young:

Thank you, Trevor. Enrique, would you like to go next?

Enrique Rivera:

Yes. Hello. And again, thank you for having us on this podcast. Loved doing the presentation at OLA and I always love having the opportunity to talk about these experiences. As far as how did I get involved in library outreach to folks in the carceral system, my, I guess, experience kind of started when I was released from custody. I mean, I did have a fondness for books while in the carceral system, but I was more into art and music and stuff. It wasn't until I started taking classes online, we had an online education program through Chemeketa Community College at the facility I was at, that I actually started paying real attention to books. When I was released, I went to a library for the first time in my life. I'd never stepped foot in a public library. And this was the Belmont Branch in Multnomah County.

And all I needed help was with the computer, which I did not know how to use really. I mean, I did classes online, but it was so scrutinized in a way, that my digital navigation skills were virtually non-existent. And then I also needed some help with a resume. So I got these services while at the library and then after that I just kept coming back, whether it was to do homework, whether it was to look things up. And now when I left the facility, I didn't want to step foot back in a correctional setting, that was far from my mind. But when I finally worked at the library, I found a job at the Multnomah County Library later on, I kept seeing these things that folks were doing in the position that Jody's in, there was somebody going into the Donald E Long facility and then there was someone else going into Columbia River Correctional Facility, and it just made sense to me that I should be doing this. And so that's basically the gist of it.

Brittany Young:

Thank you. Jody, would you like to go next?

Jody Redifer:

Yes, indeed. So thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure to be with all you lovely people. How I got involved with the library is, it's kind of where my stuff starts and basically, a friend of mine who worked for the library came to me and said, "There's not many Black men that work at the library and they're having a really hard time recruiting Black men at the Multnomah County Library." I was like, oh, well, I've liked the library since I was young, my mom used to take me there when I was a little kid. She was going to PSU, she'd drop me off there and go do some classes or do some work and then come back and pick me up. So I have fond memories of the library. I was like, "You know what? I have good feelings about the library. I will apply."

So I applied and ended up working here and eventually a position opened up here at the Donald E Long Juvenile Detention Center to work with the youth here and run the library that we have here. It's got a pretty great collection. It was set aside for somebody who speaks Spanish, so had a Spanish KSA or Black cultural library KSA. So I applied for the job and they were like, "Oh, you should come in and check the place out before you take the job, just to see if you want to work here or be okay with the environment and all that." And having been justice involved myself as a young adult and juvenile, I was like, "Well, I've actually spent a night or two there."

So I came in here and really what I saw was the kids were just me a long time ago. And what I know is that people have the ability to make different choices and change and evolve and grow and become entirely different people as long as they're given the opportunity. So I figured it was a good place to land and see if we could create a little opportunity here.

Brittany Young:

Thank you all, just as inspiring as the first time I heard about it.

Bryan Miyagishima:

The next question is for both Enrique and Jody. Some of the services you provided to those incarcerated include book clubs, early literacy and reentry. Can you talk about these and other services you provide to adults in custody? Enrique, let's have you begin.

Enrique Rivera:

Yes, so I've had the opportunity to work with one of our colleagues, Carol Cook, and she does the jail side services for the Inverness County Jail, and she's the one that does the book clubs there and has done a book is a bridge at that facility, as well as in the Columbia River Correctional Institute. What I do is a library resources class at the Columbia River Correctional Institute. I did it at Inverness for a while too. But basically that is a sort of, it's a class where we go in and we talk about the types of services that a person could receive at the library upon reentry.

Not just that, but I also advertise the fact that any adult in the state of Oregon can also write to our library to have reference questions answered. Other services just kind of come and go. One that I just started recently was actually a writer's group. It's based off of the Pan America curriculum, which is based off the book, The Sentences That Create Us. I just had my first session on Monday, it went wonderful. Yeah, so let me see, what else was in that question?

Bryan Miyagishima:

No, I think you addressed it. It's really just the services that you provide to those in custody.

Enrique Rivera:

All right.

Bryan Miyagishima:

And Jody, go ahead and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Jody Redifer:

So I work at a juvenile detention facility. I work with youth here, provide a few different services. And these youth are pre adjudicated, so they have not been sentenced yet and they haven't been found guilty of any crime. Some of them have and have come back on a parole or probation violation. And there are also youth here that have fallen through the cracks of the foster care system, don't have a place to be or are separated from family or caregivers for other reasons, or maybe transitioning into a drug treatment facility or another program that could be an alternative to incarceration. So all types of cool kids here doing wonderful things. And the type of programs that I do, one of them is in the library here we have a library volunteer program and the youth come in and they actually just take care of their own library and the books that they have.

So they're able to weed out books and go through the collection and they suggest books for me to order and then they get to know their library, they get some literacy skills and some book literacy skills. They're able to figure out like, oh, what's fiction, what's nonfiction, what's a biography? So we have quite a big library with about probably eight or so thousand books on the shelves and throughout the facility. And so they have some kind of ownership and take care of their library here. And they're also able to use the time that they work here to pay back restitution for their community service hours that are sometimes required in order to leave the facility. So we do that. We do a little bit of parenting programs when we find young parents here, and that's mainly me connecting youth with other resources that the facility may not offer but the resources that are available outside the facility.

We work with the Squires program and that's Shanne Sowards and he works with young parents throughout the Portland area, Portland metro area. We do some current events classes because youth don't have access to the same kind of media that other people do, so we basically pick a subject or topic that's current and relevant and then we will go through and get some information on the subject and have a discussion about it, just to exercise some free thinking and talking about our opinions and it's okay to have differences of opinion, but the most important thing is that we hear each other out and we communicate and just learn and grow.

And then I do a lot of music recording in here. So it turns out that youth like music, I don't know when that started happening, but they do. And so I've got just recording equipment in here, I've got a few instruments in here. Youth come in, we record a lot of hip hop, some youth sing, every once in a while they'll get down on the drums and maybe play a little guitar. So we have a lot of fun, a lot of fun doing that. And that's about it. Other than that, I try to make sure that the kids have library cards when they leave and they know what the library is about. And Enrique does assist with that by coming in and giving information about library resources and just basically all of the services that we provide, because he's a lot more in the know than I am, I'm always here. So yeah, that's kind of a wrap on that.

Bryan Miyagishima:

Thank you, Jody. It's pretty cool that you're prepping some future librarians as well.

Enrique Rivera:

I did want to mention one thing. I co-present the class at the CRCI, with my colleague Geoff Brunk. I kind of want to give credit where it's due, and shout out to Geoff Brunk for, he started the class before I did, but recognized the contributions I could bring as someone with lived experience. And that is also something that I do share in the class, is like I've been there, I got out and I utilized these resources from the library and it kind of highlights how these things can be done. And then like Jody at the Donald E Long, we also make sure that the folks leaving Columbia River Correctional Institute that have taken our classes, leave with a library card in their release package.

Brittany Young:

Trevor and Enrique, you've both spoken about the importance of books and how education makes such a huge shift for those in custody. How does education and reading benefit adults in custody and affect recidivism rates? Trevor?

Trevor Walraven:

I think there are some pretty solid statistics out there that showcase the fact that higher education for those incarcerated and each degree that an individual can acquire while incarcerated reduces the likelihood of them recidivating and the higher the degree, the lesser an individual's likely to commit future harms. And I think it's really important when we're thinking about our, quote, unquote, "correctional systems," that we're recognizing that these facilities should be more than warehousing an individual for a set period of time. That folks who have become system involved often enter those systems with deficits. And that if we can't work towards helping support, providing a different level of resource and engagement, then we are unfortunately that much more likely to have folks stepping out with the same skill sets that they entered systems with. And then it's no wonder that they're going to go back to the same choices that they were making that led to their incarceration in the first place.

So it's oftentimes hard for folks to wrap their heads around some of these different things, but you're coming out of incarceration with, oftentimes if you've gone to prison, you're coming, in fact all the time, you're coming out with a felony conviction and that is going to create a barrier for employment, it's going to create a barrier for housing, access to any number of resources. And so however we can mitigate that, I think it's incredibly important. And oftentimes folks come into systems with deficits around communication and one of the things we can learn to better communicate around is a greater vocabulary and knowledge base which books can help provide. And so I think all of those things are really important part of why I think we all do this work.

Brittany Young:

I know that through email we talked a little bit about, for another question that we were not talking about because it would be a much larger podcast, but why those higher level of degrees might reduce the probability of recidivism? So it's something I'm want to be thinking about, but for now, I'll let Enrique answer the question also.

Enrique Rivera:

I think Trevor was spot on with this answer. I mean, there is a lot of statistics out there that support folks who just have access to some sort of education across the board, across the country, that artery reduces somebody's chance of recidivating by 43%. Chemeketa Community College has this program that offers distance education or education to folks on the inside and their recidivism rate is like 6%. There's another, like Project Rebound in California and their recidivism rate is like 1%. So I believe in the state of Oregon, just recidivism in general, like anybody going into facility has a 25% chance of recidivating. If we could reduce that, then we're doing what a facility is supposed to do in the first place and that's keep people from going back. I also want to talk about just higher education in general. Trevor mentioned with every degree you get there's that reduced chance of recidivating, but it's also with the deficits that folks enter the facility with.

If you can get yourself to a point where you can start taking higher education classes, you're learning how to do things that are going to help you out when you're out, 95% of people get out, and that's like system navigation. I mean, I didn't know anything about system navigation before I started taking courses in college. And it's not just navigating the legal system or navigating the education system, but it's also now I know how to research, I could find expungement resources and things like that. So I have this skillset that is now setting me up for success, as opposed to if I just had been sitting there for the last 70 months without access to anything. If that were the case, the only thing that that would provide me is access to other people who were thinking the same way that I was. I mean you can go to an institution and learn to be a better criminal or you could educate yourself. Yeah, I think that's all I have to say about that.

Brittany Young:

Thank you.

Bryan Miyagishima:

So this next question's got kind of a long lead up. In their 2022 Library Journal article, how libraries outside of prisons create access to information for incarcerated people, authors Chelsea Jordan-Makely, Jeanie Austin, and Charissa Brammer discussed the collection of obstacles library workers face when advocating for and implementing these types of programs or services. Jody and then Enrique, can you share what barriers you faced or currently face and how you have overcome them?

Jody Redifer:

I think I'm just going to start with the one that maybe bothers me the most personally, and that's some of the issues that I come across around censorship and working with the management here as well as staff, because everybody has an opinion about what's good and what's going to help this person, but what not everybody has is about what I've experienced here. So people come with a certain angle and they come with their lived experience and they decide that they think this will be good or bad for somebody. And for instance, I have had a kid here before who hadn't read a book since I think the fourth grade, but was turned on in some urban fiction, which is questionable, and some staff are totally behind and some staff are like, "Oh, they shouldn't be reading that garbage." But he started reading urban fiction and he's a reader now, big time and reads tons of urban fiction.

So for me it's a matter of reading and getting started and then you can branch off and you can make suggestions and you can guide people into other areas. And then also because I record music here, as you can imagine when we have gang youth in here, they are recording about being in a gang, but that is their lived experience and eventually they connect their lived experience in whatever bravado might go along with talking about being in a gang and they actually start to talk about how it affects them and how kind of depressing it may be and sort of the life circumstances that led them to that. So there's a lot more coming out of it than just talking about being in a gang and a lot of people overlook that.

And so I've had my program shut down before and have had to find different avenues. So at that point I went into the school and started recording with the school because the Department of Community Justice does not have jurisdiction over what happens in the classroom. So that was something that I had to do to navigate an obstacle. There's a little bit of inconsistency I found, and I don't know as much about adult facilities, but in this particular facility, like I said, people have different opinions. Some people will be all for one thing, some people will be against it. So you have to find the people that back of your plays and be really careful about who you work with sometimes, find the managers that are easier to work with. And under staffing can also be, because I'm in their world, so there are things I'm not allowed to do. I cannot transport youth on my own, I can't go down to one of the units and bring the youth to the library.

So staffing can be an issue here and have to be kind and work well with others in order to get them to have staff put themselves out and come here and bring youth to the library from time to time. But all in all at this facility, people really do want to see the best for youth, just people have different opinions on what the best thing is for the youth, but people generally just have a pretty good heart here. So the inconsistency can be difficult to deal with at times because you don't really know what to expect. And for as far as the understaffing, one of the best things that you can do is create as little work as possible for the staff here. And then when staff come up with ideas for programs or things that they want to do that you can help facilitate, really listen because these staff are here all the time.

They're here with the youth much more than I am and they have some really good ideas and they also have a different perspective and a good insight. And I have to remember that what they see is different than what I see when I come in here for however many hours, and they see when they're here for 40 to 60 to 70 hours a week, so I have to keep that in mind when I'm working with them. But yeah, when they come up with a program, I'm like, "Let's do it. Cool." And then that's greatly appreciated and keeps me in good graces for the most part.

Bryan Miyagishima:

Thank you, Jody. Enrique, could you share some of the obstacles that you face in providing services?

Enrique Rivera:

Yeah, so I mean, I've had the opportunity to work with two particular types of facilities, but one is a county correctional facility, the other's a state one, and the differences are vast. I mean, every facility is its own sort of microcosm in a way. I mean, they have their own culture and way of doing things. Some may have a lack of oversight and accountability, if you would, with staff and things like that. So I mean, one thing that I didn't witness myself but a colleague had commented to me was they had brought in a box of urban fiction books. And one of the staff that was there at the time essentially just judged the book by its cover and deemed that it was something that was probably against the penological interest of the facility.

But I mean that is an arbitrary sort of judgment about this box of books, because I mean, they don't allow true crime or things like that, which is interesting to me because in a county jail for instance, this is supposedly a place where people go who have not yet been convicted of a crime or they have been for under a year. But for those who are just there awaiting trial, I mean, why should their rights be any different than anybody else who could afford to pay bail? I mean, I think that's the real difference. But getting back to lecture at hand, if you would, the type of obstacles that folks face or that some of the things that are done are just arbitrary. Sometimes it's at the whim of how a staff feels on a particular day, and that's something you can't really challenge per se because if it's not written down, then what's you to challenge besides you and this person?

I think in those circumstances, I mean, in my position, I don't really have a lot of authority because I'm just merely a library outreach specialist who is being allowed to provide services within a facility. But if you have somebody with some authority per se, in my case, I would probably bring it up to one of our executive management teams so that they can be the ones to talk to the person, because these systems could be hierarchical as well. Like a sergeant isn't going to want to talk to a lowly library outreach specialist, not that that's always the case, but there could be these sort of things where I want to speak to the person on my level sort of stuff, and that's just the culture of these situations. So having someone who's in a position to support your work, they can take it to a facility, having a memorandum of agreement that's based, documents, folks love documents and words on pages, stuff that you can refer to is helpful as well.

That was within the county facility. I haven't had a lot of issues or obstacles per se in the state, and it's probably because the facility that I access is minimum security. They're pretty lax there. I mean, not in terms of rules and whatnot, I mean, there are but they're a little bit more flexible. And so because of the culture of that facility being a little bit more flexible, they're a lot easier to work with. So as far as the barriers I've faced and how I've overcame them with one particular incident, I have not overcome it per se. What I have done is I've got our executive members and team members to start to prioritize these kind of services. In our institution, we are now starting to pay attention, this is also part of our community.

Folks who are in custody are still community members and we need to start paying attention to that and prioritizing that because I mean, these are the, as it was put in an article I read recently, the microcosms of the most broken and vulnerable edges of society. This is where people go who have faced the most barriers, and when they get out, they're just going to have another one to that. So if we can prioritize that work and have the people on our upper level start talking to people on the upper levels of the facilities, it is very helpful.

Bryan Miyagishima:

Thanks, Enrique. It sounds like you're making cultural change and that is the longest and hardest sort of change to make.

Brittany Young:

Yeah. For both of your answers, there's a lot in there that I think we all deal with in equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism work specifically. And that kind of goes back to the whole microcosm part of the incarcerated community, they are still part of our communities and the same issues exist and therefore the same services and help are needed there too. And often more so because we all know about the school to prison pipeline. Well, at least I hope that, I guess I shouldn't say all, but all of us talking right now know about it. And for those listening, if you don't, you should definitely go to your library and learn about it. Our next question is for Trevor, how do you respond to community members and stakeholders who demand to know why you're using taxpayer dollars to help, quote, unquote, "criminals or ex-cons?"

Trevor Walraven:

Sure. Thanks for the question. Ironically enough, just to double back on your last comments, I'm speaking at the University of Oregon when we close this, on the school to prison pipeline to a group of college students there, so funny that it should come up. I think Enrique pointed this out earlier, 95% of those incarcerated are coming back to our communities and they're coming back with deficits that make it harder to find success. I mean, even if you look at the advancement of technology in very short periods of time in the United States at this point, and then you remove someone from society and accessing technology, that alone can cause any number of hurdles. And so the importance of helping individuals who have been removed from society gain tools that allow them to return to society in the community, is what's going to build safer communities. That's where public safety is foundational in having success.

When you're talking about therapies and treatments, when you're working in that field, part of what you recognize is you can't just remove some behavior, you have to replace that behavior with something else. And it's kind of this idea that you can't just continue to take skill sets that people may have or habits that people may have and not replace them with something different, not encourage some positive pro-social activities, education that lends to being able to go in front of a potential employer and say, "Look, I do have this mark on my record from making poor choices, and while I was incarcerated, I utilized my time to do X, Y and Z. These are the credentials that I come out with and I want to employ them to make better choices than I've made in the past." You have to have that to kind of overcome some of those barriers that you step back into.

So from a tax paying standpoint, which I myself am a taxpayer at this point in my life, I very much want my dollars going into investments that are going to improve public safety. And I know from my lived experience, that throwing someone in a cage or a cell or a room for a period of time without engaging them in anything positive is not going to give me a return on my investment. And so at the end of the day, I really want people to come back resource to communities in ways that they're coming out with more skills than they went in with because I know that that's going to make a greater difference in the long run.

Brittany Young:

Thank you.

Bryan Miyagishima:

Jody and Trevor, what are some tips you can pass on to help libraries begin thinking about services that they can provide for incarcerated people? Jody, let me have you begin.

Jody Redifer:

Some tips that I can pass on. Well, I mean, I think the first tip has already been mentioned by probably everybody here, and that's that people, whether incarcerated or walking down the street, wherever they may be, are patrons, they're part of the community, they're humans, and they deserve the same services. That's the equity part. Everybody deserves the same service. Everybody deserves to have access to the tools to enrich their lives and to better themselves if they want to. And so to always keep that in mind. And what might seem like something really basic or small to somebody who's not incarcerated, could be a total game changer for somebody who has limited resources and limited access to various things. So I think that we don't have to think in big grand ideas, I think just, I mean, reference by mail, for instance, is amazing and it's an incredibly popular program, and it's a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips right there, just talking about current events, kids love to do that.

And you'll find, I think, that just having a conversation because really communication and conversation is all that we actually have to solve problems, to learn and to grow and to try to communicate with people and be available, because a lot of people haven't ever really had somebody to stop and listen to them, listen to what they might want. People reentering, when they go to the library, if they happen to be like, "Well, what I have is my prison ID," good deal, stop, listen, make yourself available, be present. And if you are trying to take services into a carceral setting, you can take it just in baby steps and really just introduce first, just coming in with some books, maybe come in and just talk about the library services that are available for people in that setting and for when they get out, just like Enrique does. I just think a little bit goes a long ways is what I'm trying to say.

Bryan Miyagishima:

Thanks, Jody. Trevor, have you got some tips for libraries?

Trevor Walraven:

Yeah, I would echo what Jody said. The other thing that I would highlight, Jody articulated the equity, the importance of the equity piece that everyone have access to resources. And what I want to further engage with that is just that not everybody interprets things the same way. And so one of the things that I think is really important is recognizing that some people can read text and they're going to receive that in a different way than someone who needs to see a graph that has text included in it, but the pictorial reference resonates in a different kind of way for them. And so I think to really be conscientious of the idea that we all have different learning styles and different ways in which we're going to absorb information, the library can provide all of those, but there's different ways in which it's going to be best suited to then provide them.

And so again, just kind of piggybacking off what Jody said, and then the other piece I would offer is that it is worth the effort and sometimes it can be very frustrating to provide resources to an institution. And so I would encourage libraries and those working within them to be as patient as possible with the process that they may need to navigate in order to provide the kinds of resources that ultimately are going to make a huge impact and are very much needed and appreciated, but are not always recognized by the institutions with which they need to be navigated in order to get those resources inside.

Bryan Miyagishima:

Thank you, Jody and Trevor.

Brittany Young:

Thank you. So do you have some takeaways and/or suggestions for our listeners to think about and take action on? And Trevor, we will start with you.

Trevor Walraven:

So I think for me, one of the requests, because I do a lot of public speaking and one of the requests that I often make of audience members is that when they've had an opportunity to hear me or someone else in a panel presentation and just in general when we're talking about these topics, one of the things that's been mentioned by speakers here today is the importance of communication. And so I really want to highlight what I believe to be an extremely important piece, and that is that you share some portion of what you heard today that resonates with you with someone else, because word of mouth is the best form of advertisement. And the more people we can have having these kinds of conversations, the more input that can be provided, the greater awareness that can occur as a result of these conversations.

And I think it's important, and I think all too often societally, we get caught up in life and we don't think about these actually deeply impactful and important components that will impact our lives. Mass incarceration is a thing, we've had more and more people become system involved over time, which means more and more people are out in communities that have a background. And as a result of that, we've just touched more and more lives and we really need to have a greater awareness around the importance of investing in folks who are going to benefit from that investment in ways that ultimately are going to benefit them and everyone around them. So I would just really ask that folks share some piece that resonates with them through this particular episode. And don't try to convince anyone of anything per se. I mean, you can if you want to, but for me, what's really kind of been advantageous is just for people to start thinking about these issues and they don't, oftentimes folks don't think about them unless they start having the conversation.

Brittany Young:

I love that and thank you. I always think that the ultimate way to show that you've learned something, turned information to knowledge is to share it. Thank you. Next, Enrique, if you would like to answer the question, please.

Enrique Rivera:

Yes. And yeah, that's a hard act to follow because I mean, that's exactly right, share the information. One other thing that I would say that we haven't really touched upon, and it kind of touches back into the last question that Trevor and Jody had answered, tips to help libraries and people who are thinking about providing services to folks in custody. Not every library is going to be close to a facility or something like that, but that does not mean that your community has not been impacted. I mean, we're at a rate of now we're like one in two people, so 50% of people know somebody who's been impacted by the carceral system.

What libraries could do, have programs for folks in the carceral system without having a jail or a prison nearby, is they could focus on the families. A lot of folks have family members who are incarcerated. If we could provide these folks with some resources, if we could point them in the right direction, maybe it's a service like the PCC CLEAR Clinic that does expungements for folks across the state of Oregon, maybe the Oregon Law Center or something of that nature in your community. You can invite them in into the library and promote programs to help the folks who have family members who are experiencing incarceration. And if that's what you can do, then great, if not, then share something with a friend that you learned today.

Brittany Young:

Thank you, Enrique. I, of course, love the free legal resources that are available, as a librarian. Jody?

Jody Redifer:

Well, honestly, there's so many takeaways I wouldn't even know where to begin. I think that some of the takeaways in my role and in my work here, I'm so focused on this that sometimes I forget how big of an issue this actually is. There's a lot of adults who are incarcerated, there are a lot of youth who are incarcerated. And I feel like, as Trevor mentioned earlier, it's just a subject and a population that is forgotten about or off of people's radar. So I do like the idea of bringing that more into clear focus for some people just to check out and to navigate. And I like what Enrique was talking about, if you need to go to the executive level and have the higher ups start talking to the higher ups to get things done, I mean, that's a real good idea for a really good problem solving technique, and that maybe we care and we're responsible for our part, but we don't have to carry that whole burden. We can learn how to share the burden for other people who are interested in this work and to inform people.

Brittany Young:

Thank you. These have been some of my takeaways too. So unfortunately I have a long list, so I'll just be adding to it later.

Bryan Miyagishima:

And I think that my own takeaway is that all of you are in sort of not only the mind changing business, but the heart changing business as well. Librarians really just think about influencing the minds of the patrons we work directly with. But I can't help but think that you are also influencing somehow the staff in carceral system who work with these individuals and making some changes there. You're changing the hearts and minds of other librarians and library administrators, and eventually I think you're changing the hearts and minds of the public who are served by these systems. I definitely commend all of you for that work.

Brittany Young:

Yes, thank you. Now I feel like since Bryan gave his takeaway, I need to give my takeaway too. One of the things that ... conversation is a big deal to me, actually recently learned that my PTSD revolves around conversation and understanding, so that's extra fun. So I definitely appreciate that. But just a lot of the advice that was given for overcoming things, like Jody, one of the things that I always need a reminder about is one person may not back you on something, but one, they have the best of intentions, it's just the opinion of what the best might be might differ, and that you can probably find somebody else to work with or another way to get that done. So I always appreciate that reminder. And I think for those struggling in library work or EDI and anti-racism work, that's just an important reminder to also have, especially when things get tough. So thank you.

Bryan Miyagishima:

Thank you very much, Jody and Enrique, and to Trevor for speaking with us today.

Jody Redifer:

Thanks so much for having us.

Enrique Rivera:

Equally.

Trevor Walraven:

Thank you so much.

[Voiceover]

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Oregon.

Este proyecto ha sido posible en parte por el Instituto de Servicios de Museos y Bibliotecas a través de la Ley de Servicios de Biblioteca y Tecnológia (LSTA), administrada por la Biblioteca Estado de Oregón.

[Voiceover]

We would like to take time to acknowledge historical injustices. We recognize Oregon was established as a white sanctuary state with the intent to exclude African American and Black people on ancestral lands stolen from dispossessed indigenous peoples. We recognize and honor the members of federally recognized tribes and unrecognized tribes of Oregon. We honor Native American ancestors, past, present, and future whose land we still occupy. This acknowledgement aims to deconstruct false histories, correct the historical record, and disrupt genocidal practices by refocusing attention to the original people of the land we inhabit, the slave trade enforced labor that built this country and to the oppressive social systems interwoven into the fabric of our national and regional heritage. We ask that you take a moment to acknowledge and reflect as well.

[Outro Music Playing]