This DAAC Community Conversation will be a discussion featuring individual survivors of violent crime and the criminal legal system.
Our panelists will discuss the ways in which calls for "victims rights" have been used to advance a tough-on-crime, pro-carceral agenda; offer more nuanced perspectives on what survivors of crime often want when it comes to accountability and public safety; and share what has helped them heal.
Featuring:
Lex Steppling, Dignity and Power Now
Jody David Armour, Professor of Law at USC
Susan Hess, Trauma Informed LA, Unchained Scholars
Helen Jones, Dignity and Power Now
Susan Bustamante, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Alyesha Wise, Spoken Literature Art Movement
LEX STEPPLING is the Director of Campaigns and Policy for Dignity & Power Now. Lex has organized most of his life around issues pertaining to state violence from a criminal justice and public health lens. A native of Los Angeles, Lex is happy to be coming home after 7 years of organizing nationally to help push towards to future free from punitive punishment systems and towards a vision of healing and justice.
JODY DAVID ARMOUR is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. A widely published scholar and popular lecturer, he studies the intersection of race, law, morality, psychology, politics, ordinary language philosophy, and the performing arts. His latest book, N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law, looks at America’s criminal justice system – among the deadliest and most racist in the world – through deeply interdisciplinary lenses.
SUSAN HESS, MSW, LCSW-IL, is a Clinical Associate Professor at USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Hess is an advocate, consultant and relational organizer in the areas of trauma informed care, healing centered engagement and the intersections of intimate partner violence. Hess is the Co-Founder of Trauma Informed LA, and a founding member of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon’s first Crime Victims Advisory Board.
HELEN JONES was born and raised in Watts, California and is the mother of John Horton, a civil rights activist, and the founder of HeadHigh Entertainment. On March 30, 2009, Helen’s son John Horton was murdered – beaten to death by 10 sheriff deputies at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles. His death was covered up by a staged suicide. Since the murder of her son, Helen has been fighting for justice and accountability for all and standing with other families demanding that District Attorney Jackie Lacey prosecute killer cops.
SUSAN BUSTAMANTE - I am a 65-year-old Hispanic woman who was a victim of child molestation from 12-18 and then married at 19. My husband was a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and my victim. After years of trauma I turned to my brother and things went from there. I had no defense during my trial. I went to prison with life without the possibility of parole. I lived healing myself and being the best me I could. I was incarcerated 31 years. On 12/23/17 I was granted commutation; went to board 6/8/18; paroled 9/12/18. I have been a member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners for several years. There is so much wrong with the legal process that I will always continue to fight for change.
ALYESHA WISE is an award-winning, published poet, teaching artist & TEDx speaker from Camden, N.J. Wise is the co-founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement, an organization providing poetry education and extensive programming for poets - and the Director of Program Development for Street Poets, Inc., an organization mostly serving juvenile injustice-involved youth with mentorship and arts programming.
