Filmmaker discusses race and prison in America

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Tracey Syphax is a successful Trenton entrepreneur, the owner of a construction company and a real estate development company, and a devoted family man and church-goer.
But to the state of New Jersey’s Department of Corrections, Mr. Syphax said, he will always be No. 226926 — his inmate number.
Mr. Syphax, who is an African-American, spent time in prison in the 1980s and early 1990s for peddling drugs. Prison is not a good place to spend time, but many more African-Americans than white people end up behind bars — even though they have committed similar crimes.
And that is the point of "Broken On All Sides," a documentary that seeks to expose what filmmaker Matthew Pillischer says is the "inherent racism" of the American criminal justice system. The film was aired at the Jewish Center of Princeton last week.
Mr. Pillischer was accompanied to the airing by Mr. Syphax, the entrepreneur. The two men answered questions posed to them by some of the nearly 90 people who filled the social hall at the Jewish Center.
The United States makes up 5 percent of the world’s population, yet it has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, according to the film and www.naacp.org. The number of prisoners increased from 500,000 in 1980 to 2.3 million in 2008 — and of those 2.3 million inmates, 1 million are African-American men.
Mr. Pillischer, who describes his film as an advocacy documentary, said the prison system is the "new Jim Crow" — a system designed to repress African-American men. It follows on the heels of the racially motivated "Jim Crow" laws that were enacted in the former Confederate states after the Civil War.
The "Jim Crow" laws meant that African-Americans could not drink from the same water coolers as whites, nor could they ride in the same railroad cars. Schools were racially segregated. In one state, if a textbook had first been used in an African-American school, it could not be used in a white school.
The "new Jim Crow" is a term that grew out of a book by the same name that was written by legal scholar and civil rights litigator Michelle Alexander in 2010. The book claims young African-American men, for whom there are no jobs because of economic changes, are warehoused in prisons.
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, there was more competition from European companies, Mr. Pillischer said. That competition ate into American companies’ profits, which led to the closing of factories in many cities that had provided good jobs for low-skilled, minority workers.
Those workers found themselves displaced, and some turned to dealing drugs to replace lost jobs, Mr. Pillischer said. They wanted to work, but could not find jobs. They saw friends or family members dealing drugs as a way to support themselves or their families.
Meanwhile, white conservatives used the law and order movement in the 1960s to capitalize on the racial fears of white, working Southerners in response to protests in the streets, Mr. Pillischer said. President Ronald Reagan declared a "war on drugs" in the 1980s.
"A lot of different people commit crimes," he said, "but the focus (of law enforcement) is on certain populations. People don’t know that all races use and sell drugs at similar rates. African-Americans (account for) 12- to 13-percent of illegal drug activity, but because of the way the system operates, they are (a majority) of the people in jail for drug crimes."
Studies show that African-Americans are treated more punitively than whites, he said. They are more likely to be stopped and frisked by police. They are more likely to be prosecuted for more criminal charges. That’s because the police have a certain amount of discretion and the prosecutor or district attorney has a certain amount of discretion built into their jobs.
The result is that African-American men are more likely than white men to face serious charges and to spend time in prison. And when they are released from prison, "the door is slammed in their face" because of their criminal record, Mr. Pillischer said.
During the question-and-answer session that followed, Mr. Syphax said he was fortunate to have found an employer who was willing to take a chance and give him a job. He said that in the 1980s, prisons offered programs to teach skills in carpentry and other trades.
"The reason I am in construction today is that I came home with a skill. To be employed is so important, but they cut it out all out," he said of the carpentry, machine shop and other classes in prison. To rehabilitate the prisoners, they have to be taught skills so they can find jobs when they are released.
But prisons today are just warehouses, Mr. Syphax said. If a drug addict is placed in a jail cell with an armed robber and there is no attempt at rehabilitation, then that drug addict will come out as an armed robber. And if the armed robber is placed in a jail cell with a drug addict, he’ll likely leave jail as a drug addict.
Without rehabilitation "they are no better (when they are released) than when they came into jail," he said.
It costs about $48,000 to $52,000 annually to house a prisoner convicted of a non-violent crime, and upwards of $90,000 for a prisoner who has health issues, he added.
"But coming from the neighborhood where I come from, there are certain people who need to be in jail," Mr. Syphax said.
"We all make mistakes, but it should not mark you for the rest of your life," Mr. Pillischer said.