Advocate even now, about systems education, you know how we don't know about a lot of stuff that we are really going to be challenged with at some point in our lives. And it's not enough support when you get into these situations, because even the smallest things is like, even though like they say, you have the right to remain silent. You know, some of us didn't know how golden silence can be, and how everybody's not here to help us. And actually, some of them are the damages. We're not taught these things. So we wind up in these jams and don't know how to get out and they use these things called the law that they expect us to know where we were never truly introduced to those things.
Justice may be blind, but it's hard to dispute that the resources that an individual may have, after they enter the criminal justice system puts a weight on the scales. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we're speaking with an ambassador from the Illinois Prison Project. She recently visited Heartland Community College to speak about how her entry into the criminal justice system impacted her life before, during and long after her incarceration.
My name is Beria Hampton, I live in a place called all Gill gardens on the far south side of Chicago. I'm a mother of nine. The work that I do right now, I'm a youth development coach as you can where I serve as youth in disinvested areas or high crime areas, to you know, get them out of this thinking and thinking kind of methods and let them lead better lives right and make more better informed decisions. My passion has always been to help people. I'm more of a nurturer. That's probably why I have so many children, which I'm proud of every last one of them. I have pretty much like a multi faceted kind of life. I do a lot of work. And when I mentioned by me standing Oh gardens, if you just in case people didn't know, this is a public housing complex. And you know, today I'm I've been living here since 1985.
And it's been a lot of huge divestment in here and a lot of lack of resources. And this environment that we live in has not been one of the greatest. So a lot of our work is dedicated to change that trajectory and getting our people advanced to where we can truly thrive. I've got with the IPP, when I was taking my studies at North Eastern College, I'm actually finishing up my bachelor degree there. One of the guys who's in the class would be his famous Oh, yeah, he introduced me to IPP because he knew about a lot of the work that I do, and a lot of influence that I have in this area and working with the youth. So he told me about IPP and I filled out for them. And I thought that that would be a great fit. I looked on that website because I hadn't heard of them before. And when I looked on their website to find out a little information about them, it was something that I truly wanted to join. Because what I do see in a lot of my work is how a lot of the youth are impacted from the prison system and how it's a perpetual cycle of them constantly going back. And I wanted to find ways and resources that we can connect our people to help them on all levels. And what I found interesting about IPP is a lot of it. What they do was that based upon a lot of innocence or guilt, it was just about truly events and helping people and ensure policy and systems are in place and doing what's right for the people. And that's how I became an ambassador with them.
How was your life impacted by the criminal justice system?
in 2000 mine was impacted by the criminal justice system.
Because I actually went to jail for a crime. I committed. I went for possession of marijuana. This is before it was legal with intent. And also because there is a gun in the household. I got charged with UW. So that was my first encounter with being impacted by the prison system. When
that happened. What kind of resources did you have? You mentioned, alluded a little bit earlier that the environment that a person lives in can sort of affect how the criminal justice system treats them. So with that being something that you were charged with, what kind of resources did you have to counter that? Did you kind of know what you're in for, I guess is the question.
Absolutely not. No, you never know what you're going for. I must say this, even though I'm impacted by something that I was never truly taught. And that's the law. and policies to so I didn't have any resources. I didn't have nowhere to turn you don't know what to do you just know that right now you are in custody you being taken away and it's against your will. Half of it. You know, you don't you don't really understand. So no, I would I was impacted by that by not no.
And you mentioned that you have kids, did you have any kids at that time?
Oh, yes, I had three children at the time.
And so that must have been kind of incredibly stressful to try to figure out what to do. Was there a prolonged period of time where you were in jail before you even were convicted? Did they hold you? So
I was in jail, I consequently did not get convicted. Thank God, but it was a long battle. And I was in jail, you know, because when they charge you, if you don't have bond money, they get I get now so you're sitting inside, I wanted to beat in that case, in 2003, two or three, if I'm not mistaken, I forget which one was, but whatever I wanted to be when I got found not guilty. So you were in there for a long time? Yeah, like a year and year, three months.
And that has to be incredibly disruptive for your life and for your kids. And I don't think some people really realize that the end especially you, were you in Cook County Jail, where were you with?
Yes, Cook County.
which if there are people here, you know, in sort of the rural areas, like down here in Bloomington Normal where we are, you can see the entire jail by looking at it across the street, you know, but Cook County Jail looks, it's large. And it looks it looks kind of like a prison. And it Yeah, and it essentially is. And so the experience, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what it's like day to day to have to live for about a year or more in Cook County Jail
is I killed conditions, you know, just the way the whole system of prison is run, they tell you when to wake up when when to go to bed. And not to mention like as big as it may look to the outside, it feels really small. When you when you share in those spaces with a lot of individuals who've done different crimes and things like that, it becomes really uncomfortable. It's not like you can go to your room and you have a space or you can take this time to chill, it's a whole different system being on the inside. And outside, you really treat it like a prisoner or a slave or something like that, if people have never truly experienced that, that's how you treat it like you're less than a person, there's nothing good about that place.
What was the biggest adjustment mentally when you were in there?
Someone else pretty much to handling what you do in the day to day, from the time that you wake up to retirement, you're supposed to sleep, even to when you That in itself was like the biggest thing outside of not having choices of food that I would like to eat not having products that I would like to use on a regular and being you know, we go through our changes monthly, you know, just having to deal with not having access to what you need to use when you need to use it. And you can't it's not like you frequently going to shower as much as you'd like. So you have to learn to live as kind of savage, more, more or less.
Was there any kind of support system within that you were able to connect with? Are there people there that in any way were able to kind of give you emotional support or even just telling you what to do? And how to avoid pitfalls? Yes, and
no, like, you got to kind of work up to that thing. Like, it's like people who are already there. It's like they are like, the predator waiting on the prey kind of thing. So it's not always like you come in the door, you got people that's welcoming you with open arms ready, you know, they it's a whole different culture in there. You know, I did eventually get support and things like that, you know, we got our in house lawyers and things like that, who can give you instruction or call them the wise women or the white, you know, the wise ones who give you those kinds of things. But that's kind of like you have to work your way up to that initially. You just like anybody else who fresh meat coming in those spaces. So you got to kind of find your way and see how you stand your ground. After
you were able to meet the charges. And you were released. What was that like in trying to reintegrate a year he probably felt like even longer than a year but if you think about somebody that you know you're out of society for a year, you don't you're not you can't have a real job. You know, you're not making income, unlike maybe even some very meager and minimal supports you might get for somebody that is involved in regular reentry, like for a prison sentence. You were just released, right? Yeah, yeah,
I was released. The what happened with me after some time, eventually got bonded out so I was able to continue fighting from the streets in the beginning, like because my mother, she worked for the Metropolitan Water District, she was, you know, I come from a good background, this is something that they didn't expect something that I didn't expect, you know, me being a mother, so they were totally against it at first I do not have their support, I'm gonna say that as far as being in a kind of like, Hey, you get yourself in trouble you get yourself out, you know, kind of things, you know, so I didn't have immediate support that I needed. But as far as the family, taking up after my children, and making sure that my apartment, and rent and stuff, like they helped me in another way, you know, because of my job, I still stay in the public housing complex that also could have made me lose my housing as well, which I had to fight that battle simultaneously.
I was also in college at the time, inspired to be a chemical engineer, because my mom was a chemist. So I had a lot of things that was on a line so that I didn't get the direct support that I needed, because everything is limited, it's timed and everything just not going according to the schedule that you think it's kind of rough, you know, only being at a certain time being able to make calls and reach out and praying that somebody can accept your call, because they you know, they had to pay a lot of money. And, you know, a lot of people didn't have that. So that was scarce. So, I'm gonna say for me, after like being released, I found myself confronted with, like, numerous obstacles, even as I attempted to reintegrate back into society. Okay, I resided like, in the public housing complex. I mean, what more can I say? I, I quickly discovered that all our resources were scarce, especially for people with a criminal record or a background like me, you know, because when I go into the job market, they you know, and I, and these questions come up, it's not like, you can say no, because if they were, as soon as they do a background check, they found out Right, right. So that's, you know, it was like, minimal support available.
And it just made it more incredibly challenging to secure like basic necessities, you know, needed. So I could stabilize. So, you know, like I said, leaving prison and fighting that housing case simultaneously, which they both out, I wanted to win them both. And, you know, because I do like to help people, this is how I became to help, you know, I advocate even now, about systems education, you know, how we don't know about a lot of stuff that we are really going to be challenged with, at some point in our lives. And it's not enough support, when you get into these situations, because even the smallest things is like, even though like they say, you have the right to remain silent. You know, some of us didn't know how old in silence can be, and how everybody is not here to help us. And actually, some of them are the damages. We're not taught these things. So we wind up in these jams and don't know how to get out. And they use these things called the law that they expect us to know where we were never truly introduced to those things. They you know, we deal with a whole injustice system, not only just mass incarceration, but even as we try to identify who we are, you know, we come from what they told us who we are, we, I'm knowing that we right now, in this time, we struggle with our identity and who we truly are, that has been taken away from us, right along with a lot of things. So those are my pet peeves, too, just to like, really get in and really help advance us because so many of us are getting left behind. And so many of us are getting lost, even in these systems, because we don't have that family support. Because we don't have those resources and things like that. And when we try to figure out our lives and how to lead them as adults, we don't have that guidance for that. So a lot of us we choose to do the things that we feel like will sustain our family. That's how a lot of us get in trouble.
Related to that. You've talked many times about how you were motivated to not only fight your case and to fight your situation with housing, but then of course, to be involved as a as an active community activist, as well. Do you see other people it may be that were in your neighborhood that also were in situations where they were incarcerated came out? They didn't find that kind of motivation? I mean, I think that you maybe are a little bit an outlier, in that it didn't beat you down the
strength in me. I'm gonna say my strengths come from other people isn't other people give me the strength that I have. And I And why I say that because there's always that need. I've never really could focus on myself more so so I had to be strong for others. I'm a nurturer. And I think that people knew that early on, even from having my first child when I was 18 years old, and being like kept coming, because my oldest now is 28. And my baby is six. So they always had that sense, like, Okay, this is the person to help. So I feel like the people around me helped me to be strong, I wasn't allowed to be weak at all. And I'm glad that I'm like this, because just like getting to your point, there's others around me who don't have that same strength. And the rate of them keep turning around and doing the same thing is very high. And it shows that we're missing something or some things in this picture, because you don't want it taught me a lesson too, I did need to be there. You know, I feel like God still put me in that situation for me to see the need. So I can understand it from not a book perspective, but more or less a lived experience. And that's what makes everything authentic in here. And I was able to see a different levels of how people don't have anything, the lack of resources that's causing them to be in more of a pickle than they're already. So and then when they come back, they go back to do the same thing. So there was never any thing in place to keep them it was almost like, okay, prison is, is truly a business because it's not a rehabilitation of no sort. You have to want to do it yourself.
Related to that in the neighborhood that you're from, can you tell me about the alt guild garden Murray homes alumni network, I
founded that organization one to why or I'll go to support why all Gala was built in the first place, which was for the Black World War Two veterans, which don't get a lot of love, right, and not a lot of support. So this place was built to address their housing needs. And it was later turned off to public housing. However, I don't know if this was intentional or non intentional, but a lot of the residents are service connected residents were connected to someone, a family who served in some type of war or was in the military. So now later, it turns into our public housing, where is no resources, it's a lot of low income individuals that they say they use this as a stepping stone for you to elevate but however, is not designed truly that way for us to elevate because I'm looking at today, and how we are. And I've been here since 1985, that we have not had a lot of advancement today. And the resources are futile. And you know, you have to go outside of yourself and outside of here just to even find things, you know, I'll go garden just pretty much isolated, it has a high crime area had drug activity, right along with low income and moderately low income residents. So you know, that's really pretty much an attack on education or lack of skills to do jobs and things like that. It doesn't go good and data, right? So you're dealing with a bunch of people who are the the excellence, I see the stars and all of us, but we just don't have those resources to connect us to be better than what we are, you know, and that's a lot. That's why a lot of our people wind up traditionally into the educational systems traditionally with a lot of mental illnesses, because a lot of stuff has not been addressed. I
wonder if you talk a little bit about that and the resources that you've seen that can make a difference and I mean, you've done a lot of work for this Yeah,
I do a lot of work even now like I'm because our area is going through gentrification, right the real land extension which is the big buzz is coming even all the way down to 130 a fund that's supposed to help some of our transportation needs and then steel in his area today we don't have a grocery store near proximity or anything we have like a clinic that's up and running but we don't have anything for like if we needed some of those more severe service type things so you know, we we don't have anything we don't we don't have nothing but just our housing care and we have to be resourceful within that network you know, in our in in transportation, but that being scarce, but uh you know, like with gentrification, and being with a Big Red Line station is good that gentrification is happening on one hand, because up lips are divested community or area that you know, traditionally have not had those resources. But what it does is displaces the people who call this place at home so right now I'm currently organizing with the residents in the process of formulating us community land trust. So I've been doing that for the past 10 months along with my partners.
One of them is PCR, who is from this area founded by the mother of environmental justice Hazel Johnson. So I work closely with that organization Calumet, collaborative and wayfinding into organizing for this community. Land Trust to stop the displacement of people and hopefully get those people who have vested interests in this area where they can truly have something to pass down as a generational tool or mechanism for us, because that's something that we have never introduced, even though, like, that whole concept is new to me, I'm constantly trying to find ways that we can solidify ourselves and start to look at a brighter future, you know, because like, our traditional way of learning things, you go to school, you graduate, you go to college, and you graduate college, and then you get a good job, I'm a product of, once I did graduate with my associates degree, I still had to work low level jobs, because at this point, I didn't have the experience. So I've found in life is always like, things that will keep you from not really reaching that top. And this means organizing these residents, along with my community partners, is a way that we can start, you know, putting our feet on solid ground, also working in along with a workforce development development piece, because we can never advance our people if they low to moderately low income, and then give them true housing choices and things like that. So I've worked in more of a holistic phase, I look at the little moving pieces that contributes to the whole big picture. So that's one of the things that I do
with moving up to getting a job with the living wage. But if you don't have great access to transportation, right, I mean, then if there's nowhere for you to even get groceries or in set for having to take three buses or something that impacts you having access to a decent job and to even taking that step because everything is that much farther away. That is where the I think the environment gets into it. If everything is that much harder, you don't maybe see the light at the end of the tunnel. Absolutely.
That's how it was for me after like leaving, like before the end, like I told you, I was already in school trying to figure it out. I was so you know, even in this neighborhood, you would learn some ways to try to make money, I became the candy lady in this area, and slash bootlegger and slash we, you know, and that part was illegal for me. I mean, I'm picking It's not nothing, but it was is actually illegal. And these are the things that got me in the pickle that I'm eating, you know, it was a gift and a curse at the same time. But it was a learning experience that I never forget. And I can relate to a lot of people who going through it, even to this day, I stay connected with people in these areas to try to continue to educate. So I'm like, you know, I'm considered the wise man on in the area that's out on the streets that still give counsel to people who's going through different things and try to change the way that we think, because we are acting out of anger and really not knowing what you don't know, you don't really have a direction. Once all, we do have a decision over the choices that we've made. But we put into a lot of situations where we feel like we don't have those options. And I want to show people, they got the options, they have the power and we can do anything. But we have to get together and stick together and press up on the people that needs to hear this. So they can change these things. So they can bring these resources into the area, we have a part that we have to do to you know, rather than complaining, and I'm not just calling us complain this, sometimes we don't know how to navigate these systems, we would not talk these things is so much. And that's why I just dedicated my life to just really doing this because it not only helps me, it helps others you know, and people can stretch that help out so far. And it builds a network of people that you can help. Because you know, before it like we were taught like we was always on the bottom of the food chain. And now I see a rising in us, you know, I see this slowly, it's a little slow. But I actually am at a way that I see a rise in us that we're going to be changing policies, we're going to be changing education, we're going to be changing the way the prison system is. So I'm looking at all these little moving pieces that's gonna contribute to the bigger overall calls. And that's why I dedicate myself to doing what I do.
Yeah. And I mean, at least when when you come to speak, like our college and other places, and through your work, there is an example that there is a different way you can take a path. Yeah, I mean, you didn't see a lot of those examples before. You know,
being a mother man, I had to learn a lot of things I had to learn how to be a multitasker, how to be the doctor how to be their lawyer, how to be their confidant, how to be their friend how to be stern, I had to learn how to deal with the different changing ways of my kids and the different behaviors to So it taught me so much in this life that I just want to spring it on to others and I know that I make a huge impact on people. Let me just tell you, I want to share this with you because this happened right while I was on waiting on you too. Jump on the Zoom, one of the neighbors because she knew I had been in an accident. She came over here to just give me a car and to put $20 This is a neighbor, a man who is right now living. She don't have a lease of her own, but she's more of a squalor. And she could use the help. And she tried to put $20 in the cart for me. I gave her the $20 back. But what it showed me how the work that I do like how it impacts others and give them hope.
If you don't mind, can I read this card? oh, yeah. It says, You matter always have and always will. I just love the way your blackness shines and thrives and everything you do, from the way you keep it real to the way you hold it down. For folks who are the essence of strength, love, and blackpowder. Never forget how much you do. And never forget how much it matters. Love you bury a thank you for keeping us grounded in the gardens. Even though the blue truck is out of the mission right now. Now, I'm still gonna be following them blonde dreads out of the parking lot. They love me now. And I'm not expecting this because everything that I do is really from my heart, really, because I care. I don't write down everything that I do to get accolades, because I never cared about it. I want to see people, everybody just doing well or being able to uplift. And that was just so meaningful to me right before I spoke to you, I just couldn't believe it. So I know that it's a higher power, let me know that, hey, you are doing the right thing. And we see,
that's such a great note. And thank you so much for sharing it with us. So the blue truck your neighbor mentioned was yours. It was damaged when you were in car accident. And we were speaking earlier before we started recording about how you gotten that accident just this week, and you're still a little banged up. So I want to thank you for taking this time to talk with us today and and to continue to do this work. I have
to do the work it. It takes us to do the work one who got that live experience and to that desire to truly help people because they don't nothing bring me joy more than seeing other people happy. I don't know why I'm like that. But that makes me happy. I'm good when I see other people because I'm in a good place. I don't require a lot. And I have been provided all those things that I need it now it's time for me to help others as I've been doing and continue doing the work. I will not He led me to rest from this work. This is important. For me. It means everything.
Bavaria, thank you so much for sharing this and with you when you visit us the college and talked about your experience and talked about your work. Thanks for that. I appreciate it.
Thank you. I appreciate you guys for having me for highlighting people who really truly doing the work boots on the ground. Thank you, Steven so much for inviting me.
Here Beria Hampton is an ambassador for the Illinois Prison Project. She is also a community activist and is the president of the alt guilt Murray homes alumni network. In the spring of 2024. She spoke with other representatives of the Illinois Prison Project with students at Heartland Community College. If you're interested in other interviews about criminal justice, community engagement, or other topics, subscribe to random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this one. Thanks for listening
