FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 15, 2023
Contact:
Liana Liang, lliang@ajsocal.org, (213) 241-0237
CA PRISON SYSTEMS’ LIMITED DEMOGRAPHIC DATA ERASES THE AANHPI AND INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
Break Down the “Other” Act calls on the state for data transparency in California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
LOS ANGELES, CA — Assemblymember Ash Kalra introduced the Break Down the “Other” Act (AB943) today, sponsored by Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL), a bill that will require the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to publish the disaggregated demographic data of persons in the system, specifically to have separate categories for Indigenous people and major Asian and Pacific Islander groups. The CDCR’s current public population data only includes the categories White, Black, Hispanic, and ‘Other’, effectively erasing people’s ethnicities under the ‘Other’ category that include Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous people.
As of January 2023, 6.5% of the people in CDCR’s custody fall under the ‘Other’ category. According to CDCR’s data, ethnicity is self-reported by individuals who choose from 28 types. However, this collected data is not shared with the public. The Break Down the “Other” Act would require the CDCR to publish the data of all the ethnicities currently hidden under “Other.”
“Without accurate data, it’s difficult for the public to know how many Asian American people are in our prison system, making it impossible for community organizations to identify gaps in current in-prison and re-entry programs for these individuals.” said Connie Chung Joe, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) “Data transparency is necessary in order to provide culturally competent support services that cater to the unique needs and experiences of incarcerated Asian American community members.”
Cultural and Historical Context is Essential
A survey of over 500 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) incarcerated community members conducted by the Asian Prisoner Support committee, a California organization that provides direct services for reentry, found that the vast majority indicated ‘war’ as the main cause of their displacement from their country of origin. Southeast Asians have the highest rate of PTSD compared to the general population, and when resettling in the US, many joined gangs to cope with the trauma, lack of community, and economic hardship it fueled.
Chung Joe added, “Cultural and historical context is critical in order to provide proper support for the incarcerated API population. Racism, physical violence, and economic hardship from war displacement–are just a few of the many challenges experienced by many of our Southeast Asian communities. When the context of why someone joined a gang is unaddressed, existing rehabilitation programs, policy bills, and community services are insufficient from the get-go.”
Asian American Invisibility Must End
In the last 20 years, reform in California’s justice system has been successful in reducing incarceration rates for certain communities of color, including white men. However, criminal justice reform is failing the API incarcerated population. Despite making up a small portion of the total prison population, incarceration rates for APIs have increased by over 250 percent between 1990 to 2000. Without accurate data on APIs in the system, criminal justice reform fails to curb increasing incarceration rates of the API community.
“CDCR’s aggregation of such a large and diverse number of ethnicities as one category creates not only a harmful and problematic data set but also an incomplete picture of our prison population. By enabling the continued erasure of the incarcerated Asian community, we only fortify the biases and inequities that lead to further oppression,” said Assemblymember Kalra. “Disaggregating this data will allow researchers, community organizations, and our state to better understand and address the needs of people impacted by this system.”
AJSOCAL is calling on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to break down the data points of the demographic ‘Other’ category, provide full data transparency, and in doing so, provide the tools to create culturally competent and sensitive in-prison and re-entry programs to better serve the Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous incarcerated populations.
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Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) is the nation’s largest legal and civil rights organization for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI). Founded in 1983, AJSOCAL serves more than 15,000 individuals and organizations every year. Through direct services, impact litigation, policy advocacy, leadership development, and capacity building, AJSOCAL focuses on the most vulnerable members of AANHPI communities while building a strong voice for civil rights and social justice. More info is at AJSOCAL.org.
