My2Centz talks to Paul Kassman, an activist and champion of Restorative Justice in the United Kingdom, about his ground breaking program CHANGING THE GAME. Paul came up with an original method to help men incarcerated for gang activity find a way back to their family and society.
Over the years, Paul and I discussed many topics ranging from politics to poverty and the prison industrial complex. How Paul and I met, is another story. Paul is from London and saw Crack House USA on Channel 4 in the UK in 2010. It was a documentary film about the case I got caught up in with my Titanic Stone brothers in Rockford Illinois back in 2005. I was interviewed from prison for the film and the filmmakers went to Chicago to film my family. Paul was intrigued by what he saw and what I had to say and so he wrote to me. He wanted to meet not just me, but my family as well. Paul has been screening Crack House USA in prisons in the UK to men who had been in gangs. He invited my family to come to join him in the conversation with inmates across the UK. The result was very effective for the men listening to my parents talk. Hearing my mother and father give their perspective of my crime and incarceration was deep. Paul is putting in to action in the UK what we need more of in the USA; a voice representing the humanity of prisoners.
My2Centz: How did you get interested in prisoners?
Paul Kassman: I wouldn’t say that I got interested in prisoners as such. I’ve seen a lot of talent and potential from my community here in London get side tracked into lifestyles which led them to prison. I think that there are a lot of issues and questions which are linked to that process, from a community perspective as well as from the personal perspectives of these individuals.
That said, historically a lot of people have ended up in prison because of their beliefs, or because they may have challenged an unfair system. I’m thinking about people like Mandela, Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham jail, other civil rights leaders from the 60s and 70s or even the women in England who campaigned for the female vote over a hundred years ago. So how did we go from going to prison for a cause to going to prison BE-cause?
M2C: What is Changing the Game dedicated to doing for incarcerated men?
PK: Changing the Game focuses on Street Life (or Road Life as we say here in the UK), gang culture, identity and trauma. The program tries to make a space to think in an honest way about some of our experiences and looks at the relationship between how we handle our feelings, how we think, and how we act. If either of the first two elements is out of synch (i.e handling how we feel and how we think), then it is guaranteed that our actions will be affected in a negative way.
A lot of young men who get into the streets, put themselves through all sorts of pain and trauma, dealing with the threat of gun play, the danger of getting long prison sentences, losing friends and family etc. Having to stick to some kind of code, or maintain your image, means that you can’t acknowledge some of these feelings to yourself or the people around you in the streets. The program looks at how we’ve dealt with some of these situations in our lives. Most people are carrying some type of pain, but often cannot talk about this with the same people that they would ride out and shoot guns for.
The streets and gang culture, will induce young men to act out a role and image that doesn’t fully represent who they really are. Black young men in the UK are overrepresented in gangs and violent crime statistics. Most of our parents or grandparents emigrated to the UK from Africa and the Caribbean to make a better life and do not come from cultures which promote crime and violence, so how have so many young men drifted away from a positive identity, towards a lifestyle which leads to so many losses. So we also look at questions of identity and self-image.
M2C: How did you come up with the name for the program?
PK: There are a few things that the name represents. In economics and psychology, Game Theory refers to the mathematical models of logic and decision making which will provide a person with the best outcome in a given situation.
People like to talk about “the Game” or being a “Player”, but we don’t have an honest conversation about whether it is possible to win that game in the long term, and what the losses really feel like. So if we are playing a game where we are expected to have a couple of ‘good’ years selling drugs or gang banging before things go bad, then perhaps we need to reassess.
A lot of young men who aspire to “the life” will rely on the examples of the small minority of people who manage to achieve long term success in the drug game as an inspiration to follow, and ignore the millions of others who have fallen by the wayside. According to Game Theory, this is a flawed logic model.
M2C: How is Changing The Game helping at-risk citizens?
PK: We are a small community organisation, and we deliver an 8 week programme in a couple of prisons here in the UK.
Over here, some of our young men are massively influenced by the whole ‘Chiraq’ drill scene, so a couple of years ago we were able to bring gang workers from Ceasefire, and Chicago families affected by gangs and incarceration to London to hold some vents in prisons and in the community here in London.
M2C: How can we contact Changing the Game?
PK: We’re all about the work, so we keep it pretty low key to be honest. We’re not on social media and don’t even have a website. Our agenda isn’t about promoting ourselves….. like energy attracts like energy so our network has grown organically. Our e-mail is info@changingthegame.org.uk
M2C: How can we get Changing the Game started in America?
PK: We’re a UK organisation. I’ve visited really inspiring programs in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. There are plenty of people in the community over there who are doing great work which isn’t always recognised. If you take a community development approach, then we should promote those local programs that are delivering real changes.