There Is Only Us: Re-entry in Delaware County

Defending the Community: A Series About the Criminal Justice System in Delaware County

Delaware County public defender Christopher Welsh

Thirty years ago, the City of Los Angeles was plagued by gang violence. In response, political leaders in LA and across the nation fixated on retribution and punishment. Operating in that paradigm, they got “tough” on crime and started a “war” on drugs that led to mass incarceration and over-criminalization — primarily in poor communities of color. 

While political leaders latched onto the paradigm of war, the people of the Dolores Mission Catholic parish in East LA looked upon their neighbors through a different lens. The people of that parish chose to treat gang members like human beings. They engaged the young men in their neighborhood as people who could best realize their innate dignity in relationship with their community. 

Led by their pastor, Father Greg Boyle, the Dolores Mission parish created Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. Rather than retribution and punishment, Homeboy Industries offers healing and rehabilitation. Their programs address employment, education, housing, mental health, and substance abuse treatment. Their work is guided by the core belief that, in a community, there is no “us” and “them,” but only us. They put into action their belief that we are called to stand with the demonized so the demonizing will stop and with the disposable so the day will come when we stop throwing people away. 

Now is the time to follow the example of Homeboy Industries and change te paradigm in the Delaware County criminal justice system. The first meeting of the newly formed Delaware County Re-entry Coalition was a step towards that shift. The coalition seeks to address the uncomfortable reality that over 1,000 people currently live in a county-owned prison, the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Glen Mills, and another 1,000 inhabit a state-owned prison, CSI Chester, near the Delaware River in Chester. The people in these facilities are members of our community, and they will come home. When they do, we have a choice. We can demonize them, treat them as disposable, and keep them on the margins, or we can welcome them home, treat them with dignity, and help them succeed. 

The initial meeting of the Re-entry Coalition illustrated a willingness among many stakeholders to shift the paradigm. The community wants change. In the middle of a pandemic and two weeks before the Christmas holiday, over 50 leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors attended a meeting to discuss how Delaware County can support individuals re-entering our community after being incarcerated locally. We have new leadership invested in making change happen. District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer’s office obtained grant funding for the re-entry coalition through the county’s Criminal Justice Advisory Board. Delaware County Council is reinstituting local control over George Hill, in part to ensure that incarcerated individuals have the necessary resources to rejoin our community. I am initiating reforms at the Office of the Public Defender to ensure my clients’ interests are zealously represented. 

To change the paradigms governing incarceration and its aftermath, however, we must confront an uncomfortable truth. Our community must acknowledge, understand, and address the realities of systemic racism. People of color are disproportionately arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated in Delaware County, and the people working within and managing the criminal justice system are overwhelmingly white. The recent meeting itself mirrored a problem that permeates our criminal justice system. Thankfully, State Senator Anthony Williams stopped the first meeting to speak the truth: After over an hour, the only people who had been given a chance to speak (including me) were white. If we want to change the system to serve the community, the system needs to look like all of us. The truth of Senator Williams’ statements may be uncomfortable for some to hear, but change will not happen if we ignore it. 

With COVID-19 vaccine distribution beginning and the end of the pandemic coming into view, the parts of the criminal justice system that have been closed will soon reopen. We need to resist the temptation to go “back to normal” and, instead, listen to demands for change. The path to reform will not be a straight line, and eliminating systemic racism will not happen overnight. But we are all members of the Delaware County community, even those living in our prisons. We need to create a path to welcome those people home and begin building a paradigm where there is no “them,” only us. 

Christopher Welsh is Delaware County’s public defender.
This feature is published jointly with the Chester Spirit.