On February 9, 2022, the ACLU of Connecticut Smart Justice campaign joined Stop Solitary Connecticut for a rally to support a veto-proof PROTECT Act, to stop solitary confinement and create independent oversight for Connecticut prisons and jails. Smart Justice leader Curtis B. Hudson delivered the following speech:
Good morning, everyone. My name is Curtis B. Hudson and I am a Smart Justice Leader with the ACLU of Connecticut. We have a slogan that we wear on our shirts: People Not Prisons. Now when I say “People” you say, “Not Prisons.” Ready?
PEOPLE! (NOT PRISONS)
PEOPLE! (NOT PRISONS)
PEOPLE! (NOT PRISONS)
All right. Thank you to everyone at Stop Solitary CT and the honorable Barbara Fair for the work they continue to do to free people from the harm and trauma caused by solitary confinement.
My 45-year journey through the criminal legal system began when I was incarcerated as an 11-year-old child. Yes, I was incarcerated for the first time at the age of 11. Most of my education has been self-taught from the books I read while I was incarcerated. One of my favorite authors is the poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran. He wrote that “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are sealed with scars.” At Smart Justice, we believe that those who have been directly impacted and harmed by mass incarceration, by solitary confinement, by policing, by prosecutors, by stigma and by discrimination when they try to rebuild our lives after emerging from prison, WE are the people who need to be at the center of this work to create a more just, fair, and more humane system of justice for Connecticut.
So we are honored to be here with Stop Solitary CT and to be a part of their fight to pass The PROTECT Act. It is a shame that we have to be here still fighting for a bill that was passed last year, but here we are and the barbaric use of solitary confinement in prison must end.
Smart Justice is also supporting legislation this year that will finally bring accountability to the role that prosecutors play in the criminal legal system. Prosecutors are the gatekeepers to mass incarceration. They have been operating in the darkness for far too long. Now they need to come out of the darkness and into the marvelous light. The state of Connecticut cannot have a system of justice based on a person’s zip code. So this year, the General Assembly must pass legislation that will create uniform standards and procedures to the way a prosecutor does their job.
At Smart Justice we also believe that a person who has completed their sentence has earned the right to be able to move on with their life without the shadow of a criminal record hanging over them for the rest of their life. People need to be able to support themselves, provide for their families and be able to lead successful lives. We will be supporting legislation this year that will address the 500 legal barriers that people face when trying to meet their basic needs, and that means ending discrimination for people who are living with a record as they search for employment.
This is the fourth year that I’ve been taking the train from New Haven to come up here to advocate and talk to legislators about what the people in my community need in order to be healthy and successful in their lives. I am proud of the work we have done, and I know that there is so much more that we still need to do.
There’s another quote I’d like to highlight from Kahlil Gribran: “We are all prisoners of this world. But some are in cells with windows and some without.” The point of that is that none of us are free until all of us are free.”
I am honored to be in this fight with you. One more time:
PEOPLE! (NOT PRISONS)
PEOPLE! (NOT PRISONS)
PEOPLE! (NOT PRISONS)
Thank you.
