![]() ![]() ![]() I can remember counting the trees as a 4-year-old little girl. And one memory is sitting in the back seat of the car as my mother drove my auntie to Camarillo State Hospital where she would pick up the boyfriend who would sit across from me, who I knew was going to harm me. You were abused by him repeatedly because he ended up paying you, and it was your only way of making income and you helped support the family.ĭid you think at all at the time, like, this is probably having a really bad effect on me, like, maybe I'm traumatized, like, maybe I need help? Like, did you have any way of processing any of that?īURTON: You know, when I think back to my childhood and my memories, I have two really strong memories. You were selling brownies door to door for the equivalent of, like, the Girl Scouts and you were abused by a guy whose door you knocked on. You were abused by your aunt's boyfriend when they babysat you. I mean, you were gang raped by boys in the neighborhood. You were sexually abused by several people before you were 14. And it's really just an incredible story. GROSS: Let's talk a little bit about the trauma that you grew up with. So we're over-policed and under-resourced. We as community members experience violence, trauma, loss almost on a daily basis.Īnd there are no places that we can actually go to begin to address the trauma, address the violence, to find solutions to the violence and resolve the trauma that can make our community safe. Those things just weren't accessible in a community like South LA in the community of Watts. ![]() That should have happened long before I ever got incarcerated. Did you not have access to anything like that?īURTON: So long before I ever got incarcerated, I should have been able to access services that help me deal with the grief and the loss of my son, that help me deal with the trauma, the abuse that I experienced as a child. And it sounds from your book like you wish you had been given, you know, some kind of, like, drug treatment program, some kind of program you could be in that would have, like, counseling or a 12-step group or something. GROSS: So one of the problems you had when you would get out of prison is you'd end up using drugs again. That's one of the reasons that I started A New Way of Life. I tried to stay clean, but it's a really sad and hopeless situation that people are released back into. And you're ill-equipped to actually embrace it and work it. One of the things about incarceration is that you're deprived. I wanted to be brave and I wanted to be strong and I wanted to be successful but being totally unprepared for all of that. You try your best, but the insurmountable obstacles that you face are just really difficult to overcome without support. And, you know, you're given back this opportunity to make decisions for yourself. You know, when you leave prison, you don't even have a California I.D. And each time, the task became more and more and more daunting. Each time I left prison, I left with the resolve to get my life together, to get a job, to get back on track. So the times you got out of prison before you got out and stayed out - and you were in six times before staying out and becoming a prison activist - the times you got out, did you find it impossible to get a job? Like, did you look in the legit economy before turning to the alternate economy, the underground economy? She tells her story in her new memoir, "Becoming Ms. Looking back, she thinks her crack addiction was a way of self-medicating after she lost her son. Her second child died at the age of 5 after he ran out into the street and was accidentally hit by a car driven by a police officer. After being gang raped, she became pregnant with her first child. She was abused sexually and physically as a child. Burton grew up in a housing project in Watts. She's a fellow of the Soros Open Society Foundation and in 2010, was named a CNN Top 10 Hero. Burton also became active in the movement to restore the civil rights of those who have served time. That expanded into her organization, A New Way of Life, which now runs five such homes and provides 12-step programs, counseling and helps women complete their education, find jobs and regain custody of their children. Knowing what it was like to get out of prison with no money and no safe place to live, she started a home for women in the same position. After serving six prison terms, my guest, Susan Burton, dedicated her life to stopping the cycle of recidivism, not just in her life but in the lives of other women she could reach out to. ![]()
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