0:00:00.9 Louis Marvin: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, on understanding responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. My name is Louis Marvin, and I am a training specialist at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and this podcast is part of our male survivors series. Today Tonjie Reese joins me to talk about working with male survivors who are formerly incarcerated. Tonjie is the Senior Program Officer at Just Detention International or JDI. [music] 0:00:46.8 LM: Tonjie, thank you for coming to be on the podcast, can you introduce yourself and your work with JDI? 0:00:52.6 Tonjie Reese: Yes, thank you for having me. So again I'm Tonjie Reese I'm a Senior Program Officer with JDI. My work is doing advocacy, so I work on our crisis line, and we talk to survivors who are in Michigan and Vermont. I help support our Survivor Outreach Program, which is doing written correspondence and advocacy for survivors. 0:01:15.8 TR: I also do some work with our education and training, so I help train with crisis advocates, Correction staff, and also help out with inmate education, so programming for folks who are on the inside and making sure they understand PREA and their rights and the responsibilities of the facility. 0:01:36.7 LM: That's great. You're doing awesome work Tonjie, thanks for being with us again. We really wanna focus on re-entry today because we want advocates to recognize the long-term support that they can be part of providing for male survivors who have experienced a sexual assault while incarcerated. So can you talk us through some of the things that advocates need to know so they can be part of providing that long-term support? 0:02:06.5 TR: Yeah, so the first thing to know is that, when coming out of a facility and entering back in the community, formerly incarcerated people can have many barriers, many worries. And the best thing that advocates can do is make sure that their capacity is built to help support formerly incarcerated folks, but also just have an awareness of what their realities are and what that looks like, for someone to be in a state of confinement and then come back into the community. 0:02:43.7 TR: So it's really important to understand that a lot of times, a person is working on building relationships. Relationships change after when a person is incarcerated, so they may have had a support system or people before coming in, but that relationships can change afterwards. And what we hear is a lot of times, that is a big thing that people are working on and relationships really can make or break a person's time after being released. 0:03:15.2 TR: Some formally incarcerated survivors of sexual abuse have to figure out who their support system is. So they may have trouble trusting other people or even knowing who they can confide in. And many survivors won't tell loved ones about the sexual abuse that they experienced in detention. 0:03:30.9 TR: So for crisis centers, in addition to the capacity, it's important that there's an awareness for formerly incarcerated people that your organization is somewhere they can get that support. Because a person may have been experiencing all the effects of trauma, but never really feel like they can talk to anyone about what has happened. 0:04:01.7 TR: There are also some limits, of who formally incarcerated people can associate with. So if someone is on parole or probation, it can be a violation for them to associate with other people who have felonies. And that might... And the hard part about that is that might be their only community, might be their only people that they have on the outside, so some folks have to just essentially start over. 0:04:26.2 TR: So on the hotline, we talk to many currently incarcerated survivors who are reluctant to talk to counselors and advocates. So they may not know who is safe to confide in. Some counselors... Sorry, some callers have just shared some worries [0:04:41.4] ____ even speaking to male survivors, and this is men who are incarcerated don't always wanna talk to male counselors. 0:04:49.2 TR: In the community, they might not feel like they can relate to advocates for to counselors also, so when building that relationship with them, it's important to recognize biases that you might have as a rape crisis advocate and your organization might have, and making sure that you're doing those things that you can, that it feels welcoming to... That your organization feels welcoming to people who are formerly incarcerated. 0:05:17.2 TR: You wanna really think critically about your bottom line, and if your organization has limits on who you serve. If you're serving people who have been sexually assaulted, anyone, making sure that includes people who are formerly incarcerated and making sure they feel like they have a space within your organization to receive support. 0:05:38.4 LM: Thanks Tonjie. Yeah, I think you and I have talked about how there are really a lot of barriers, and that relationships one, and the struggle to build relationships, and the dynamics of building relationships upon entry is such a great one to start with. I appreciate your reminder that advocates need to be a trusted person for any survivor, of course, and in this context for a male survivor who's formally incarcerated who might have that particular layer of needing someone to trust in those challenges, building relationships. 0:06:19.1 LM: Are there other barriers that you'd be willing to share with our listeners? 0:06:25.4 TR: Yeah, so some survivors also face financial barriers and receiving support around sexual abuse may not be a financial priority, so in some cases, the person may have to choose between getting transportation to a job interview and getting transportation to a counseling service. I think it's important to recognize that getting... 0:06:48.3 TR: Right now, how it stands, getting support services from a counselor is a privilege, and sometimes folks may not know the privileges that they can have access to, but also you need some type of means in order to get counseling services, even if the services are free. So also too, just coming back into the community, if a survivor does not have a high school diploma or a trade or any kind of higher education, they may have barriers for employment or even opportunity. They may be limited on what they can do. 0:07:24.1 TR: So recently, I spoke to a survivor who entered prison at 17, and he shared his worries about re-entering the community as an adult without a degree, without work experience, and the expectations are placed on him to be able to fulfill these adult duties that he really hasn't had the opportunity to go through. 0:07:48.0 TR: And right now too, because of the pandemic, a lot of programmings in schools have paused in prisons, so a lot of folks in prison are trying to get high school diplomas and higher education, but in the current state of everything that has all been on pause. So that's a big barrier too. Education is a big barrier. 0:08:10.2 TR: Survivors and formerly incarcerated people in general can face housing barriers, so there's limited availability for formerly incarcerated people due to economic financial barriers, limited affordable housing. In some communities, people are coming back to their gentrification that's happening, where people are being pushed out of neighborhoods. 0:08:34.6 TR: There's discrimination against formerly incarcerated people, so sometimes some apartment complexes, or housing places don't want people who have been formerly incarcerated or you're not allowed to live in places because of a felony. And then there are other systems in general that just make it difficult for formerly incarcerated people to find housing after being released. So that... 0:08:58.1 TR: Housing is one of the things that makes it difficult for a person, or having stable housing, and many survivors also go into the same environment they came from, which may be toxic or hinder their ability to heal, or they're at greater risk to wind up back behind bars on a technical probation violation. And that can be as simple as speaking or associating with someone who has a felony. 0:09:27.0 TR: Also, many male survivors don't seek help or aren't aware that help is available in general, and there are stigmas around receiving counseling, or receiving outside support, or talking through feelings, especially when you think about it from a gender socialization lens. For men, we... Men are really taught not to cry, not to talk about feelings, not to have emotions, so doing something like seeking counseling can seem unmanly. Or it's an assumption that that's not something that is for them. 0:10:04.8 LM: Yeah, thanks for focusing on that, I think that's really important. I wonder if you have any thoughts, Tonjie, around what an advocate at a sexual assault center or what a center can do to help counter that, maybe unawareness that help is available for male survivors who are going through re-entry. Or to counter that lack of help-seeking behavior perhaps that we see with many men, whether they're male survivors or not. 0:10:39.2 LM: Are there things that a center can do to try to position themselves well, to make sure that those male survivors who are re-entering the community can get that support for the long-term needs that they may have related to their trauma? 0:11:00.0 TR: Yeah, and the first step is with building relationships. Even if your organization is not able to have the capacity to support formerly incarcerated folks, there are still people doing re-entry work, and so, a good step is just connecting with a re-entry program. There are people who, other organizations that work with formerly incarcerated folks. 'Cause they might not have the capacity to support the sexual violence, but that's what you're in for. 0:11:29.5 TR: So just understanding and knowing what is available within your community for people who have been incarcerated, building relationships with other advocates, and then figuring out how you can lean and support each other. And that can be as simple as just saying, "Hey, we exist, and this is the support that is available." 0:11:50.5 TR: Because sometimes even the understanding... They might not even know that you are offering support services, just because again, there's a big stigma around people who are formerly incarcerated and it's I think sometimes the thought that only people who do re-entry work are the only people who work with formerly incarcerated folks, and that's just not true. 0:12:09.5 TR: So we all have to kinda come together and figure out what support is offered, but also making sure too, that your organization is welcoming in the best way possible. So that could be as simple as thinking about what things you have over your office, thinking about your staff makeup, thinking about where you are able to provide services or when. 0:12:35.0 TR: Just considering all those things, just the same considerations that we make for any survivors, formerly incarcerated people should not be treated any differently. And we have to just be intersectional in our work and address and be mindful of all the needs a person might have. 0:12:52.5 TR: It's like when we just talked about all those barriers that people have. So if we know that housing is a barrier, or education or finances are a barrier, seeking out and understanding who in your community can support people in that way, and even just letting them know like someone who might be the opposite, someone that's a survivor may come to you about housing or about finances, and knowing what programs are available, you're able to offer them a resource. 0:13:24.1 LM: That's really great. Tonjie. We are saying all of these types of things throughout this work that we're trying to do with male survivors, letting advocates know that, "If you don't already know, you will have to do things differently than these services and the outreach that you have had in mind, if you haven't had male survivors in mind before. So you might have to rethink some of the relationships that you have in your community, the approach, the places you provide services." 0:13:54.6 LM: So you're just reflecting on... You're reflecting so many of those messages that we at NSVRC are trying to get out when we're talking about male survivors. So I really appreciate how in sync we are, and that's really great insight for advocates thinking specifically about male survivors upon re-entry. 0:14:15.6 LM: We talked a little bit about gender already, and stereotypes and socializations, and some of the things to know about male survivors in particular who are going through a re-entry. Are there other aspects of gender socialization or other stereotypes that you think that advocates need to be thinking about? 0:14:35.8 TR: Yeah. One thing is that because of how men are socialized, for some men, they don't want to be even identified as a victim or survivor. So that's the first part, and the best way to reframe it is to think about it in the person first kind of way. That this is a person that had this experience, but it's not who they are. And so just being mindful of what labels the men you are working with are comfortable with. And ask, ask questions. 0:15:15.8 TR: There is also the stereotype too, that being a victim is weak, and weakness counters the stereotypes that men feel pressure to live up to. A lot of men don't wanna be seen as weak, because the stereotypes that men get are to be strong, to be tough and to be brave. And for some men, they have a comfort with accepting those stereotypes, and they have embraced it as a part of who they are. So just keeping that in mind that sometimes the stereotypes that men get are actually related to who they are, and just keeping that in mind, too. 0:15:58.9 TR: And then also remember to that some male survivors can carry toxic masculinity stereotypes. They still might also carry some of those gender stereotypes that are harmful, even if they are a survivor, too. They still might have those feelings that being sexually assaulted is weak. They still might feel like men should be in charge, or men should be in control, or that other folks are weaker. So just keeping those things in mind, too, that there might be some type... 0:16:39.5 TR: Especially considering prisons and the make up of prisons, where toxic masculinity and these stereotypes are even greater within the prison setting. So coming out of that setting where it's hyper-masculine, a lot of times toxically masculine, so coming out of there, they might carry some of those same beliefs. Just being prepared and mindful of that. 0:17:11.0 TR: And also, too, male survivors don't often fit this perfect description of victim that people have. People when they hear victim, they a lot of times, assume a woman, a lot of times assume a White women or that someone who didn't do anything, or someone with no past or background, or no experiences of being in prison, this is just this perfect person where this horrible thing happened to them. 0:17:36.1 TR: We know the perfect victim does not exists, that anybody can be sexually assaulted, and even if someone did commit any kind of crime, being sexually assaulted is not part of their penalty, and they're not deserving of it. Because we know that there is no perfect victim, we have to still validate feelings, we have to still let people know that we believe them. 0:18:06.2 TR: We have to make sure that people are aware that the violence that they experience is not their fault, even with male survivors. And keep in mind that men will still need to hear that. Survivors in general will still need to hear those things. 0:18:19.8 LM: Yeah, yeah thanks. I really appreciate you focusing on that archetype of the perfect victim and pointing out how male survivors who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated are really existing in this place of, opposite all of those notions, many of those notions. So it's a great point to keep in mind. 0:18:45.8 LM: You mentioned, Tonjie, talking a little bit about how to speak in first person language. I wonder if you could expand a little bit on why that's important, and how to do it in some different ways that are relevant to this conversation about male survivors and re-entry? 0:19:04.9 TR: Yeah, so placing person first language means that you're placing the person first, and their experience second. So it provides a different level of dignity and respect for that person. As I mentioned, some men don't identify with the word "survivor". So it will be a male they know, someone who experienced sexual violence. So it's them first, and the sexual violence they experienced second. 0:19:35.5 TR: And that's the same way for even some of the words that we hear for people who have been incarcerated, like "convict" or "inmate" sometimes, or "criminal". Those words, it's a label that puts on a person so their crime and whatever they did to be in prison overshadows who they are as a person. And if someone is not even feeling like they can be a person without this label of being... Of being... 0:20:06.1 TR: Without this label of their crime, it can be hard for them to even seek out and get services or support because they may feel like you don't even see them as an actual person, just only their crime and that's it. So we like to use "prisoner". A lot of times we'll talk about "prisoner rape" or "someone who was formally incarcerated". So just changing language and being mindful of that is important. 0:20:28.9 TR: Also just using a gender-responsive model that empowers male survivors. So when working with male survivors, you wanna use direct language. Validate feelings, making sure that they understand that their experience does not make up who they are, doesn't make them weak, doesn't mean any of those things, and that they have a right to feel healed and whole after it and they didn't deserve what happened. 0:20:56.9 TR: So just speaking to them directly, but also just... I would say when working with male survivors, just giving space to talk, but also space to not talk, and being mindful of that person and what their needs are. Just being very person-centered, I think is really important. 0:21:17.9 LM: Great. Are there other tips, Tonjie, that you have for advocates in working with male survivors who are formally incarcerated? 0:21:27.8 TR: Yeah. I would just say just assess your services and ability to support formally incarcerated survivors. Do an assessment, and a real one, where you're able to look at your policies. Is there a policy that says that there are limits to who you can work with? And if not, how can you adjust that policy? Figuring out if you're a staff, how your staff feels about working with formally incarcerated folks, and addressing any biases that may be present within individuals or even as an organization as a whole. And it's just like, that's the part, just being honest with yourself and your capacity and what you're able to do. 0:22:09.2 TR: Also again, collaborating with other agencies that work with formally incarcerated folks, including re-entry programs that have nothing to do with sexual violence. So just building that community together and recognizing that healing from sexual violence and the ability to have access to resources and services is not only on that individual person. It's not only on the survivor to figure out how to get services and what services are available. 0:22:43.5 TR: We as service workers in the community, it's our responsibility too to make sure that they have access to it, and if we can't support them, then we have somewhere we can lean on and talk to about it, and that comes with building that relationship with other organizations. 0:22:57.4 LM: I'm imagining that there are advocates listening who are thinking maybe something like, "Oh, I've never... I've never thought about working with a re-entry organization. I don't even know what that means or how I would go about doing that." If there's somebody who is thinking that, what would you say to that advocate? How could they begin learning about the services in their community and reaching out and building those relationships? 0:23:27.9 TR: Yeah. So first, it's good to question yourself and say like, "Wow, why don't I know those things?" And also, just leaning on other staff people. So an advocate might not have the outreach and community resources, but someone else in your organization who may be over outreach, may have that same type of... They may have that access. So that's a first step. 0:23:53.2 TR: And then just networking, talking to other people, figuring out who is local and close to you. A lot of re-entry programs you can find through like just internet research, and sometimes I know some counties have resource guides, so checking those. And it does take work. I won't pretend that it doesn't take some leg work to do and some ground work to... Some ground work to actually go out and seek out these. It does. 0:24:29.8 TR: So we have, at JDI, we do have a resource guide where we provide to survivors who are still in prison, in jail, and we have one for each state. And on those resource guides, we have to update them pretty often. And it's also available on our website, too. I've had to make phone calls to organizations and set up meetings, and just getting to know what their services are and their capacity to support survivors. 0:25:03.1 TR: So it does, it takes time, but once you build that relationship and have that initial understanding that you, both of you even exist, the possibilities are endless at that point. I'm always advocate too, for collaborative trainings together, cross-training each other. 0:25:19.4 TR: One thing that when I first started working at JDI, I had to learn, was about language and even prison language. 'Cause there were people who were saying things I was just like, "I don't even know what this is, or what that means." But just understanding even just how language is different, can be helpful and it can help you better serve folks who are formally incarcerated. 0:25:43.7 LM: So many great tips. Thank you so much, Tonjie. Is there anything else that you wanted to share on this topic of working with male survivors of sexual assault who are going through a re-entry? 0:25:54.4 TR: Yeah. I would say, please, whenever you get a chance, check out resources up on our website. We have trainings that are available. We also do TA work, so you can email advocate@justdetention.org and you can get some of our TA services. If you are an organization that is just starting, or ready to start, or unsure and wanna try something, but not know where to start, feel free to reach out to us. We're here as a resource to help support survivors of sexual violence behind bars, and that also includes people who are formally incarcerated. 0:26:35.1 LM: Great. Well, thanks again for joining us today Tonjie. And we do invite listeners to learn more about working with male survivors and more about JDI's work, by checking out the links in the show notes. [music] 0:26:51.6 LM: Thank you for listening to this episode of Resource on the Go. For more resources and information about understanding, responding to and preventing sexual assault, visit our website at www.NSVRC.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@NSVRC.org.