Welfare and the Criminal Justice System:
An Interview with Dr. Willa Hemmins

Aired March 2, 1999

David C. Barnett–Joining us in Studio B is Dr. Willa Hemmins, a professor at Cleveland State University's Department of Social Work. Dr. Hemmins is the author of a book called Black Women in the New World Order, which deals with issues of welfare and the criminal justice system. Dr. Hemmins, welcome.

Willa Hemmins–Thank you.

DCB–The way I hear it, the way I look at the papers, it says that the economy is really great, there's plenty of jobs out there.

WH–There are plenty of jobs, it's just that the types of jobs that are available to women coming off welfare are the low-level service types of things that really don't give them a lot of hope for the future.

DCB–So what do we do?

WH–Well, in terms of training and education, it seems as if the society could make a greater investment in the women. A lot of times they have these short-term training programs that maybe take six weeks or two or three months, and they really don't prepare them for the types of jobs that would keep them off welfare or off dependency or even off of the streets for any significant period of time, and these have to do with the policies, too. There's a built-in policy that you cannot really fund things such as a four-year education, a baccalaureate education is prohibited to these women because I guess our legislators felt that that was not necessary and I think that's a major, major mistake.

DCB–Well, you're also this afternoon going to address the topic of young black women and young black men who happen to be gifted, but also incriminated. The title of the talk will be "To Be Young, Gifted, Black, and Incriminated." Are we saying that- is it women or men that we're talking about?

WH–Well, both, but black men, non-white men are seven times more likely to be incriminated than white males and black women are eight times more likely to be incriminated, and once the stigma of criminalization is imprinted on their portfolios, if you will, they are precluded from many entry-level jobs anyway.

DCB–Well, to what extent are we talking about an individual's self-motivation versus a larger, institutional racism that may exist?

WH–I think there's an interplay between the two. I think your hopes and your dreams are somewhat limited and constrained by the boundaries that society has put upon you. I think that it would be unrealistic, for instance, for a woman off of welfare to hope to become a CEO or a member of middle management, and I think that downsizing and the recent trend of mergers has an impact also. It's very, very difficult for, say, colleagues and middle-class men and women, white and black, to maintain a secure, stable job over any significant length of time even with education, because our government and our society has kind of diminished the importance of people in general. So when you get to someone who has a lack of education, a lack of skill, and a low self-esteem, that person is almost in a self-fulfilling prophecy, according to sociologist Robert K. Merton. There's only so much success they can achieve, and I've seen them over and over again go out, get into these entry-level jobs, they don't know how to play the office politics. For one thing, that middle-class people and even people that have been working for several generations have learned how to play in order to maintain themselves. So they lose out in terms of some of the very subtle skills with reference to interpersonal relationships and the ability, not only to, well, getting there on time and being appropriately dressed and being articulate, those are just minimal skills. But the more subtle interactions that make one think that one is loyal - loyalty is very, very important in organization now - as well as giving one, giving a supervisor or an organization the feeling that I am really bringing something to the party, you know, I'm not just a zit, I'm not just a zero, and when you think about it, these women have low self-esteem to begin with, they really are not equipped to play these types of games, according to Eric Burns.

DCB–So you're talking about changing, you know, they don't even have the culture of work skills.

WH–Yes, absolutely.

DCB–And they've grown up in a culture of welfare, some of them are hard cases that have been living in that way for a long time, don't know any other way?

WH–Right, well, they have been exposed to TV. I mean, they are loyal fans of TV culture. Black people, not whites, watch more television and are exposed to more mass media, mediums, than any other, say, groups in our society, but they haven't taken it on as theirs. They haven't had the opportunity or the access to really be in that field of play.

DCB–So, there's the million dollar question is what do we do, I mean, do we have more sophisticated training programs and educational programs to get them into the new culture of work or what?

WH–Well, right now we're kind of giving them cold turkey.

DCB–Get off and get going.

WH–Right, on your own, pretty much, and also without sufficient day care and without sufficient Medicaid or at least some health care, long-term health care alternative.

DCB–So are you pessimistic here, I'm hearing?

WH–Kind of, yes.

DCB–Well, on that relatively sad note we bid adieu to Dr. Willa Hemmins, a professor of Cleveland State University's Department of Social Work. Today at noon, she will address the topic of "To Be Young, Gifted, Black, and Incriminated," at the University Center Building 103. Thanks for joining us this morning.