New Beginnings Reentry Services, Inc.

Recognizing the need to stand in solidarity with local Black communities who are working to dismantle the harmful effects of a racist criminal justice system, students at MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) have launched a fundraising campaign for Boston’s New Beginnings Re-Entry Services (website).

We have an ambitious goal of raising $15,000 by June 19th (Juneteenth) and are calling upon DUSP faculty, staff, alumni, and students to contribute whatever they can.

New Beginnings Re-Entry Services’ vision is for formerly incarcerated women to have the opportunity to heal from trauma and reach their greatness in a safe and nurturing environment. To do this, New Beginning’s works to reduce recidivism – or reincarceration – by advocating for and providing direct services to women re-entering local communities from jail and prison. 

Recidivism is a symptom of structural inequities, racism, and state violence, all of which criminalize poverty and disproportionately affect Black communities.There is an inextricable link between urban planning and the racist carceral state that perpetuates reincarceration. For example, rather than addressing the housing, health, and other basic needs of those reentering their communities, our current system instead subjects many to poverty or more harmful confrontation with the criminal justice system. The overpolicing and racial profiling of Black and Brown communities come at the expense of providing adequate resources that allow for communities of color to heal and thrive. 

This fundraiser could make a significant impact on the organization’s ability to offer their critical support to women in Boston. We feel strongly that our DUSP community must look to its own neighbors in this time of crisis, a community that we so often use for our own learning when it’s convenient or educational, but fail to show up for otherwise. For this reason, we’re especially excited to direct these funds toward New Beginnings.

We primarily challenge white-identifying members of the DUSP community, leadership, faculty, staff, and students and their networks, to contribute by June 19th. While June 19th, known as Juneteenth, commemorates the formal legislative end to slavery in 1863, to truly dismantle systemic racial inequity, white allies must work toward realizing reparations and justice for Black communities. White and white-passing planners can no longer be silent and complicit in how urban space is a site of violence for Black communities, designed to surveil, exploit, and invisibilize Black lives. And we can no longer be silent on how the failure of planners to address structural racial inequities continues to harm people’s chances at successful re-entry after incarceration. We encourage our white peers to think of this as a small step toward an anti-racist future in Boston, rather than a “donation” or “charity,” and we challenge you to also consider other financial and non-financial ways in which you can work toward wealth redistribution.

We recognize that this is also a moment of extreme financial insecurity for many. Even if folks can only give $5, it will help move us toward our goal. 

Lastly, we acknowledge that this one campaign is nowhere near sufficient when it comes to taking action right now. Nonetheless, we hope that this collective campaign will encourage the white-identifying members of our DUSP community to show up in a way that helps catalyze sustained anti-racist conversation and action.