Inmate turned activist spearheads Camden prison reform protest

The Sept. 9 gathering was part of National Prison Strike day.

CAMDEN -- They were easily outnumbered 10 to one. Undeterred, a trio of prison reform advocates took to the Camden County Hall of Justice on a sweltering summer afternoon under the watchful -- if not inquisitive -- eyes of county sheriff's officers.

The push, as part of Friday's National Prison Strike day on the anniversary of the deadly Attica Correctional Facility uprising, was aimed at addresses mass incarceration, conditions on the inside and the role race plays when it comes to sentencing.

"Our people are crying out for help," said Gary C. Frazier Jr., a city activist who was sentenced to three years behind bars on a number of gun and drug convictions. "When everybody can't eat, that's where conflict begins."

Accompanied by a pastor from Northeast Philadelphia whose congregating includes ex-inmates and a St. Louis native who said the police-involved shooting death of Michael Brown woke her up to law enforcement injustices -- neither of whom wished to be identified -- Frazier and company distributed flyers addressing race, politics, financial gain and more when it comes to locking people up.

"We want to get rid of that financial incentive to incarcerate," Bob Witanek, co-founder of prison reform group and event organizer Decarcerate the Garden State, told NJ Advance Media earlier this week.

Frazier described his time behind bars as crowded, with four people to a cell, and dirty. Asked what he would say to the "don't do the crime if you can't do the time" crowd, Frazier didn't miss a beat: "Walk a mile in our shoes."

See what it's like to wake up to police sires, not birds chirping, he said. To know somebody who had to bury their 8-year-old after a stray bullet struck her in the head, he continued. To be told to get off the corner, but have nowhere else to go.

Camden cries out for answers

Frazier, a lifelong Camden resident and "product of my environment," he said, saw that his city had moved on, his child's mother had moved on and his opportunities had been diminished upon release.

"I always knew my life meant something to me," he said. "I saw the harsh reality that I was a number ... there are no economic opportunities for us."

So on a sweltering summer afternoon, he stood out front of the Camden County courthouse and used leaflets as a way into sentences handed down at the hall of justice.

"We have to start having open dialogue about what's going on in our communities."