Petition for Black Victims’ Restitution

by Dr. Donald R. Evans and Abdul Olugbala Shakur

The New Afrikan Prison Rights Movement is presently promoting the concept of a Black Community Victims Foundation. The BCVF will be responsible:

  1. To provide restitution and compensation to those Black families and/or individuals who have been victimized by gang violence and/or other criminal acts perpetrated by another New Afrikan(s), i.e. Afrikan-Amerikan.
  2. To help pay funeral expenses for those New Afrikan families who lose a loved one(s) due to gang violence.
  3. To help pay medical bills for those families whose loved one(s) was a victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a New Afrikan(s).
  4. To help fund community-based youth programs, especially targeting New Afrikan gang members.
  5. To help train gang conflict resolution counselors.

The BCVF will be responsible for serving our victims of violent crimes. The BCVF will be community-based and independent from government and/or law-enforcement influences. This is a health and safety issue. We hope to establish a chapter in every New Afrikan community.

People, according to Webster’s dictionary, restitution means: l) An act of restoring to the proper owner something taken away, lost or surrendered. 2) An act of repaying or compensation for loss, damage or injury: Indemnification. 3) A return to or restoration of a former state or position.

Restitution-sign, Petition for Black Victims’ Restitution, Abolition Now! In the early 1990s, the state of California legislated a new reconstituted policy on restitution: Every prisoner who entered the prison industrial slave complex (PISC) after 1992 or thereabouts would be required to pay restitution. Every time a prisoner received money from their family or other loved one(s) the prison takes 55 percent out for restitution. Ten percent goes directly to the prison, and the government allegedly distributes the remaining money to various victim’s rights organizations.

But not one cent is going to New Afrikan victims of violent crimes. The vast majority of New Afrikan prisoners who are doing life or time for murder, attempted murder or assault, their victim(s) were also New Afrikan.

So, I ask: Why have the New Afrikan families of these violent crimes yet to receive restitution? They are the real victims! The New Afrikan community via New Afrikan prisoners is being robbed and extorted under the guise of restitution. Not to mention, even though these New Afrikan prisoners’ victims were also New Afrikan, they are paying restitution for white victims of violent crimes, yet Black victims of violent crimes are totally ignored. I ask, if restitution means restoring the victims, then are we not compelled to ask, what about Black victims of violent crimes? Are they not worthy of the same moral justice?

Restitution means “repaying the victim(s),” may that be in medical bills or funeral expenses. But this is just another example of kapitalist exploitation and dismissal of BLACK LIVES!

Why have the New Afrikan families of these violent crimes yet to receive restitution? They are the real victims!

We hope to mobilize a movement to resist and stop this kapitalist government-sponsored extortion ring. We are asking the people to distribute this petition all over the country, make this a daily topic. We as New Afrikan political prisoners believe if these New Afrikan prisoners have to pay restitution, it is only just for their restitution to go to their New Afrikan prisoner victim(s). There are many New Afrikan prisoners who have been a victim of Black gang violence, but they have yet to receive one cent of restitution.

Restitution means to restore, to make whole. The present government-sponsored restitution policy is in fact a government scheme to rob poor people of their hard-earned money.

We as New Afrikan political prisoners believe if these New Afrikan prisoners have to pay restitution, it is only just for their restitution to go to their New Afrikan prisoner victim(s).

When a prisoner is accused of assaulting and/or killing another prisoner, he or she is charged and if convicted, he or she will be required to pay restitution to the government, but the prisoner who was the actual target of that assault or murder does not receive one penny? This fact alone exposes the government-sponsored policy on restitution as a fraud! If this was truly about victims’ rights, then many poor people both in prison and within our communities would have been receiving their restitution!

BCVF Petition

  1. We the New Afrikan community demand an immediate end to the illegal circumvention of our victims’ restitution.
  2. We the New Afrikan community demand an immediate end to the California Department of Corrections hijacking 10 percent of restitution fees that should be allocated to the REAL victims of violent crimes, that is, if restitution is truly the intent.
  3. We the New Afrikan community demand that 100 percent of all collected restitution be designated to the appropriate New Afrikan victims via the Black Community Victims Foundation (BCVF) local chapters. The BCVF will be responsible for distributing fees to those New Afrikan families and victims in their jurisdiction that qualify for restitution.
  4. We the New Afrikan community demand that all restitution illegally collected in the last 10 years from those prisoners whose victims were New Afrikan be distributed to the real victims via the BCVF!

Contact Dr. Donald R. Evans at www.NAAFRA.org or write to him at P.O.Box 1899, Cedar Hill, TX 75104-1899. And send our brother some love and light: Abdul Olugbala Shakur, C-48884, PBSP SHU D1-119, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532.