“I want to write directions, ‘How to be an agent of change and transformation.’ Take posters and place them all over in public places. You know, educate.”
Anthony Papa, April 30, 2002

Kicking Out the Demons by Humanizing the Experience-

An Interview with Anthony Papa

Anthony Papa- artist and activist

photos and text by Preston Peet- Special to Drugwar.com

May 1, 2002

Anthony Papa is an accomplished artist and ardent activist living and working in NYC, using his art to promote prison and Drug War reform. After being set up, then arrested in a drug sting operation in 1985, he received two concurrent sentences of 15 years to life in New York State’s Sing Sing prison for his first offense under the Rockefeller Drug Laws’ mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. After gaining widespread attention through the harrowing and beautiful paintings he was creating from inside his prison cell, he received clemency after serving 12 years from NY Governor George Pataki in 1997. Papa, a friendly, intelligent, and very articulate man, graciously took time to sit down for a long and illuminating discussion with Drugwar.com, covering such topics as his art, the benefits of art for rehabilitation of prisoners, who the real targets of the War on Drugs really are and why the War continues, and some of the efforts he and friends are making to instigate positive changes in the system.

P- Have you seen the NORML ads out on the streets yet? What do you think of that idea?

AP- I think it’s a great idea, putting the Mayor on the spot, but I don’t think it’s going to change anything.

P- You don’t think it’s going to change much, but you’re not opposed to the idea of putting the Mayor‘s face out there?

Kid Lucky, Valerie Vannde Panne, and
unidentified but supportive passerby enjoying a
moment with Mayor Bloomberg

AP- They should, he smoked pot. See, the whole problem with the War on Drugs is they demonize drugs, and they target specific populations and individuals, disenfranchise and marginalize blacks and latinos, who always get pinned for these drug crimes, yet the majority of users are white individuals. That’s the whole beef man. I think it’s positive to use the media in a creative way, to use the arts, to enlighten people as to what the real issues are. Like with this installation we did at the Drug War Race and Party on 4-20, ‘Faces of the Drug War- American Dreams, American Tragedy,’ what I try to do is humanize the experience through the creative arts. This is what I do with my art. I have two websites, www.15yearstolife.com, and www.prisonzone.com, where you can take a tour in prison through the web with my friend Chris Cozzone's photography and my art. My own website, 15yearstolife.com, is basically a site that people from around the world come into. They come not necessarily because they want to know about it, they come by chance because of the art. The art drew them in, and that’s what I do with the art. The whole thing with my art now, I’m not into the scene of showing my art in galleries because I’m not with those politics man. At first it’s a big deal, you get a show, you sell some work, you know, every artist’s dream. I’ve been through that, I did it, it’s gone. I just don’t like the politics involved. I like to freewheel, do what I like to do with no limitations. That’s the greatest thing for me.

"Breakaway" - by Anthony Papa

P- You were arrested in 1985 for passing an envelope of cocaine. Was it a setup, or were you just unlucky?

AP- It was a sting operations. What had happened in 1984 was I was married, had a child, was self-employed with a radio business in the South Tremont section of the Bronx. I belonged to a bowling team in Westchester County. Business was slow, my car kept breaking down, so I kept showing up late to the leagues. So one of my teammates asked me what was going on. I told him about my car, he asked why didn’t I fix it, and I told him I couldn’t, things were slow. He said, “Do you want to make some money? I know somebody.” He introduced me to this guy who was a drug dealer, dealing in the bowling alleys in Westchester. So to make a long story short, the guy asked me if I wanted to deliver an envelope, to Mt. Vernon from NYC. He’d give me $500, and said it might become a steady thing. At first I said no, I’m not into that.

P- You pretty much knew it was drugs then?

AP- Yeah, I knew what it was about. A couple months went by, he came back around Christmas time and asked me again. Now things were really bad financially, so I asked him what I had to do. He said I just had to deliver this package to Mt. Vernon. I did, brought it to Mt. Vernon NY and walked into a sting operation. Twenty narcotics officers came out from everywhere. The individual who actually set me up was working for the police. He had three sealed indictments against him, so what his thing was, the more people he got involved, the less time he was supposed to get. So he reached out for everybody he knew. For me it was a bad mistake and afterwards I did everything wrong. I got this shyster lawyer. They offered me a cop-out to three to life because they knew I wasn’t dealing the drugs, that I was just the courier, a mule. I didn’t take it because I was desperate, didn’t want to leave my wife and kid and wound up listening to this attorney, going to trial, and ended up with two 15 year to life sentences.

P- You get a worse sentence if you fight it , right?

AP- Yeah, in NY State. The Rockefeller Drug Laws were enacted in 1973. The legislative intent was to catch the drug kingpins and curb the drug epidemic. They’re a dismal failure. We’re going to the 30 year anniversary on May 8th of this year. The kingpin is still out there, the prisons are bursting at the seams. Of 72,000 in prison, 24,000 are incarcerated under the Rockefeller Drug laws. The prison population in 1973 was 12, 500, now it’s 72,000. 94 percent of those incarcerated under these Rockefeller Drug Laws are black and Latino. Marginalized, disenfranchised individuals, they come from 7 inner city neighborhoods in NYC, 75 percent of those individuals are non-violent offenders.

P- Wait a minute. How many come from those 7 inner city neighborhoods?

AP- Seventy Five percent come from 7 communities in NYC, and 94 percent of them are black and Latino. So there’s definitely racism involved in these issues. From my perspective, I was in prison for 12 years under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, sentenced 15 years to life. The only way I survived it was my discovery of my art. From there I transcended the negativity of the imprisonment through the art. It became for me meaning, gave me purpose in life and helped me maintain my humanity, my self-esteem, which is very essential in order to positively interact with society upon release. I met an individual who turned me onto painting, and it created this positive but crazy energy, but a crazy energy in a socially acceptable way.

P- Ok, let me come back to that. Did you use drugs personally at the time of your arrest?

AP- I did. I was a casual users, I never really used cocaine, I smoked pot and drank. Couldn’t afford hard drugs, coke, stuff like that, but yeah, I was a drug user at the time.

P- In your case, prison turned you onto creating art, which is obviously a positive result of your imprisonment. Are you the exception, or the rule?

AP- I say there’s plenty of individuals in prison who experience what I experienced because of the existential nature of imprisonment. What I mean by that is there’s something mystical about spending a lot of time in a 6 by 9 cell. You get to discover who you are. So for me, I pull this artist that lay dormant inside. There’s plenty of individuals who do that. That’s why in prison, I believe in a restorative approach of justice as opposed to a punitive approach. Where punitive approach is strictly a terrible approach because it sleeps in the shadows of life itself. To lock them up type of mentality that doesn’t think of the future of the incarcerated individual as opposed to restorative justice which maintains an individual yet allows him or her to hold onto their self-esteem which is very important.

P- That could lead to rehabilitation.

AP- Right. Rehabilitation exists only if you have the programs available to someone to take advantage of, to turn their lives around.

P- You earned two degrees, one in paralegal studies, and another Behavioral Sciences, as well as earning a graduate degree in ministry from the NY Theological Seminary while in prison. How does that education help you now in spreading your message?

AP- Oh, tremendously, because it gives me credibility when I speak. In reference to say, my job. I’m a legal assistant for a patent trade firm, Fish and Neave. I've been here 5 years. The reason I got the job was because I was prepared. I had a college education and a graduate degree so it made things easier for me to be released and to interact with society. I think also that my education, especially in my theological background, well, I studied liberation theology.

P- Which is?

AP- Which is a theology which is sort of created in third world countries as opposed to white man theology. It’s a main belief of my liberation theology that you can talk about the bible, you can talk about tradition all you want, if there’s no tangible change or challenge to the principalities, to the powers that be, nothing is going to happen, no change is going to occur. We believe in the hands on, the hermeneutical approach, the study of the nucleus of liberation theology. What it talks about is practical change practical use of problems and challenge in a way that’s tangible, not just talking about the issues, but reacting and taking care of business in a positive and tangible way. This has helped me with my art. What really turned me onto art is when I studied art at first, I got into the French impressionists, and then somebody told me art is nice, but there’s more to art than pretty beach scenes and frilly white dresses. I said, what do you mean? I was into Manet, Monet, all these French impressionist artists, and he says art can be used for political purposes. He sent me a book about the Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, who used art showing the oppressors against the oppressed, basically challenging the powers that be. So I took that and used my art. In prison I became a political artist. I saw the artist in his role as a social commentator.

"Corporate Assets" - by Anthony Papa

P- What do think of current art, and in that I include music, film, literature, as well as fine arts. Do you find that those artists using their art to promote a message, such as yourself, are not given as much attention, nor funding, as those artists who create the emptiest of art, art without any message whatsoever?

AP- You’re exactly right. There’s a body of art out there, a collection of artists who are political artists, who use art as a vehicle for social commentary, which is what I think art is for, yet because of the politics involved, they are not getting the grants, from foundations, they’re just considered part of the elite as the handful of artists are who paint diabetic art. By that I mean sugar and spice, sweet stuff kind of art. I just went to the Whitney Biennial, and I was amazed at the crap they showed there. I didn’t see one political piece in the whole show. There is a problem of breaking out with your art and getting discovered if you are going to use your art in a political context. In society today, mainstream artists really don’t do that way.

P- Yeah, my girlfriend overheard a conversation between two guys on the bus the other day, where one was telling the other how he hates it when a musician tries to “get all political, it’s just a song.” She was struggling not to light into this guy.

AP- That’s what art is for, to use it as a vehicle to get that social message out. I think it is very important. You really interact with society that way. I think it’s positive. Film makers, musicians, visual artists, performance artists, all can be positive in using their art to promote social change.

P- So what’s the deal with the new anti-art policies in the NY State prison system? Why do you think they were initiated, and do you think it a smart move to stifle positive creativity in people locked in cages?

AP- On March 29, 2002, Glen Goord, the Commissioner of Corrections for NY State made a declaration where he prohibited the sale of art by prisoners, doing away with a yearly art show, the Correction On Canvas exhibit that was in existence for 35 years in the NY State prison system. Every year prisoners had the opportunity to show and sell their work at this exhibit that was run by the State Senate and the Department of Corrections in the legislative office building in Albany. Fifty percent of the proceeds went to crime victims.

P- To a crime victims’ fund, or to those specific individuals hurt by the artist/criminals?

AP- A crime victims’ fund. What happened was that Goord made a statement that it wasn’t worth the anguish that crime victims would feel for the little money that they raised through the show, allowing prisoners to profits from their art. Behind the scenes it was a political issue that started when Pataki took office in 1995. At that time 100 percent of the profits went to the prisoners, so an agreement was worked out where 50 percent of the money raised would go to a crime victims. It worked for almost 7 years, but last year, a mass murderer who killed something like 11 prostitutes and chopped up their bodies was allowed to show his work in the annual show that is run by the State Senate and the Corrections Dept. The Daily News got a hold of it and blew it up into a big story. An assembly man from Schenectady took hold of the issue and from there the politics went into overdrive. A year later, because of 1 individual, 72,000 individuals were punished. When I heard about it, from my point of view I was really angry because I was in that show for 12 years. I know how important art is for prisoners. I actually have a ribbon on my wall that I got in 1997 for best donated work.

Anthony Papa's 1997 ribbon for Best Donated Work

When I got clemency from the Governor, I donated 15 pieces of art, and won this ribbon. I took it very personally, and started this campaign to challenge the Commissioner’s decision. I got the NYCLU involved. They’ve taken the case, which is in the early stages of litigation. The NY Times came out with a beautiful editorial, Newsday is supposed to come out with one, as well as the Christian Science Monitor. We have a major rally planned May 8, also challenging the Governor on both the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and have a petition going around demanding that the show be reinstated and the ability of prisoners be allowed to sell their art be reinstated. The petition is up on my website. I actually got a call from this woman who was so angry that Goord used crime victims as the reason for his decision, a woman whose son and daughter were both murdered and was appalled that Goord was using someone like her for the excuse to take away the art show. I actually hooked her up with a Christian Science Monitor. This is what we‘ve been doing with this issue, and a lot of people are angry. We’re challenging the Governor and not the Commissioner, since that’s an appointed position, we’re challenging the Governor as voters, saying we the voters of NY demand you reinstate it, because it is a political year, he’s up for reelection. Hopefully something will happen in a positive way. But artist prisoners are the lowest of the low. No one cares about prisoners. So what if you take away art and music programs? They’re in prison, it’s there for punishment, but these same people don’t realize that these are the same individuals that you have to return to society.

P- You touched on this a little earlier. Do you feel that prisons are at all concerned with rehabilitation?

AP- Not at this point. It used to be a concern, but all it is now is warehousing individuals because I was there, I know personally, and I speak from that viewpoint. If prisons were meant to rehabilitate, every step of the way would be rehabilitative in value and therapeutic.

P- You took your own initiative?

AP- Yeah, I took it upon myself to take advantage of what was available. In 1995 they cut out college education, they did away with Pell and Tap, because again, politicians used crime as a political issue, where first federal money was taken away, then state followed.

P- So prisoners in prison now are not getting an education?

AP- There’s a small movement in NY State where there’s volunteers, colleges working at Bedford Hills for woman, and at Sing Sing for men, instructors work on a volunteer basis and it is run strictly on private donations.

P- Which would you say is more damaging to individuals and society as a whole- drug use, or the War on Drugs?

AP- I would say the War on Drugs. We’ve been involved with drug use for thousands of years. It’s nothing new, we’ve dealt with it, there’s always going to be an inkling for an individual to escape reality. so we can’t control it in that capacity. But I think by creating the War on Drugs, which is a War on People not on Drugs, it’s a bigger problem, because the black market exists. What it has become now is a vehicle to fuel the prison-industrial complex. Money raised from State, local and federal level through people’s misery. By creating this fictitious war it’s caused all sorts of problems. Now we’ve become comfortable with locking up non-violent offenders. NY State for example, 90 percent of the prisons upstate are in Republican territory where they fight each other to build the next prison. They have become a commodity, prisons. What happens is they keep them filled with non-violent offenders. In 1995, when Clinton’s Crime Bill was passed it was a big mistake, because it gave millions of dollars to states to build prisons. Advocates spoke out against this, because when these prisons are built you’re going to have to keep them filled. And what do you fill them with? Drug users. Drug users today are like communists in the McCarthy era. It’s a stigma, they demonize drug use.

P- Do you have a position on decriminalization or legalization?

AP- At this point if we tried legalization right now, we wouldn’t do it, it wouldn’t work. I think we should try out decriminalization first, as a society, see how that works, especially with marijuana. Hard drugs are always going to be a problem. Personally I think we have the right to self-medication. I believe in harm reduction, that theory. Some people will always be addicted to drugs, but let’s make it easy for them, let’s give them treatment. Let’s do it the right way.

P- You’re talking about the option for treatment, not mandated treatment.

AP- Right. I don’t believe in mandated treatment at all. But again, when you put it all together in the big picture, it becomes part of the War on Drugs, which fuels the prison-industrial complex, because there‘s more money involved when you mandate. That’s the whole story on that.

P- And they keep people in the system.

AP- It’s a constant, vicious cycle that continues because of the monetary gain made into the whole issue.

P- Do you see any shift among police and politicians in how them themselves are perceiving the way?

AP- My personal point of view, 5 years ago, when I first got out of prison there wasn’t a lot going on in the form of politicians taking stances, because it was a sure fire way to look soft of crime, which is advocating for say, reduced sentencing, or against the Rockefeller Drug Laws. But in the 5 years we’ve been out here, me working with my organization, the William Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, and other groups, like the Drug Policy Awareness Project, which teaches people about the war through art and education. Through the efforts of groups like these, people are beginning to understand there’s a significant problem. But they look at it in a different way. Why? Because these groups and what we do, we humanize the experience, we don’t demonize the experience. We tell people that these are human beings that deserve second chances. Then we have the issue of mandatory minimum sentencing, which was really enacted with the Rockefeller Drug Laws in 1973, and they in turn became the catalyst for the federal government to make the mandatory minimum sentencing the laws in the federal government, and went to all 50 states where there’s some form of mandatory minimum sentencing. It really got out of hand. It took the judges ability to look at totality of the facts of each case, where everybody is just pigeonholed by the weight itself. My case for instance, the judge didn’t want to sentence me to 15 years to life, but he had no choice because I went to trial and lost. Under mandatory sentencing he could give me in my case 15 years to life, and could of sentenced me to 25 years to life, but he sentenced me to two 15 years to life sentences because it was my first offence.

P- 15 years to life? For your first offence?

AP- Right, first offence, non-violent, no criminal record at all.

P- Not even a smudge on your record?

AP- I have a violation, but that’s not a criminal record. I had a stolen license plate on my car I’d borrowed from my boss. 5 years earlier he’s forgotten he put it in his trunk and called the police to report it stolen. 5 years later he found it and gave it to me. I got a $25 fine for that. I’d also actually gotten another violation for a joint back in 1973, again not a criminal offence, but a violation.

P- You were arrested in 1985?

AP- I was arrested in 1985.

P- You did 12 years? Then Gov. Pataki gave you clemency in 1997?

AP- Yeah. I painted my way out of prison I like to say, when in 1995, my self portrait that I did in 1988 while sitting in my cell one night. First I looked in the mirror and saw this individual who was going to be spending the most productive years of his life in a cage.

P- How old were you?

AP- I was 30 years old when I went into prison. I picked up this canvas and painted this self portrait titled 15 years to life, where 7 years later it wound up in a show at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of a retrospective of Mike Kelly’s work.

"15 to Life"- self portrait by Anthony Papa

P- Where did you keep your art?

AP- I kept it in my cell. At a certain point where they made it a rule where they said we couldn’t keep too much art in our cells. They were constantly making rules. It was a platonic view of the artist, they didn’t like artists in prison because they were too individual, they weren’t part of the collective. Which was against that whole rap about behavior modification, where the individual goes out you become part of the collective, they train you the way they want, but I wasn’t about that. My art helped me transcend that. They had these rule where we couldn’t keep finished pieces of art in our cells. I met this girl through an art show that every year I went into at this church. She became the keeper of my art. Every time I finished a piece I would send it out to her and she would keep it for me. A lot of work I have I wasn’t able to finish because they forced me to send it out, like one piece called metamorphosis, with barbwire and hands reaching out that turn into butterflies. I wasn’t able to finish that one, because one day this lieutenant by my cell. I used to paint with a nail, hanging the painting on the nail. This piece was a huge, 40 by 50 piece, the biggest I ever did. He told me I had to get rid of it because it was a risk that I could use it to escape. I asked what he meant, and he said I could easily put a hole through the wall. I said, “but lieutenant, if I wanted to go to the other side of the wall, all I had to do was open my cells door, and open the guy’s cell door and go in his cell. He said, “no, no, I don’t care it’s got to go.”

"Metamorphosis" by Anthony Papa

P- What, you were going to escape from one cell to the next?

AP- That was the mentality. As a matter of fact, the first ribbon I ever won, in 1986, the first year I went into the Corrections on Canvas exhibit, I won a blue ribbon, my first time trying and I won it. I worked hard. I was a watercolorist, and I won for this piece called, “Pink Bathroom Sink.” When I got the ribbon, well, when I got the package at the package room, I got a catalogue, and a letter from a Senator congratulating me on winning first prize, over 5,000 people viewed your piece, congratulations, blah, blah, blah, but when I looked in the package the ribbon wasn’t there. I called the guard, and asked him where my ribbon was. He said, “you can’t have it.” I asked “what do you mean I can’t have it?” He said you can’t have it because it’s blue, and blue isn’t allowed. Now, blue is a color considered contraband, blue orange gray, these were colors that police uniforms were made of.

P- They must have had a lot of faith in your artistic abilities to think you’d be able to create a police uniform and make your escape using a 2 inch blue ribbon.

AP- Yeah, with a two inch ribbon I was going to try to weave this uniform. So I tried to explain to the guard but he didn’t want to hear it. He called the sergeant, who said he’d go check on it with his superiors, and I figured cool, I’ll get the ribbon no problem. But he came back and said, “look, you can’t have it because it’s blue.” What eventually happened was I wrote the Senator who sent me the ribbon, who wrote me back. I’d told him I’d grieved it. There’s a process where a prisoner can write a grievance, sort of like a process where you let some steam off. Prisoners rarely win, but in this case I figured I had to win. The Senator wrote back and asked me to let him know what happened with my grievance because they might have to change the color of the ribbon.

P- And did they?

AP- No, eventually someone came to their senses. The grievance hearing didn’t happen, it didn’t get to that point. I got the ribbon after a while. The ribbon was given by a guard to the hobby shop teacher to give to me because I was too low on the ladder for him to personally give me my ribbon. That’s the kind of mentality you deal with in prisons.

P- So, do you see any shift in how politicians and police perceive and/or wage the War on Drugs?

AP- I do see a shift especially among the black and latino caucus in the NY State Assembly, not in the Senate, not among the Republicans. Maybe some, but not a lot, of moderate Republicans. I lobby a lot in Albany, and there’s a different opinion behind closed doors as to these drug laws. “Yeah, these are terrible laws, I don’t support them,” but they can’t go out and support changes because they‘d loose their constituency but behind the doors they all know it doesn’t work right. But now there’s a lot of black and latino caucuses especially that support a change in the Rockefeller Drug Laws. For the first time in 30 years, we have the Governor, the Senate, and the Assembly that all want change, but at the end of the last session that couldn’t come to an agreement, at this point there’s a stalemate on it, which is why it is so important for us activists and advocates to go out and protest, to raise out voices and make a lot of noise to let them know we’re still involved in this issue.

P- Now aren’t they on the one hand moving towards small reforms and on the other trying to increase penalties for things like marijuana?

AP- It‘s always about that. The Governor wants to change the Rockefeller Drug Laws, in some ways, really watered down. I’d rather have no changes at all. They want to do away with parole, they want to increase penalties for marijuana. Politicians never want to give up anything for free. They always something for something.

P- Do you really think that it would be political suicide even today if a politician stood up and said flat out, “these laws are fucked up, let make some changes”? I mean among their voters. Their financial backers are probably going to be upset at this kind of stance, but there does seem to be a lot of groundswell among the common people that the War is wrong.

AP- It depends on their constituency and where you live. If you live in redneck Republican territory where everybody is conservative, if a politician came out suddenly, like say Dale Volker, a staunch Republican who is all for the Rockefeller Drug Laws, who has 9 prisons in his district, the 59th NY Senate District. This is why he supports the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Lets say he came out and was opposed to the Rockefeller Drug Laws, his constituency wouldn’t be too happy.

P- Because he’s got all those prisons.

AP- Right, He would probably loose his office. But let’s say someone from like the South Bronx, from an area like that, where drugs are prevalent so people know about the issue, it’s not going to hurt the politician that much to advocate for changing the drug laws.

P- Plus people in those areas see a lot of families broken apart.

AP- Exactly. So I think there’s a difference now. I think that since the Senate, the Assembly, and the Governor all want change, I think it’s different than it was 5 years ago when no one wanted change. I think then it would have been total political death. Right now I think it’s really not, it’s a smart issue to get involved with, but politics are politics. Some people are just not going to do it because of their politics.

P- Do you yourself hold any political affiliation?

AP- I’m a registered democrat. I was actually registered for 5 years but couldn’t vote because I was on parole. I just got off parole in February, so now is the first time I’m going to be able to vote coming up so I’m definitely going to exercise that right.

P- Now, I know that Bush and his ilk are talking about ratcheting up the War on Drugs, and already have in many ways. But under Clinton we also had this huge explosion in the prison population and in the Drug Laws. He himself might not have admitted inhaling, but he at least held the marijuana in his hand and put it to his lips. Do you see much of a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue?

AP- On the federal level? I think basically there’s not too much difference, because we’re talking about politics across the board, so politicians are afraid of supporting change at that level. There’s some, like Democrats who support some change in mandatory minimum sentencing laws, but at the federal level I don’t think there’s much difference.

P- Do you have any ideas on how to build more and stronger ties between the different ethnic communities on this issue? I know that in NY, well actually, most all of the conferences and events on the Drug War, with the notable exception of Drug War Awareness Project’s recent party on 4-20, that there are almost all white faces in the audience, and almost all white faces up on stage speaking and presenting. Very rarely do I see blacks and Latinos at these events. Do you have any ideas on how to bridge the cultural divides, or whatever it is that’s keep the communities apart?

AP- Well, in my experience, in the places that I’ve gone to in reference to conferences, I’ve seen a majority of black and latinos, with whites, so I don’t know the audiences you’re talking about.

P- That’s precisely what I’m talking about. The places I’m going to, as a white guy, I see mainly white folk, but you, a Latino, see mainly blacks and latinos. How do we get these groups together, to work together?

AP- I really can’t answer that.

P- No ideas?

AP- I think it’s a universal issue that everyone should be involved with because the War on Drugs, although clearly racist in many ways, has no class barriers, no color barriers. It affects everybody. The prosecutorial tools that were created to curb the drug epidemic then in turn those laws are used against the average citizens who doesn’t even use drugs, like exclusionary rules, the 4th Amendment, search and seizure…

P- Asset Forfeiture.

AP- Yeah, forfeiture laws, these are all tools that prosecutors use. They use them beyond their intended purposes. They go to the average citizen, where you can even loose your home for something like a marijuana cigarette.

P- Do you focus your efforts mainly in NY State, or do you also work on national efforts for reform?

AP- I work with the Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice mainly on the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and at the federal level I work with groups like FAMM, (Families Against Mandatory Minimum Sentencing), I’ve been to Washington DC and lobbied on Capital Hill. Because the Rockefeller Drug Laws really touched me on a personal level, that’s my main area of concentration. Plus, I live in NY. I’ve been involved with different groups, November Coalition, FAMM, groups that do work more on a national level.

P- Ok. Does being an ex-con hinder you in any way, say in your work as a legal assistant?

AP- Oh, a lot. For instance, let’s say in this community here, this job. there’s a lot of people here with PhD’s, attorneys, people from sort of the higher echelons of society, went to the best schools. What I’ve calmed down is promoting what I’m about here at the firm. At first people used to hear about me and knew I was an artist. But they really didn’t know what kind of artist, so when I exposed myself and they saw the art and heard the story that I was in prison, it created a stigma.

Anthony Papa at the Office

P- Just like that?

AP- Just like that. It’s a stigma I’ll live with all my life. They look at me different, maybe they won’t even say hi to me. That’s some people. Not all people, but a majority of people in this firm. I think it’s a stigma. My next door neighbor doesn’t know I’m an ex-prisoner. I’m always paranoid. I’ve been living there in this private house, with a little Italian couple who love me, yet they don’t know my past. I remember when people would be coming over to do interviews, with all their production equipment, and I used to freak out because I have a small apartment and all this stuff would be out in the hall, and there’s a knock on the door. Who is it but my landlord. She asked what was going on and I told her they were making a film about my art. She said, “ooh, can I see it when it’s done?” I said sure, but I never showed it to her. Things like that. I always live with this stigma, carrying a Scarlet Letter as I call it. It’s universal the stigma I carry, it tainted me, but it also gave me courage and strength to go on in a positive way. I use it as a tool now. Because what happens when you do an extraordinary amount of time, many people want to put it aside and go on with their life. But with me, I use it as a vehicle to become who I am, this activist involved in change, positive change and transformation to make things better for people still inside and people outside, yet still wear this Scarlet Letter, that label as a convicted felon.

P- One last question. Do you find it a bit ironic that you served 12 years in prison under the Rockefeller Drug laws, and now you work in the Rockefeller Center?

AP- I work at Rockefeller Center. I think it’s very appropriate that I help stage rallies at 50th and 5th at the Rockefeller Center. Everything has evolved around the Rockefeller Center, so this is the place for me to be.

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All of Anthony Papa's art work shown here can be seen at www.15yearstolife.com, where you can also read and sign the petition demanding that New York State reinstate the Corrections on Canvas artshow, and the rights of prisoners to arts and education.