Charlie Cook is a a fourth-year double major in Global and Community Health and Education and president of the Partners In Health Engage chapter at UC Santa Cruz. The Global and Community Health Program interviewed Cook about his experience in the GCH 190 Taskforce Class that focused on Incarceration, Restorative Justice, and Public Health.
Q: Could you please introduce yourself?
A: My name is Charlie Cook. I am a senior student in the Global and Community Health Program. I am also an education major and I work at a local preschool as well as grading for GCH1.
Q: What public health issue is your GCH 190 Taskforce class focusing on?
A: With Professor Bugg, we are working to do a set of oral histories around carceral justice and restorative justice and unpacking incarceration locally. It relates to public health because we’re seeing [that] prisons and other methods of punitive punishment are not generating health both in a public safety way – it’s not making people more safe – but it’s also not generating health in the environment inside of prisons and carceral spaces are not health generating. We’re looking to see how we can make the practice better.
Q: How does restorative justice and public health in carceral systems affect our community here in Santa Cruz?
A: In the U.S., we have some of the best experts who are looking to restorative justice in more meaningful ways. In ways that divert away from the prison system, in ways that promote healing and reflection and help people who have been convicted of a crime reintegrate into the community and learn. We have a massive opportunity to capitalize on having so much effort in Santa Cruz and also the political atmosphere here allows us to experiment and push policy you couldn’t push elsewhere.
Q: What is your class doing to help educate people about restorative justice and public health in carceral systems?
A: We aren’t doing a research paper. We are creating a set of oral histories which are supposed to be for an audience and so we’re going to both analyze and provide writing around what we’ve learned and also provide videos, other materials, maps, and different ways people can visualize, understand, and connect with restorative justice locally. Our taskforce is really aimed at getting the community involved and creating a base level understanding of restorative justice. We’re really doing a salad bowl approach of giving people a good place for people to start when they want to understand restorative justice so they can take it wherever they want to and learn in whichever ways works best for them.
Q: What impact does your taskforce class have on the community in Santa Cruz?
A: We are doing our best to support local professionals and so, thinking about the different nonprofits: CRC (Conflict Resolution Center), Barrios Unidos, Aztecas, and different ways that we can support them. While our work is preliminary and more recommendations based, we’re amplifying their voice and seeing how we can best support them.
Q: Why is it important for Global and Community Health students to take this class?
A: These students must have coursework and have classes that build their skills in disseminating work from dense academic stuff into things that are better communicable and this is what this class is focused on.
Q: How has the taskforce class changed your perspective on public health?
A: While incarceration doesn’t initially feel like something that you would associate with the health field. It is an environment that generates really poor health. As a public health practitioner, my perspective is that I have to engage with every field and every space and I have to think usually bigger than I initially [thought].
Q: Do you have a favorite memory from your taskforce class?
A: I think a favorite memory was last week and we had Alaya Vaultier and Abi Mustafa come in and to hear their account of getting to work with these two young men who had committed a hate crime and to unpack their process and understand how they made amends with the community is so satisfying to hear.
Everything is public health you guys. Destroy your box and think outside of it. Nothing is done without good collaboration.