Podcasts about soros justice fellow

On episode 238, welcome Emile DeWeaver to discuss reforming the US criminal justice system, the lack of a systematic understanding of crime in most rehabilitation programs, white supremacy as a version of the human tendency to dominate, the “near enemy” of incremental change, the roots of US policing and the need for a collective mind to replace it, the struggle with assimilation for formerly incarcerated people, the importance of clarity and courage for social justice, and why Emile's book is just the beginning of deeper work which should include strengthening our imaginations. Emile Suotonye DeWeaver is a formerly incarcerated activist, widely published essayist, owner of Re:Frame LLC, and a 2022 Soros Justice Fellow. California's Governor Brown commuted his life sentence after twenty-one years for his community work. He has written for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, Colorlines, The Appeal, The Rumpus, and Seventh Wave. His new book, available May 13, 2025, is called Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy, and an Abolitionist Future. | Emile Suotonye DeWeaver | ► Website | https://www.reframeconsults.com/about-emile ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/emilesuotonyedeweaver ► Substack | https://emiledeweaver.substack.com ► Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine Book | https://amzn.to/4lUkZm8 Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast  ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment  

Macarthur Award winner sujatha baliga discusses healing trauma, restorative justice, and the power of love and meditation to build a better world.sujatha baliga is a restorative justice educator and advocate and a 2019 winner of the MacArthur fellowship. She has served as the director of the restorative justice project at Impact Justice, a co-founder of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, and a Soros Justice Fellow at Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth.Sujatha earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and went on to earn her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her life's work in restorative justice was born of the personal advice she received when she was 24 years old from His Holiness the Dalai Lama on forgiving seemingly unforgivable acts.136. sujatha baliga on Healing Trauma and Restorative JusticeSign up for A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment in 9 Meditations, our 12-week summer course on analytical meditation that starts September 3, 2023. Podcast listeners can use the code SKEPTIC for a 20% discount.Support the show

In this episode we continue our conversation with Andrea James,  founder and Executive Director of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, founder of Families for Justice As Healing, author of "Upper Bunks Unite: And Other Thoughts on the Politics of Mass Incarceration”, 2015 Soros Justice Fellow and a 2016 RFK Human Rights Award recipient. She is giving some recommendations on sythematic changes aimed at preventing incarceration of women and girls as well as some advice to people working or wanting to work in these areas on how they can support community based and community led initiatives aimed at preventing the incarceration of women and girls. For more on Andrea James' work check out: https://www.andrea-james.com/aboutTo order Andrea James' book: "Upper Bunkies Unite: And Other Thoughts on the Politics of Mass Incarceration", go to: https://www.amazon.com/Upper-Bunkies-Unite-Thoughts-Incarceration/dp/0988759306 For more on the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls for Justice Andrea James' check out: https://www.nationalcouncil.us/If you are interested in joining the work to end incarceration of women and girls go to: https://www.nationalcouncil.us/clemency-works To donate to the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, go to: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/free-herFor more on the Free Her Institute Think tank, go to: https://www.freeherinstitute.com/ and purchase items that support the work of The National Council and ending incarceration of women and girls here. Don't forget to rate our podcast, recommend it and share it on social media!Support the show

In this episode we talk with Andrea James. She is the founder and Executive Director of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls and the founder of Families for Justice as Healing. She's also the author of "Upper Bunkies Unite: And Other Thoughts on the Politics of Mass Incarceration". She was a 2015 Soros Justice Fellow and a recipient of the 2016 RFK human rights award.Our conversation is fascinating and sure to be of interest with anyone interested in just access.For more on Andrea James' work check out: https://www.andrea-james.com/aboutTo order Andrea James' book: "Upper Bunkies Unite: And Other Thoughts on the Politics of Mass Incarceration", go to: https://www.amazon.com/Upper-Bunkies-Unite-Thoughts-Incarceration/dp/0988759306For more on the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls for Justice Andrea James' check out: https://www.nationalcouncil.us/If you are interested in joining the work to end incarceration of women and girls go to: https://www.nationalcouncil.us/clemency-worksTo donate to the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, go to: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/free-her For more on the Free Her Institute Think tank, go to: https://www.freeherinstitute.com/ and purchase items that support the work of The National Council and ending incarceration of women and girls here. Don't forger to rate our podcast, recommend it and share it on social media!Support the show

An APA Heritage Month special: Join us for an online panel discussion with two AAPI women touching on the lived experiences of being an AAPI woman today. They'll cover a wide range of issues, including the mental health impact of issues such as racism, gender violence, and oppression. Show editorially warning About the SpeakersOakland City Council President Pro Tem Sheng Thao grew up in poverty, the 7th of 10 kids. Her parents met in a refugee camp in Thailand after each fled their home country of Laos and the genocide against the Hmong people. Thao's parents immigrated to America, settling in Stockton, where they would make a living farming vegetables. It was here Thao was born. She left home at the age of 17. When her son Ben was 10 months old, Thao got a job at Merritt College and also started taking classes. And, with the help of welfare and a Head Start program for Ben, she put herself through school. She became class valedictorian, then transferred to UC Berkeley, where she co-founded a food access program for low-income students and graduated with a degree in legal studies. She eventually ran for Oakland's City Council District 4 and won, becoming the first Hmong-American woman Councilmember in California history. She's currently Council president pro tem and chairs the Rules and Legislation Committee. Thao received the 2021 Powerful Women of the Bay Award for her work on behalf of Oakland's diverse neighborhoods, and has been honored by the Alameda Labor Council for her record of delivering for working families. Thao is also president of the League of California Cities API Caucus, and has served on boards for the Redwood Heights Association and Oakland Asian Cultural Center. She is an Oakland mayoral candidate. Connie Wun, Ph.D., is the executive director and co-founder AAPI Women Lead. As a part of her work in ending racial and gender-based violence, she leads national research projects on race, gender, and violence. Wun is a 2020 Soros Justice Fellow, a former National Science Foundation fellow, and a recipient of numerous awards, including the 2021 California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus Excellence in Civil Rights award and 2021 Gold House A100 award. Her research has been published in academic journals, anthologies, and online platforms. She is also a former high school teacher, college educator, sex worker, and sexual assault counselor. SPEAKERS Sheng Thao Oakland City Council President Pro Tem Connie Wun Ph.D., Executive Director and Co-founder, AAPI Women Lead Michelle Meow Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Host In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on May 19th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uncarcerated explores the world of prison reform, abolition, justice reform, and formerly incarcerated individuals' personal journeys. In this episode, we hit an absolute home run with an absolute jewel of a person, Jhody Polk. Jhody is a force of nature. She has many accomplishments - Founder and President of the Legal Empowerment Advocacy Hub (LEAH), Soros Justice Fellow, former director of Community Justice at the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, and so much more... but most importantly, she's Jhody, one of the best humans we've ever encountered. So subscribe and enjoy this enlightening engagement. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/leigh-scott5/support

James Kilgore is an activist , writer and educator based in Urbana, Illinois. He is a Soros Justice Fellow for 2017-18. His project, Challenging E-Carceration, focuses on electronic monitoring in the criminal legal system. His book "Understanding E-Carceration" is available anywhere books are sold. https://www.challengingecarceration.org/2021/10/23/houston-em-use-skyrockets-during-pandemic/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tntbsmedia/message

Your earbuds will break out of AgSeg when producer and Underground Scholar Danny Murillo unites the Hard Luck Show and California Families To Abolish Solitary Confinement with support from Unlock The Box for a show with Dolores Canales is the Community Outreach Director for The Bail Project. previously a Soros Justice Fellow, the co-founder of California Families To Abolish Solitary Confinement and the founder of Family UNIty Network and serves on the board of National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls and Michael Saavedra Legal Coordinator & Youth Mentor: L.A. Youth Justice Coalition, UCLA Underground Scholar (American Indian & Chicano Studies) to reveal the insidious ways the DCDR tried to get around the hard fought Ashker-Brown settlement, the merger yards, the hypocritical use of confidential informants. These experts share their experience and knowledge, to show that the fight must go on and continue to apply pressure to the corrupt correctional system for all Californians. The episode serves as a toolkit to help other states follow California's lead to end long-term solitary confinement.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-hard-luck-show/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In Episode 3 of Free World, you'll hear our very first guest Dolores Canales share her story of resilience through her journey on both sides of the walls. Dolores will guide you through the barriers that she navigated as she helped those inside and continues to advocate for the women and men that she feels so passionately about. You'll hear about the challenges she faced, turning herself into custody, and finding shared strength with a young boy who taught her to enjoy the ride. An ARC member, Dolores Canales is the Community Outreach Director for The Bail Project. Previously a Soros Justice Fellow, Dolores is the co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement and worked as a youth coordinator for the Orangewood Children's Foundation. She is the founder of Family UnIty Network and serves on the board of National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. Dolores brings a wealth of leadership experience in organizing with those personally affected by incarceration, drawing from her own experiences as well as having a family member who is incarcerated. She currently serves as The Director for the National Network of Solitary Survivors and Families project and advocates to end the use of solitary confinement.

What would it take to make Detroit a “just city” – an actual sanctuary of justice for its residents? Amanda Alexander, founder and Executive Director of the Detroit Justice Center is working on exactly that. Based on a wide range of experiences – from learning alongside ACT-UP AIDS activists, to spending time in newly post-apartheid South Africa, to the Movement for Black Lives – Alexander combines her background as a historian and an attorney to reimagine safety and justice in Detroit.In this episode of Shades of Freedom, Alexander weaves together her own experiences, and the long history of global civil rights movements, to discuss what's going on right now in Detroit, including innovative supports for community members that prevent contact with the legal system in the first place, shifting funds from a focus on policing to prevention, and supporting communities to define and create their own safety.Guest BiographyAmanda Alexander, founding Executive Director of the Detroit Justice Center, is a racial justice lawyer and historian who works alongside community-based movements to end mass incarceration and build thriving and inclusive cities. Originally from Michigan, Amanda has worked at the intersection of racial justice and community development in Detroit, New York, and South Africa for more than 15 years.Amanda is a Senior Research Scholar at University of Michigan Law School, where she has taught Law & Social Movements and was an attorney in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic. She was a 2015-2018 member of the Michigan Society of Fellows with appointments in Law and Afro-American & African Studies. As a Soros Justice Fellow, Amanda launched the Prison & Family Justice Project at University of Michigan Law School to provide legal representation to incarcerated parents and advocate for families divided by the prison and foster care systems.Amanda serves on the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, appointed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to develop ambitious and innovative strategies to reduce Michigan's jail population. She has served on the national steering committee of Law for Black Lives, and is a board member of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership.Amanda's advocacy and research have won the support of an Echoing Green Fellowship, Law for Black Lives/Movement Law Lab Legal Innovator Fellowship, Social Science Research Council Fellowship, Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, and other fellowships and grants. She is the recipient of the NAACP-Detroit's Great Expectations Award, the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative's Racial Justice Cultivator Award, and the A. Philip Randolph Institute's Community Builder Award.Amanda received her JD from Yale Law School, her PhD in international history from Columbia University, and her BA from Harvard College. Previously she has worked with the Detroit Center for Family Advocacy, the Bronx Defenders, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the Centre for Civil Society in Durban, South Africa. Her writing has been published in The Globe & Mail, Detroit Free Press, Michigan Journal of Race & Law, Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy, Michigan Child Welfare Law Journal, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Review of African Political Economy, and other publications.As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, The Aspen Institute is nonpartisan and does not endorse, support, or oppose political candidates or parties. Further, the views and opinions of our guests and speakers do not necessarily reflect those of The Aspen Institute.Visit us online at The Aspen Institute Criminal Justice Reform Initiative and follow us on Twitter @AspenCJRI.

Abolitionist feminists discuss how white supremacy and criminalization shape the experiences of gendered racial violence for Asian people. Violence targeting Asian Americans in an era of global pandemic and economic rupture have raised clashing Asian American responses -- anti-Asian hate crimes legislation, one the one hand, and feminist abolitionist strategies, on the other. For sex workers, criminalized and incarcerated people, and survivors of domestic and sexual violence, the fight to end anti-Asian violence cannot be isolated to conversations of racism alone. Join us for a panel discussion with (Southeast and East) Asian American abolitionist organizers on how white supremacy and criminalization shape the experiences of gendered racial violence for Asian people. Panelists will focus on the ways that stigma, abandonment, and violence from within Asian American communities can lead to false solutions and increased harm for the most vulnerable among us. In doing so, we will explore what organizing looks like and the interventions that Asian American abolitionist feminists are making in our political work and in our lives. Speakers: Yves Tong Nguyen (they/she) is a queer and disabled Viet cultural worker and sex worker whose organizing home is with Survived & Punished NY and Red Canary Song. Yves is concerned with supporting survivors of all forms of violence through organizing and informal community support. Ny Nourn (she/her) works as a Community Advocate at Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus (ALC). She is an organizer with Survived and Punished California, Council Member with the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, and member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, supporting the release of incarcerated domestic violence survivors and immigrants facing deportation. Ny is also a formerly incarcerated domestic violence survivor, who after serving 16 years in prison was immediately detained by ICE. After many months of advocacy from community groups across California, Ny walked out of ICE detention. In June of 2020, Ny was granted a full and unconditional pardon preventing her deportation to Cambodia. Hyejin Shim (she/her) is a queer Korean organizer based in Oakland, California. She is a cofounder of Survived and Punished, and organizes with Survived and Punished CA. She has a decade's experience in local and national anti-violence work, particularly with queer/trans immigrant and refugee survivors of gender violence. Connie Wun, PhD, (she/her) is co-founder of AAPI Women Lead. She has been an educator, researcher, writer and organizer working on issues of racial and gender violence for nearly 25 years. She is a 2020 Soros Justice Fellow and is currently leading community-driven research projects on state violence, sexual violence, race and gender. Moderator: Stephanie Cho (she/her) is the Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. She has over 20 years of experience in labor and community organizing, strategy planning, and fundraising at the local and national level. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/qntARpxQ1WQ Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

“We have a country that, at its core, is rooted in racism and slavery.” We can't untangle mass incarceration from this country's deep and ongoing history of oppression if we truly want to transform our notion of justice and prevent harm. After serving nearly 2 decades in prison, Troy Williams is on a mission to abolish what he considers a modern day form of slavery—prison—and to use his voice and his camera to help people like himself tell their stories. Troy is (among many things) the Executive Director of Restorative Media and a 2018 Soros Justice Fellow. While incarcerated, he founded, hosted, and produced the San Quentin Prison Report. Connect with Troy: Instagram: @troywilliamsjournal Twitter: @troywmsjournal Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/troywmsjournal Website: https://troywilliamsjournal.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ashley-asti/message

Join Law for Black Lives, Amna Akbar and Derecka Purnell for a discussion about what it means for lawyers to build the power of the law. Law for Black Lives is a national community of radical lawyers and legal workers committed to transforming the law and building the power of organizing to defend, protect and advance Black Liberation across the globe. ---------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Amna Akbar is a professor of law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. She writes about policing and social movements, with a focus on grassroots demands for social change. Derecka Purnell is is a human rights lawyer, writer, and organizer. Since graduating from Harvard Law School, she has worked to end police and prison violence nationwide by providing legal assistance, research, and trainings to community based organizations through an abolitionist framework. Derecka is currently a columnist at The Guardian and Deputy Director of Spirit of Justice Center. She is the author for the forthcoming book Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. Marbre Stahly-Butts, Executive Director of Law for Black Lives works closely with organizers and communities across the country to advance and actualize radical policy. Marbre is currently a member of the Advisory Committee for National Bail Out Collective, the group behind Black Mama's Day Bail Out. She currently serves on the Leadership Team of the Movement For Black Lives Policy Table and helped develop the Vision for Black Lives Policy Platform. Since graduating from Yale Law School in 2013, Marbre has supported local and national organizations from across the country in their policy development and advocacy. She joined the Center for Popular Democracy as a Soros Justice Fellow in Fall 2013. Her Soros Justice work focused on organizing and working with families affected by aggressive policing and criminal justice policies in New York City in order to develop meaningful bottom up policy reforms. While in law school, Marbre focused on the intersection of criminal justice and civil rights and gained legal experience with the Bronx Defenders, the Equal Justice Initiative and the Prison Policy Initiative. Before law school Marbre received her Masters in African Studies from Oxford University and worked in Zimbabwe organizing communities impacted by violence and then in South Africa teaching at Nelson Mandela's alma mater. Marbre graduated from Columbia University, with a BA in African-American History and Human Rights. ---------------------------------------------------- This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and Law for Black Lives. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/Jxvem9THmsc Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Instead of assuming what people want, we should be asking them what they need.  This week Amanda speaks with Juvenile Law Center lawyer, Christina Sorenson, about the foster care to prison pipeline and the history of foster care in the United States. It's difficult to understand how foster care got where it is today without discussing the history of it's origin in the commodification of children.  Foster care isn't always to the benefit of the child, either. The common (puritan) perception of what is needed isn't what has been linked to healthy child development, but many find themselves in situations that are beyond their control. This often puts children into institutional care where there isn't an opportunity to acquire skills that are needed to healthily exist in society. Does the United States government give communities what they need in order to succeed? The short answer is ‘no'.  Christina and Amanda discuss the differences in determining age between white children, native children, and children of color--it wasn't the same for everyone. How does this system continue to perpetuate the adultification of children of color and the pipeline to prison? Why is removing a child from their home more cost effective than giving families the tools they need to thrive.  Christina graduated from the Richmond School of Law in 2015. Afterwards she clerked at the Unified Family Court in Delaware. Christina is a Soros Justice Fellow, which funds outstanding individuals to undertake projects that advance reform, spur debate, and catalyze change on a range of issues facing the United States criminal justice system.  Additional resources: Financial incentives Blind removals Historical perspective Follow the Juvenile Law Center on Instagram Follow the show on Instagram Follow the Missing Sock Network and donate to our Patreon for access to bonus content and more! Questions about this episode? Comments? Wanna say 'hi'? Email the show!

A recent report from the American Bar Association portrayed the nation’s legal deserts – large swaths of the country in which there are few or no lawyers. That report followed from a 2018 paper published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review that documented these legal deserts and rural America’s increasingly dire access-to-justice crisis.  Our guest this week is one of the authors of that paper, Lauren Sudeall, associate professor of law and founding faculty director of the Center for Access to Justice at Georgia State University College of Law. We talk about legal deserts and about Sudeall’s other research, in which she focuses on access to the courts, in both the civil and criminal contexts, and on how lower-income individuals navigate the legal system, either with or without the help of a lawyer. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, Sudeall clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt. She then worked at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, first as a Soros Justice Fellow and later as a staff attorney. At the Southern Center, she represented indigent capital clients in Georgia and Alabama and litigated civil claims regarding constitutional violations within the criminal justice system, based primarily on the right to counsel. She serves on the Southern Center’s board of directors, the Indigent Defense Committee of the State Bar of Georgia, and the board of advisors for the Systemic Justice Project at Harvard Law School.  If you would like to share a comment on this show, you can record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We will play it in a future episode.  Thank You To Our Sponsors A huge thanks to our sponsor, ASG LegalTech, the company bringing innovation to the legal space with modern and affordable software solutions. ASG LegalTech’s suite of technology includes the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform, Headnote. We appreciate their support.  A reminder that we are now on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our leading Patreon member Allen Rodriguez and ONE400 for your support!

Our guest this week is Ebony Underwood. Ebony is a Soros Justice Fellow and the daughter of William Underwood, who has served decades of a cruel and unnecessarily harsh mandatory life sentence without parole. As the founder and CEO of We Got Us Now, Ebony is an advocate for children impacted by parental incarceration and keeping families connected and doing incredible and important work. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alyssa-milano-sorry-not-sorry/message

On this bonus episode, Damon chops it up with AirGo alum and community visionary Bella Bahhs on her IG Live about intracommunity violence, and how abolition can best respond to and transform this harm. Bella BAHHS (Black Ancestors Here Healing Society) is a 2017 Soros Justice Fellow and Architect of Community Construction at The Decarceration Collective, an anti-carceral law firm and consultancy.

In Richmond, Virginia, you encounter monuments, old and new – on Monument Avenue one-hundred-year-old Confederate generals stand alongside, since 1996, a statue honoring African American Tennis icon Arthur Ashe. Nearby, Kehinde Wiley’s new statue, Rumours of War, sits outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a new permanent sculpture moved there following its premiere in New York’s Times Square last year. But the makeup of Monument Avenue may soon change. Just in the last few days, and after years of activism and organizing across the state, Governor Ralph Northam signed a Confederate Monuments Bill. Starting in summer 2020, local municipalities in Virginia can remove, relocate or contextualize monuments as they see fit.Last year, in anticipation of the shifts at the state level, Richmond’s Mayor Levar Stoney convened a History and Culture Commission. Its chair, Free Egunfemi Bangura, our guest today, is a tactical urbanist who founded Untold RVA. She pursues ways to memorialize beyond bronze and marble. Bangura illuminates the connections between language and power.“I promised myself I would always become a historian. And so I just feel like that was the earliest part of when I saw that history was going to be controlled by the dominant narrative, and that the dominant narrative was going to do nothing to try to make sure that people had a balanced understanding of their own history, and that you weren't going to learn anything about Richmond or the struggles of Richmond,” says Bangura.This episode, we speak to Bangura about her work in “Commemorative Justice,” a term she coined. She also breaks down her projects that have left an imprint on Richmond, and how traveling outside of the country has shifted her thinking on her homegrown projects.Bangura is a Soros Justice Fellow, a bureau chief at the United States Department of Arts and Culture, and 2019 Monument Lab Fellow. We collaborate together, including on an upcoming project called Shaping the Past, a partnership with the Goethe Institute and German Federal Agency for Civic Education.

Panel Discussion with Subject/Cinematographer & SOROS Justice Fellow (2018) Troy Williams, Producer, Social Justice Advocate and Attorney Erin Kenway, and Former Los Angeles Public Defender and 1st Filmmaker to have access to VOEG Processes* at San Quentin, Director Katherin Hervey.  Website: www.theprisonwithin.org The post The Prison Within appeared first on Restorative Justice On The Rise.

This week we’re very excited to bring you a conversation with Mariame Kaba.  Mariame is an organizer, educator and curator. Her work focuses on ending violence, dismantling the prison industrial complex, transformative justice and supporting youth leadership development. After over 20 years of living and organizing in Chicago, she moved back to her hometown of New York City in May 2016. In this episode we talk to Mariame about where her interest in US Communist Party came from and talk about some of the figures, cases, positions and formations within and around CPUSA that have historical significance for her and that drew Black women into party membership particularly in the first half of the 20th century before McCarthyism really took hold. In particular Mariame talks about the CPUSA’s many examples of mass participatory defense work. We also talk about her work around clemency with FreeThemNY. We talk a little bit about Survived and Punished and Mariame’s interest in undermining the ways that the prison industrial complex violently enforces gender We end by taking a little time talking about what it means to call a protest “direct action,” and discussing recent discourses in the mainstream around “civility” in relation to protests deemed too provocative by the political class. About our guest: Mariame Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Prior to starting NIA, she worked as a program officer for education and youth development at the Steans Family Foundation where I focused on grantmaking and program evaluation. She co-founded multiple organizations and projects over the years including the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander and the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) among others. She has also served on numerous nonprofit boards. She has extensive experience working on issues of racial justice, gender justice, transformative/restorative justice and multiple forms of violence. She has been active in the anti-violence against women and girls movement since 1989. Her experience includes coordinating emergency shelter services at Sanctuary for Families in New York City, serving as the co-chair of the Women of Color Committee at the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, working as the prevention and education manager at Friends of Battered Women and their Children (now called Between Friends), serving on the founding advisory board of the Women and Girls Collective Action Network (WGCAN), and being a member of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. She co-founded and currently organizes with the Survived and Punished collective and is a founding member of the Just Practice Collaborative. She served as a member of the editorial board of Violence Against Women: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal from January 2003 to December 2008. She is the co-editor (along with Michelle VanNatta) of a special issue of the journal about teen girls’ experiences of and resistance to violence published in December 2007. She has written and co-authored reports, articles, essays, curricula, zines, and more. She is currently an active board member of the Black Scholar. She runs the blog Prison Culture. In 2018, she co-authored the guidebook “Lifting As They Climbed” and published a children’s book titled “Missing Daddy.” She was a member and co-founder of We Charge Genocide, an inter-generational effort which documented police brutality and violence in Chicago and sent youth organizers to Geneva, Switzerland to present their report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. She is an advisory board member of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, a group (along with Project NIA and WCG) that worked to get the Chicago City Council to pass a reparations law providing restitution to the victims of Jon Burge, a police commander who tortured more than 200 criminal suspects, most of them black men, from the 1970s through the early 1990s. She is a founding advisory board member of the Chicago Community Bond Fund. The CCBF pays bond for people charged with crimes in Cook County, Illinois. Through a revolving fund, CCBF supports individuals whose communities cannot afford to pay the bonds themselves and who have been impacted by structural violence. She is also a member of Critical Resistance’s community advisory board. Critical Resistance’s vision is the creation of genuinely healthy, stable communities that respond to harm without relying on imprisonment and punishment. She was a 2016-2017 Soros Justice Fellow where she extended and expanded my work to end the criminalization of survivors of violence. Currently she is a researcher in residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women through September 2020. She is co-leading a new initiative called Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action with Andrea J. Ritchie. Combining participatory research, data analysis, and systemic advocacy, Andrea and Mariame will work in partnership with local campaigns to identify primary pathways, policing practices, charges, and points of intervention to address the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for public order, survival, drug, child welfare and self-defense related offenses. Research will be disseminated in accessible formats for use by organizers, advocates, policymakers, media makers, and philanthropic partners working to interrupt criminalization at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. This initiative will also host convenings of researchers, organizers, advocates, policymakers, and philanthropic partners on key topics relating to violence and criminalization, and support partners in developing and implementing campaigns designed to interrupt criminalization of women, girls, trans and GNC people of color. She has a long history in the fields of education and youth development, having taught high school and college students in New York and Chicago. She has taught sociology and Black studies courses at Northeastern Illinois University, Northwestern University, and Columbia University. She has developed and facilitated many workshops and presented at events. She was a founding board member of the Education for Liberation Network. She studied sociology at McGill University, City College of New York, and Northwestern University. She has received several honors and awards for my work over the years. She am occasionally available to consult on various topics.

Teresa Y. Hodge is Soros Justice Fellow, tech startup founder, serial entrepreneur, and is on a first name basis with music mega star, John Legend.  She also spent five years in federal prison beginning in her early 40’s. In this episode Teresa speaks about the way she “downsized” for prison, her relationship with her daughter, and she drops serious jewels about remaining relevant despite prison. More information this episode of Decarcerated: Teresa’s organization, Mission Launch - http://www.mission-launch.org/ Teresa’s TEDx Talk: “We Have Made Coming Home From Prison Entirely Too Hard: https://youtu.be/ibcgMS-0mAs   “Why John Legend is Backing Startups By These Former Inmates,” Fast Company - https://www.fastcompany.com/40503210/why-john-legend-is-backing-startups-launched-by-these-former-inmates   Tweet about this episode: #decarceratedpodcast | @decarceratedpod |@ _marlonpeterson Reach out to Calvin: Twitter: @TeresaYHodge| IG: TeresaYHodge Leave a review on Itunes, Soundcloud, IHeartRadio, Spotify, or wherever you subscribe. Please subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.  Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.  Subscribe. Subscribe.  You can also send us an email with show comments and suggestions at decarcerated@beprecedential.com.

This week’s episode of the #Decarcerated podcast features founder of Ladies of Hope Ministries, Topeka K. Sam.  Created to help disenfranchised & marginalized women transition back into society, Topeka has also created a safe place for women and girls to call home after being released from jails and prisons.  In this episode she shares her inspiration behind Hope House NYC and also gives us a look into her entrepreneurial spirit...having owned a cell phone and sex toy business in the past.  Topeka is a Soros Justice Fellow and is featured in Van Jones’ #cut50 “Dignity” campaign. Bet you didn't see that one coming!  Check it out and let us know what you think! Learn more this episode, including Bryan Stevenson’s exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum: Information about The Ladies of hope Ministries: http://www.thelohm.org/aboutus/ #cut50 Dignity for Incarcerated Women Campaign: https://www.cut50.org/dignity The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls: https://nationalcouncil.us/about/ Teen Vogue op-ed: I’m on Parole and It’s Like Another Form of Incarceration: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/parole-incarceration-week-kids-incarcerated Tweet about this episode: #decarceratedpodcast /@decarceratedpod /  _marlonpeterson Reach out to: Topeka K. Sam @theLOHM  

Recorded in March 2017 - Claudia Carvajal Lopez ’18 is a third-year law student at NYU School of Law. She is an AnBryce scholar and is on the Law Review, and she previously served as executive co-chair of the Latino Law Students Association (LaLSA) during the 2016-17 academic year. Carvajal Lopez was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, and moved to Oakland, California, when she was five years old. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in May 2012. After graduating from college, Carvajal Lopez spent a few years working as a paralegal at an immigration law firm. She was an SEO scholar the summer before she started law school and spent the summer after her first year of law school at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. She worked this past summer at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. Alina Das ’05 is a Professor of Clinical Law at NYU School of Law, where she co-teaches and co-directs the Immigrant Rights Clinic. She and her clinic students represent immigrants and community organizations in litigation and advocacy to advance immigrant rights locally and across the country. In addition to her teaching, Das engages in scholarship on deportation and detention issues, particularly at the intersection of immigration and criminal law. Das also serves as faculty director of the NYU Latinx Rights Scholars Program. Prior to joining the Law School, Das was a Soros Justice Fellow and staff attorney with the Immigrant Defense Project, and clerked for Judge Kermit V. Lipez of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Das graduated magna cum laude with an AB in government from Harvard University, and graduated cum laude from NYU Law as a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar with a joint MPA from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service. Das is a recipient of the LexisNexis Matthew Bender Daniel Levy Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Immigration Law, the NYU Law Podell Distinguished Teaching Award, the NYU Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award, and the NYU Center for Multicultural Education & Programs Nia Faculty Award.

Butterflies of Wisdom is a podcast where we want to share your story. We want to share your knowledge if you have a small business if you are an author or a Doctor, or whatever you are. With a disability or not, we want to share your story to inspire others. To learn more about Butterflies of Wisdom visithttp://butterfliesofwisdom.weebly.com/ Be sure to FOLLOW this program https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wins-women-of-wisdom/id1060801905. To find out more about Challenge Aspen go tohttps://challengeaspen.org. To see how Win walk and about Ekso go to http://www.bridgingbionics.org/, or email Amanda Boxtel atamanda@bridgingbionics.org.   On Butterflies of Wisdom today, Best-Selling Author, Win C welcomes Marlon Peterson. Marlon is an international social and criminal justice advocate, writer, organizational trainer, and educator who spent ten years in New York State prisons. He is the host of the podcast, Decarcerated,  a Soros Justice Fellow, Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar, a 2015 Ebony Magazine Power 100 honoree, and TED Resident. To learn more about Marlon visithttp://marlonpeterson.com/. To find out more about Win Kelly Charles visit https://wincharles.wix.com/win-charles. To follow Win on Twitter go to @winkellycharles. To support Win on Instagram go to winkcharles. To assist win on Snapchat go to Wcharles422. To see Win's art go to https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/2-win-charles.html. "Books for Books," you buy Win's books so she can purchase books for school. "Getting through school is a 'win' for her fans and a 'win' for her."Please send feedback to Win by email her at winwwow@gmail.com, or go to http://survey.libsyn.com/winwisdom and http://survey.libsyn.com/thebutterfly. To be on the show, please fill out the intake at http://bit.ly/bow2017. Butterflies of Wisdom sponsored by Kittr a new social media tool that is bringing about new ways of posting on Twitter. It's fun, full of free content you can use, helps you schedule at the best times, is easy to use, and it will help you get more followers. Visit Kittr at gokittr.com. This is a 20% off code for www.gracedbygrit.com. The code will be XOBUTTERFLIES. If you would like to support Butterflies of Wisdom go to https://www.patreon.com/wcharles. If you want to check out what Win’s friend, Dannidoll, is doing (a.k.a. Dannielle) go to https://www.facebook.com/dannidolltheragdollclown/?notif_t=page_invite_accepted¬if_id=1492366163404241. To learn more about Danielle visit http://www.dancanshred.com. To learn about the magic of Siri go to https://www.udemy.com/writing-a-book-using-siri/?utm_campaign=email&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email. If you want to donate Butterflies of Wisdom, please send a PayPal donation toaspenrosearts@gmail.com or aspenwin@gmail.com. Please donate to Challenge Aspen or the Bridging Bionics Foundation. Please send a check in the mail so 100% goes to Bridging Bionics Foundation.    In the Memo section have people write: In honor of Win Charles. Please donate to the charity of your choice thank you in advance, Win.   Send to:   Challenge Aspen PO Box 6639 Snowmass Village, CO 81615 Or give online at https://challengeaspen.org.   Bridging Bionics Foundation  PO Box 3767 Basalt, CO 81621   Thank you Win   Tuesday notes from fans:   Jennifer is inviting you to be a part of Jenny’s Tutoring in Jackson, NJ area. She can tutor online, SKYPE, or on the phone as well. She can tutor in the following areas:  American Sign Language, English as a Second Language, Psychology, History, Special Needs, basic skills (reading, writing and math), career services and essays etc. Jennifer Beilis is a current American Sign Language Professor on the college level and past Psychology Professor as well. She holds her Master’s degree in Education and Deafness Rehabilitation, New York University, SCPI, BA in Psychology, Rowan University and AA in Social Sciences from Brookdale Community College. You can email or call her at Jenny08520@aol.com or (732)534-6422, FBJenny08520@aol.com or Twitter @JenniferBeilis and Linked In #JenniferBeilis.   Dear Ones. Beloveds. I am writing to you with so much deep Love, Joy Gratitude towards this new Passionate Powerful Prayer of a Project that I feel CALLED to NEED. In 2014, Mama and I so excitedly (you have no idea how excited I was) had the beyond beautifully blessed Blessing of attending Dear Oprah Winfrey's "Live Your Best Life Tour" in Newark N J at the Prudential Center. Among the MANY luminaries there, Iyanla Vanzant. Dear One. Dear Illuminating Iyanla was there and she shared this beyond incredible insight that has stayed with me ever since (that really had not become an "aha" moment for me in my life until about 3 years after this unforgettable event).She said...you ready Beloveds? She said "You are all going through the Labor Pains of Life..." Yep. And it wasn't until a few years later that I have come to the Radiant Realization that I AM just becoming FULL TERM...let me share a little about what I mean by that...for those of you that don't know my full life story, I was born prematurely. I was born 3 1/2 months early, weighing only 1 pound 5 ounces. I did not know my parents did not know if I was going to survive...but by the Grace of God, I AM here and I DID survive and thrive and just NOW I AM being born. I am going through the "Labor Pains of Life" and I am just NOW coming into my OWN as a Warrior Woman. And I NEED YOUR help in helping me help myself towards my "Rites of Passage" into deeper denser delicious Warrior Womanhoodness. This women's retreat means more to me than any of you will ever know. 2017 is the year of Warriorness for me on many levels in my life and to have the amazing unforgettable beyond beautifully blessed experience of studying with none other than Ms. Ilunimating Iyanla Vanzant...oh my goodness! I will love you guys forever! With this AMAZING INCREDIBLE Rite of Passage, I will come into my OWN as a better more connected Woman, Partner, as a better Yoga Teacher, student, disability activist writer, aspiring author, passionate conscious activist, speaker... I thank you all BEYOND for this generous gift of gratitude of life of BECOMING. I love you all.Blessed Be. Onward.xx     Thank you Win. Thank you Everyone!  

Get ready for a great one! On this week's podcast, we talk with Marlon Peterson about mass incarceration: what it is, what are the myths about prison and people who are locked up, and most importantly how to fight back and change these systems. Marlon is an international social and criminal justice advocate, writer, organizational trainer, and educator who spent 10 years in New York State prisons. He is the host of the podcast, #Decarcerated, a Soros Justice Fellow, Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar, a 2015 Ebony Magazine Power 100 honoree, and TED Resident. Check him out at: http://www.marlonpeterson.com/.

"Happy New Breath."  Eddy Zheng starts all his conversations with those words, and in this episode he will explain why.  Eddy is a Asian Pacific Islander based in Oakland who spent 21-years in prison.  His journey from China to San Quentin to bouts with obtaining citizenship are documented in the critically-acclaimed documentary about his life, Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story. Eddy speaks about his being a 16-year old in California prisons, spending 11-months in solitary confinement,  his favorite hip hop song, and more. Eddy is a 2015 Soros Justice Fellow, a apart of John Legend's Free America campaign, and was pardoned by California Governor Jerry Brown.  Eddy is going to blow your mind.  To find out about Eddy check out: Eddy's website: http://eddyzheng.com/ Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story: http://eddyzhengstory.com/hello-world-2/ Tweet about this episode at #decarceratedpodcast /@decarceratedpod /                                                @_marlonpeterson / @EddyZ2007

An evening of conversation with local and national voices on police violence in Springfield, MA and beyond, featuring Kissa Owens (mother of Delano Walker), Andrea Ritchie (attorney, writer, Soros Justice Fellow), ShaeShae Quest (Out Now), and Rhonda Y. Williams (scholar and community organizer). Presented by the University of Massachusetts Amherst History Department's 2016-2017 Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, Out Now, Project Operation Change and Springfield Technical Community College. October 26, 2016. Image Credit: "Freedom" by Ronnie Goodman, www.ronniegoodman.com

Former heroin user, Maia Szalavitz, one of the premier American journalists covering addiction and drugs today visits The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Wednesday, April 13, 3 pm ET to talk about her new, highly-controversial book UNBROKEN BRAIN: A REVOLUTIONARY NEW WAY OF UNDERSTANDING ADDICTION.With addiction running rampant in our society, what better time to take a look at the Addiction Movement? Szalavitz who at one point in her storied drug career was shooting up as much as 40 times a day challenges both the idea of the addict's “broken brain” and the simple notion of an “addictive personality.” The author of HELP AT ANY COST the first book-length expose of the “tough love” business that dominates addiction treatment, her work appears in publications such as Time dot com, the New York Times, Scientific American, Elle, VICE, and New York magazine, among others. She is a 2015-2016 Soros Justice Fellow.Is addiction trapped in outdated twentieth-century ideas and in equally antiquated treatment? Are Alcoholic's Anonymous and other treatment modalities outdated? A conversation about heroin, painkiller overdoses, addictive behavior, legalization of marijuana and treatment, Wednesday, April 13, 3 pm ET with author Maia Szalavitz on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show. For more information visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Keith Wallace is a third year M.F.A. actor at UC San Diego. He joins us to talk about The Bitter Game, a new work debuting this weekend at LaJolla Playhouse in San Diego. The director was recently seen in the East Bay directing Ubuntu Theatre's Brothers Size.  Mr. Wallace holds a B.A. in Drama from Morehouse College and is an alumnus of The British American Drama Academy. Maurice Poplar, Los Angeles based writer & filmmaker, speaks about his essay, Frankenstein Was a Black Dude. He is also directing the film: Donovan Quixote which traces the story of a young man through adulthood as he deals with the realities of the difficulties of growing up as a black man in America. Azadeh Zohrabi is the National Campaigner at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights where she works with communities and policy makers on ending mass criminalization and incarceration. Azadeh previously worked as a Soros Justice Fellow at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children where she served on the litigation team representing Pelican Bay prisoners in the federal lawsuit which resulted in a landmark agreement to end indefinite solitary confinement in California. Zoe Willmott, Project WHAT! Program Manager is also an alumnus. A native of San Francisco, Ms. Willmott came to Community Works after graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Urban Studies and Race and Gender History of the United States from Barnard College of Columbia University. Tailani Crawford, Project WHAT! Youth Advocate is 16 years old and is a Junior at Castro Valley High School. The Oakland native has been a youth advocate at the agency for 3 years now, where she has trained to over 100 service providers on how to better support and empathize with youth with incarcerated parents. Tailani is a college-bound junior with plans to one day return to work as full-time staff at Project WHAT!, and is also interested in pursuing physical therapy for sports.

Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole. —FROM THE NEW JIM CROW As the United States celebrates the nation's “triumph over race” with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status—much like their grandparents before them. In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America. A longtime civil rights advocate and litigator, Michelle Alexander was a 2005 Soros Justice Fellow. She holds a joint appointment at the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in Columbus, Ohio, where she lives. The New Jim Crow is her first book.

Nearly half of all young black men in America are behind bars, on parole or probation. Legal scholars Michelle Alexander and Paul Butler argue that the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a system of racial control, targeting black men and decimating communities of color.In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. Yet it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans -- employment and housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote and educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion of jury service.Paul Butler's book, Let's Get Free: A Hip Hop Theory of Justice, offers a powerful new vision of justice. Americans live in a society fueled by fear and fettered by the lock-'em-up culture that dominates our criminal justice system; we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, yet our streets are no safer. Part memoir, part manifesto, Let's Get Free takes a fresh investigative look at the dysfunctional politics of our broken justice system and proposes a series of controversial solutions.A longtime civil rights advocate and litigator, Michelle Alexander was a 2005 Soros Justice Fellow. She served for several years as director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California. She clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court, directed the Civil Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School, and appeared as a commentator on CNN and MSNBC. She is currently a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.Paul Butler is a former federal prosecutor and the country's leading expert on jury nullification. He regularly provides commentary for CNN, NPR, and Fox News. He has been featured on 60 Minutes and profiled and published in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and The Progressive. Butler is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. An award-winning law professor, he now teaches in the areas of criminal law, civil rights, and jurisprudence at George Washington University.Recorded On: Wednesday, March 31, 2010