Ronald is a formerly incarcerated person who defended himself in prison, succesfully advocated for his own release, and now works as a nationally recognized activist for prison reform. The interview goes over Simpson-Bey’s experience as an incarcerated person, and as a leader within his prison family. In this, we hear stories of dehumanization, found family, and the barriers to education within the prison system. Simpson-Bey also describes life after prison and his vision for the future of incarceration through the decarceration movement. Simpson-Bey calls for an end to the systemic injustice of mass incarceration as it exists today.

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Cara shares her experiences volunteering as a tutor in a county jail as an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia. She discusses the jail’s focus on education, as well as particular tutees who impacted her and the obstacles they faced as they worked to get an education while incarcerated.

Professor Chrysanthi discusses her experiences working as a prison educator in a women’s prison near the University of Delaware teaching classes on women’s literature and gender studies. She shares stories of her relationships with her students, the hardest parts of teaching in prison, and what continues to motivate her to do this work. 

Miguel describes the process he went through to become a prison visitor and how he develops relationships with the individuals he visits. As the only Spanish-speaking person in his group of visitors, he was able to have meaningful conversations with other men in the prison who spoke the language. He also indicates that education is important to these men, but they fell prey to a cycle that marginalized and criminalized them because of limited opportunities.

Chaplain Coate’s first contact with incarcerated people happened when he was in college and started writing letters to people in prisons. He continued developing meaningful bonds with incarcerated people as a volunteer vising correctional facilities every week for over six years. Finding his purpose in serving incarcerated people as a faith-based leader, he decided to leave the Ph.D. program he attended and become a chaplain of correctional facilities. In this journey, he has encountered many challenges but has remained inspired by his service’s contribution to the lives of people he has reached. In this interview, he discusses how his position allows him to see many angles of prisons’ apparatus. These angles include the slow bureaucracy involved in implementing educational programs for incarcerated people, the “wall of silence” among staff to cover their abuses and wrongdoings, and the overrepresentation of African Americans in the carceral population of Wisconsin. Chaplain Coate also reflects on the stigma against incarcerated people that he sees in his Muslim communities in Wisconsin and the conversations that he has with fellow Muslims to dismantle these stereotypes.

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