Dr. Baz spoke about her travels to prisons around the world and what she has learned about incarceration globally; she spoke about the organization she founded, Incarceration Nations Network and her work for the Prison-to-College-Pipeline at John Jay College in New York.

Sofia shares their experience working as a Housing Advocate and Social Medicine Program Coordinator at the Lifespan Transitions Clinic and Social Medicine Programs in Rhode Island. They explain the Clinic’s role and impact in the Providence and Rhode Island community and center the stories and influence of a number of individuals and Community Healthcare Workers who have shaped the Clinics growth and development since its founding in 2018.

Kevin shares the story of his crime, incarceration, and reintigration process. When Boyd was 16, he gave his mother the keys to his abusive father’s residence. Although she had previously spoken about murdering Kevin’s father, her ex-husband, Kevin did not take her seriously. He wishes he had, because his mother murdered his father that night and framed him for the crime. After over 25 years of incarceration, Kevin was finally released when his case was re-tried with new laws and new evidence. He attributes his relative success reintegrating to his profession as a tradesman and his optimism. Boyd calls us to attend more to law and less to politics when it comes to performing and assessing legal proceedings. Otherwise, he says, “we play chess matches with people’s lives and we don’t think there’s consequences to that.”

Transcript

The interviewee spoke to their experiences working as a social worker providing mental health services in the criminal justice system. She described different approaches to working with clients, whether more restrictive or ones that offer more autonomy. Additionally, she offers her experiences in confronting the hierarchies and “rules” that govern mental health in the criminal justice system and the ways mental health professionals become overshadowed by correctional officers, police officers, and judges. Overall, she expresses her affinity for restorative approaches in working with incarcerated individuals.

Jane describes her struggles in visiting and sending books to her incarcerated niece, in addition to detailing her niece’s experiences with personal safety, community, and employment as a lifer in a women’s prison in Pennsylvania. She also discusses her friend’s rehabilitation and court experiences.

The founder of the nonprofit Prison Writers, Loen Kelley, talks about her experience forming the organization and her career in journalism.

The interviewee shares her experience with recovering from drug addiction and eventually becoming a substance abuse counselor for a non-profit organization.

The interviewee spoke on their experiences as a mental health provider in a reentry program that coordinates with a women’s prison. The participant reflects on how their clients’ sought a space to speak on mental health. The participant observed that incarcerated people felt unable to express their struggles with mental health within the prison system because of a “prison culture.” The participant did not witness specific mistreatment against incarcerated people within their field. The participant also emphasized their belief in a rehabilitative approach when working with incarcerated people. From the participant’s perspective, many incarcerated people have undergone trauma that needs to be addressed through a public health perspective. In working with the reentry program, the participant was surprised at how incarcerated women took the initiative in completing their tasks within the reentry program, and based on these experiences, the participant supports giving more autonomy to incarcerated people.

In this interview, Imam Encarnación narrates his experiences of serving as a chaplain of maximum and medium-security correctional facilities for twelve years. In his work in the prisons, he witnessed continuous violence against incarcerated people, from verbal abuse to rampant negligence to physical torture. He is highly critical of the structural conditions that bring people to prisons and subject them to “brutality,” in his words, once they are there. “The system is built to destroy Black and Brown men,” he concludes. As a warning, this interview contains detailed descriptions of physical violence, verbal abuse, overt racism, and torture that may be disturbing to some.

Transcript

In this interview, a case manager at both Reentry Campus Program and the Nonviolence Institute in Providence Rhode Island explains the variety of services her organization offers to assist individuals currently or previously incarcerated. She describes how her organizations work collaboratively with others within and outside of the state to provide comprehensive services for individuals at all reentry phases. She discusses how many of the state’s reentry services are accessed by word of mouth. She also discussed the unique difficulties people with incarceration experience face when looking for employment and housing.

Next, she talked about some of the challenges she has faced in providing services to incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. She describes how some of the services her organizations offer have pivoted or expanded and improve client services during the pandemic. Additionally, many of her clients faced technology access and knowledge barriers early in the pandemic, making navigating the reentry process more difficult.

She also described how the reentry programs she is a part of function as a larger community. Many of her current co-workers were former clients of the Reentry Campus Program or the Nonviolence Institute or had prior experiences with incarceration. Finally, she discussed the challenges of working against larger systems of oppression and racism that impact the lives of her clients. She ends on a positive note, describing how her organizations are working toward changing Rhode Island policies that disadvantage individuals with incarceration history and incorporating people with lived experience into policy discussions.