Brandon Holmes is the New York City Campaign Coordinator for Just Leadership, an organization dedicated to cutting the US correctional population in half by 2030. JLUSA empowers people most affected by incarceration to drive policy reform. 

Johnny Perez advocates against mass incarceration and to end solitary confinement as the Director of U.S. Prison Program for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and as a member of the NY Advisory Committee to The US Civil Rights Commission and the NYC Bar Association's Correction and Re-entry Committee. We are also joined by a friend and a family member of Johnny to hear their experiences in solitary confinement. 

Kathy Morse was incarcerated on Rikers Island and shared her story in the recent Bill Moyers documentary, Rikers: An American Jail. 

Kathy is an advocate on social justice issues, concentrating on women's issues and improving the quality of educational programming in jails and prisons as well as the community upon release. Kathy worked for over thirty years as a paralegal and was the Division Manager in New York for the Petey Greene Program, which supplements educational programs in correctional institutions by preparing volunteers, both college students and members of the community, to provide free, quality tutoring and related programming to support the incarcerated people.

Author and speaker Joe Robinson joins us to talk about his story of incarceration and reentry.

His book Thinking Outside the Cell is an engaging, inspiring, information-packed business book designed to help the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated use what for many are innate entrepreneurial gifts in order to build the lives they want and break the cycle of recidivism. He is also the author of 7 Leadership Imperatives from a Wild Man.

When Ian Manuel was 13 years old, he was directed by older juveniles to commit a robbery. During the botched robbery attempt, a woman suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound. Ian turned himself in to the police and was charged as an adult with armed robbery and attempted murder.

Ian's attorney instructed him to plead guilty and told him he would receive a 15-year sentence. Ian accepted responsibility for his actions and pleaded guilty but was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

On October 29, 2010, EJI won a unanimous ruling from a Florida Court of Appeal, which concluded that juveniles convicted of attempted murder cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The Florida appeals court rejected the State's argument, holding that "simple logic dictates that attempted murder is a nonhomicide offense because death, by definition, has not occurred."

 Ian's death-in-prison sentence was vacated and he was resentenced. The victim forgave Ian and petitioned for his release, which happened in November of 2016.

College & Community Fellowship eliminates individual, social, and structural barriers to higher education, civic participation, and economic security for women with criminal convictions and their families. CCF envelops women in support services that help them re-build their sense of self-worth and develop leadership skills while they complete their higher education. Melanie Steinhardt is their Director of Development & Communications.

Dr. Vanda Seward discusses issues incarcerated individuals face in the prison and during reentry, as well as the roadblocks their loved ones go through when visiting.

Laura Whitehorn, Dave George and Anthony Dixon join us from the Releasing Aging People from Prison campaign. 

A discussion at the home of the Sewards about the impact of incarceration on their family.

Soffiyah Elijah works to alter the landscape of injustice in American courts and prisons as Founder and CEO of Alliance of Families for Justice.  Following, we discuss the incarceration of women with Donna Hylton, advocate and author, and Elaine Lord, Former NYS prison Warden.