Get involved in Criminal Justice Issues
►www.smartoncrimema.org Check out this Massachusetts resource for articles, how to contact your legislator, how to write a letter to the editor about an issue that is important and an abundant amount of material about prison issues in the state.
►www.realcostofprisons.org One of the best resources around for national information on prison issues, this site has an abundance of links that will help you understand where to go for many topics such as: activism and organizing, criminal justice policy, the corrections industry, capital punishment state departments of corrections and women’s issues.
►www.famm.org/index2.htm Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) is a national nonprofit organization that challenges mandatory sentencing laws. Mandatory minimums can propagate inflexible and excessive penalties. To change the system, FAMM promotes sentencing policies that give judges the discretion to sentence defendants according to their role in the offense, seriousness of the offense and potential for rehabilitation. You can join and get email updates.
►http://www.cjpc.org The Criminal Justice Policy Coalition (CJPC) is a member-based organization dedicated to effective, just, and humane criminal justice policy in Massachusetts. CJPC occasionally offers forums that seeks to expand the public discourse on criminal justice and promote dialogue. They also have archived information on their website about a number of critical criminal justice issues.
► http://www.prisonactivist.org/ The Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC) is a wonderful national clearinghouse for educators, activists, prisoners, and prisoners’ families. Its outreach efforts aim to build action networks.
►http://exprisoners.org EPOCA – Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement, a Massachusetts based organization.
►www.plsma.org Prisoners’ Legal Services promotes the safe, humane and lawful treatment of Massachusetts prisoners through civil rights litigation, administrative advocacy, client counseling, and outreach to policy makers and the public.
►http://blackstonian.com/info/ Blackstonian represents Black Boston, centrally in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan but really all throughout the state. They also do a bang up job on prison issues and have reports, special newspapersand critique about the important criminal justice issues facing Massachusetts.
►Prison Policy Initiative The Prison Policy Initiative documents the impact of mass incarceration on individuals, communities, and the national welfare in order to empower the public to improve criminal justice policy.
►Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project Blog A useful blog at Harvard run by law students that hits the major prison issues of the day.
Transforming Justice with the Arts
►http://cltl.umassd.edu/blog This is the blog called “Changing Lives, Changing Minds” dedicated to reform and is affiliated with Changing Lives Through Literature, an alternative founded on the power of literature to transform lives of people with criminal convictions which features a facilitator, a judge and aprobation officer who read books and hold discussions with clients. Also see http://cltl.umassd.edu/home-flash.cfm
►http://andstillwerise.org/ And Still we Rise s a collaborative theater project dedicated to healing, public awareness, and social change through empowering the voices of formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones. Check out their website for performances.
►http://prisontheatreconsortium.blogspot.com/ This is a networking/ storytelling site for people who facilitate performance work with prison inmates. The purpose of this site is to share information about the fantastic work being done all across the country and to serve as a resource for others who are interested in doing theatre/perfromance/dance/music behind bars.
►http://amiedowling.com/ Amie does amazing theatre/dance pieces with formerly incarcerated men and women and she also has worked inside. Her videos from performances and research leading to her work are detailed here. To see a video of her recent project, go here.
►http://p-care.org/ A blog of the Prison Communication, Activism, Research and Education Collective that is dedicated to ending incarceration abuses. Many are teachers and activists and the posts have great range.