|
Our Partakers Empowerment Program team at The Larger Conversation: Mass Incarceration, Creativity, and Healing event at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on November 17th. The PEP team (Ella Subramanian, Ben Helzner, Farouk Alhammod Alarify, Jessi Brewer, Liz Peterson, and Jana Antic) was joined by teaching assistants, Thomas Koonce and John Yang, and professor Dave Sherman.
Award-winning poet, lawyer, and author Reginald Dwayne Betts, Stacey Borden of New Beginnings Reentry Services, Erika Rumbley of the New Garden Society, and André de Quadros of the Prison Arts Project at Boston University discussed how incarceration affects communities and individuals and how arts can uplift those impacted by incarceration and make meaningful change.
| |
BEJI is a group of students, staff, and faculty who believe in the power of education to improve the lives of people impacted by incarceration. Together, we build educational pathways for those impacted by the carceral system and advance carceral studies on campus. If you're interested in learning about carceral issues and/or want to learn more about how to agitate & advocate for carceral justice, fill out our general interest form or visit: www.brandeis.edu/beji | |  |
|
Are you interested in getting involved in one of BEJI's programs?
Register for the Legal Studies Practicum in Experiences with Justice (LGLS 145A)! This two-credit course allows you to learn about the carceral system through a placement at an institution looking to do restorative work in the field of incarceration.
You can register for this course through Workday. Visit our website to see some of the programs you can get involved with through this course!
| | |
|
|
Finding Power through Education: John Yang's Journey
John Yang, a Partakers Empowerment Program graduate and teaching assistant, talks about his educational journey as an Emerson Prison Initiative graduate, his work with the Emerson Engagement Lab, his experience as a student at Emerson College, and his future plans.
Read more about John's story.
| | | |
|
The carceral can be defined as that which relates to prisons, imprisonment, or other formal methods of social control. BEJI is focused in carceral justice work, connecting resources to those who are impacted by the carceral and fostering education surrounding our collective tacit social ties to carceral spaces.
Understanding incarceration in the state of Massachusetts is essential to transforming and humanizing the carceral spaces surrounding us. Here is the Massachusetts carceral system by the numbers, and the scale of its impact:
| |
Massachusetts Carceral System Recent Updates | | |
 
|
|
Massachusetts Department of Corrections Starts Body Cam Pilot Program
Fifty officers at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster have been equipped with body cameras as part of a pilot program intended to promote transparency and safety. The implementation of the cameras is the first phase of a $1 million program. In January 2022, nine Black and Latino men who are or were incarcerated at this facility filed a federal lawsuit, accusing prison officials of orchestrating “weeks of unprovoked, retaliatory violence” against those incarcerated.
| |
BEJI works in collaboration with many community partners. Each month, we'll highlight a few of these partners and the incredible work that they do. | | |
|
Emerson Prison Initiative
Launched in 2017, the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI) aims to provide college education to those who are incarcerated.
EPI offers a pathway to earn a bachelor's degree in Media, Literature, and Culture to men incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord. In August 2022, ten students of the first cohort earned their degrees from Emerson College.
Learn More
| | |
Campus & Community Events
| |
Citizens for Juvenile Justice 2022 Leadership Celebration | |
Tuesday, December 6th
5:00 - 7:00 PM
Artist for Humanity Epicenter
Join CfJJ at the 28th Annual Leadership Celebration as we honor those who have advanced equity and justice for young people this year.
Register for the event online. Tickets are also available at the door.
| | |
Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library: BTB | |
Monday, December 5th
4:00 PM
| |
In this series we will introduce guest speakers that have been impacted by incarceration and community partners that provide resources and advocacy. This will be a safe space to share knowledge and experiences, as well as learn.
Register Here
| | |
|
When I leave my cell, I leave with a plan. I am headed to the trash, the ice machine, the phone, and back to my cell with my head down, my pace fast. I set my course, half hoping my folks won't answer my call and I can get back to my cell quicker, and half terrified that they won't, confirming my desolation. I count my steps. Somewhere between the trash and the ice, around step #73, a member of my community stops to say hello and ask me a friendly question. I am flooded with irritation. I snap...
Read More.
| | |
Journalism, Policy, and Community News | |
The New Geography of the Carceral State
Crane, Emma
Public Books, 06 Sept, 2022
| |
In 1979, the Think Tank—a group of citizen scientists incarcerated at a maximum-security prison in New York—published a report popularly known as the “Seven Neighborhoods Study.” Drawing on meticulous empirical research, the Think Tank found that 75 percent of all people incarcerated in the state of New York came from the same urban neighborhoods: Harlem and the Lower East Side in Manhattan, the South Bronx, South Jamaica in Queens, and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, and East New York in Brooklyn. These neighborhoods were poor, hyperpoliced, and predominantly Black and Latinx. One direct result of this geographically unequal distribution of policing and punishment was that 85 percent of people incarcerated in New York State were Black and Latinx....
Read More
| | |
Columbia Justice Lab - Emerging Adults at Rikers Overview
"There have been numerous official reports documenting the extreme violence and neglect at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex (“Rikers” or “Rikers Island”). Not only do people incarcerated at Rikers witness and experience harm, but.."
Read More
| | |
A Beating In Prison, A Long Wait For Justice: State Only Now Offering Compensation For Brutal 2014 Attack By Guards
Allen, Evan.
Boston Globe; Boston, Mass. 02 Oct 2022:
| |
There was little dispute about what happened to Justin Sharples on the second day of his prison stint at the MCI-Cedar Junction in Walpole.
A guard came up behind him on the evening of Sept. 16, 2014, and ordered him to turn around. Sharples obliged, and the guard began punching him in the face. Another guard joined in. Other guards watched. When Sharples picked himself up out of the pool of his blood on the floor, his skull was fractured, his eye socket shattered, and his eye drooped out of place.
The state prison didn't contest that its employees had launched the attack. In fact, internal affairs investigators found misconduct all around.....
Read more
| | | |
MARKING TIME: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration | | |
|
|
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration is an exhibition open at the Bell Gallery at Brown University. The exhibit explores the impact of the US prison system on contemporary visual art by highlighting artists who are or have been incarcerated alongside artists who have not been incarcerated but whose practices interrogate the carceral state. The exhibition is open until December 18, 2022.
Read more.
| |
Mutual Aid & Volunteer Opportunities | |
|
|
|
Founded in 1971, the SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people.

Donate Here
| | | |
|
 
|
|
The non-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative produces cutting-edge research to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization, and then sparks advocacy campaigns to create a more just society.
Donate Here
| | | |
|
 
|
|
The Sentencing Project advocates for effective and humane responses to crime that minimize imprisonment and criminalization of youth and adults by promoting racial, ethnic, economic, and gender justice.
Donate Here
| | | |
Job Posting - Portland State University Higher Education in Prison Program |  | |
The Portland State University's Higher Education in Prison Program is searching for a director to join its team.
The position entails strategy, planning, and leadership for PSU HEP, academic program management, development and fundraising, coordination of and participation in prison education advisory groups and communities of practice, administrative and operational oversight, and collaboration with PSU Advising and Career Services, including Pathway Directors, as well as support services in GDI, Student Affairs, and Financial Aid.
People who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system are encouraged to apply.
The mission of Portland State University’s (PSU) Higher Education in Prison Program (HEP) is to reverse the school-to-prison pipeline by providing rigorous, quality higher education for people experiencing incarceration, and to support students post-release. Our vision is a community where the transformational power of education is accessible to all: changing lives, opening doors, and enhancing community safety and well-being.
We welcome candidates to apply here.
| | |
If you're interested in supporting BEJI, donate by clicking on the button below. | |
This Newsletter is created by Jana Antic and Lesedi Lerato. Our Supervising Editor is Jessi Brewer. This newsletter is created through community support and by highlighting the work of amazing carceral justice organizations in Massachusetts and the wider United States. For questions or to highlight your own work, organization, or event, contact janaantic@brandeis.edu or lesedimataboge@brandeis.edu. | | | | |
