Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Tech Company Aims to Disrupt Predatorial Prison Phone Industry

    February 17, 2021 |

    Colorlines |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States

    A free mobile app called Ameelio opens a free channel of communication between incarcerated people and their families, to avoid the price-gouging telephone services that prisons and jails authorize to charge people exorbitant rates to talk. Ameelio's app makes sending letters with photos easier than doing it by snail mail. Nonprofits can also use the free service to communicate with clients. Ameelio, which is supported by donations and grants, is piloting a video-conferencing service.

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  • These local nonprofits bring books to incarcerated individuals in North Carolina

    February 02, 2021 |

    The Daily Tar Heel |

    Text |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: United States, Durham, North Carolina

    Prison Books Collective and a partner organization, N.C. Women's Prison Book Project, for 15 years have collected donated books and then distributed them inside North Carolina prisons to incarcerated people who crave new reading material. Answering requests, which sometimes can be quite specific as to genre, the groups fulfill orders from their revolving supply. Combined, the groups make up to 75 shipments per week and in return hear from people inside about how meaningful the donated books are to them.

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  • St. Louis comedian shares story of redemption, reentry following prison sentence

    January 28, 2021 |

    KSDK-TV |

    Broadcast TV News |

    Under 3 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, St. Louis, Missouri

    When people emerge from long prison sentences, they can be in a hurry to put their lives back on track. But, when enrolled in a voluntary re-entry program called the Concordance Academy of Leadership, they first must go through intense mental health counseling that begins while they're incarcerated before they launch a search for a job or permanent housing. The St. Louis-based program boasts much lower-than-average recidivism rates, in part because it responds to post-release mistakes with more counseling rather than automatic punishment.

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  • How a project is training incarcerated people to become journalists

    January 26, 2021 |

    Poynter |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States

    In its first year, the Prison Journalism Project published hundreds of articles by more than 140 incarcerated writers in 28 states. The project provides journalism-skills training and then a platform for the work of incarcerated journalists. This delivers news and viewpoints that otherwise would not be heard by outsiders, spreading awareness of prison conditions and empowering often-ignored people to tell their stories.

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  • Inmates are learning to be their own bosses after they leave jail behind

    January 24, 2021 |

    Mashable |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Charlotte, North Carolina

    Inmates to Entrepreneurs has graduated 1 million people from its eight-week program that teaches incarcerated people how to start their own low-capital businesses. An extension of a free online entrepreneurship course, Starter U, the program offered in-person workshops until COVID forced it to go virtual. One study shows the unemployment rate in December 2020 for formerly incarcerated people was more than 27%, more than four times higher than the general public. Inmates to Entrepreneurs was started 28 years ago in North Carolina's prison system.

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  • Zoom Funerals, Outdoor Classes: Jails and Prisons Evolve Amid the Pandemic

    January 19, 2021 |

    The Marshall Project |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States

    When the pandemic forced jails and prisons to ban educational classes and cut off visits between outsiders and their loved ones behind bars, some jailers opened their facilities to remote-learning and -visiting tools. The result is a boom in the use of video conferencing for literacy classes, vocational training, family visits, and even to enable incarcerated people to attend family funerals. Some advocates for the incarcerated worry that in-person interactions could permanently be replaced by video, even after the risk of viral infection has eased.

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  • Pandemic Boosts Effort to Improve Inmates' Welfare

    January 14, 2021 |

    Global Press Journal |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Zimbabwe

    As part of the coronavirus lockdown in Zimbabwe, people were banned from visiting prisons, but a mobile app has allowed relatives to send supplies to those who are incarcerated via their cellphone. This newest initiative in the succession to reform the prison system uses mobile money to send supplemental goods from the prison’s tuck shop to relatives who are incarcerated.

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  • Firefighter jobs difficult to find for women fire crew after prison

    January 12, 2021 |

    Cronkite News - Arizona PBS |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Arizona

    Arizona's Inmate Wildfire Program trains incarcerated people to fight wildfires, paying them low prison wages to provide a critically needed service as wildfires grow more common. Members of the only all-female crew, from Perryville Prison, tell of their pride of accomplishment in doing a dangerous job, and of the rehabilitative benefits of the program. They also describe their frustrations when regulations often bar them from using their skills after release from prison.

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  • Revolving door in Montana corrections still turning, despite reforms

    January 04, 2021 |

    Helena Independent Record |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Montana

    A set of criminal justice reforms enacted in Montana in 2017 that were meant to reduce incarceration and reinvest some of the savings in crime prevention programs has had little effect on the prison population. The state's "justice reinvestment" program, using a model adopted in 30 other states, has failed to put plans into action, partly for a lack of public spending on programs for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. As a result, the prison population is tracking where it would have been had nothing been done, and recidivism remains high.

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  • These gardens ask visitors to reconsider solitary confinement

    December 23, 2020 |

    Grist |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

    Solitary Gardens is an art project that protests prisons' solitary confinement conditions. Incarcerated people connect with volunteers on the outside who plant flowers, vegetables, or herbs in beds matching the tiny dimensions of the prison cell that confined Herman Wallace for a record 41 years in Louisiana. The people inside prison imagine their garden, often with memory triggers of what they have lost, and their gardener carries out their plan. The idea is to make a place for grief, healing, public service, and public education, as the gardens in four cities teach about solitary confinement.

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