Freedom Unshackled
SUBSTACK
Welcome to Freedom Unshackled
Where lived experiences meets advocacy, accountability, and the fight to keep humanity at the center of criminal justice.
Freedom Unshackled
Aug 26, 2026
Welcome to Freedom UnshackledMy name is Roni Minter, and I am a formerly incarcerated person who has spent years advocating for people impacted by the criminal justice system. My advocacy has been shaped not only by lived experience, but by years of working alongside incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, families, advocates, community organizations, and policymakers. Long before Freedom Unshackled existed, I founded Sistas Healing Old Wounds (SHOW), an organization primarily focused on working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women throughout New York State.
Freedom Unshackled Coalition was born during COVID. At a time when the pandemic was exposing and magnifying problems that had existed inside correctional facilities for decades, I began thinking about what more could be done around criminal justice policies, procedures, and legislation. SHOW was already doing important work, but I wanted to build something with a broader reach, something that could address issues affecting incarcerated people regardless of gender and that would not be limited to New York State. I wanted an organization capable of looking at what happens inside correctional settings at every level, from city and county jails to state prisons, and challenging the policies and practices that allow injustice to continue.
From there, I began handpicking people I believed could bring something meaningful to the coalition, building the team person by person. Today, our members stretch across New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Washington State. Just as important as our geographic diversity is the diversity of experience we bring to this work. Some of us are formerly incarcerated. Some have had family members or friends who were incarcerated. Some have worked inside correctional facilities as civilians. Some have experiences that intersect with incarceration in other ways, and some are simply revolutionary-minded people who believe these systems can and must change. Each person brings a unique piece to the puzzle that is Freedom Unshackled, and every one of those pieces is important to the work we do.
That became Freedom Unshackled Coalition.
And that brings me here.
This Substack will be about all things related to the criminal justice system, including the issues that intersect with it in ways people may not immediately recognize. We will talk about incarceration, sentencing, parole, clemency, legislation, racial disparities, gender inequity, healthcare, rehabilitation, reentry, families, poverty, politics, and the decisions made by elected and appointed officials whose policies directly affect people's lives.
But we are also going to talk plainly about the violent culture that exists within corrections. The beatings. The sexual abuse and rape. The medical neglect. The retaliation. The deaths and killings that take place in correctional settings The abuse of authority and the institutional culture that too often protects those responsible while making it extraordinarily difficult for incarcerated people to be believed, heard, or protected. These are not comfortable subjects, but discomfort cannot be an excuse for silence.
There is one principle that will guide everything written here: we are talking about human beings. As a formerly incarcerated person, I understand firsthand how easily incarceration can strip a person of more than freedom. It can strip away the way society sees that person's humanity. Too often, once someone is incarcerated, people stop seeing a human being and see only a conviction, a charge, a prison number, or the worst thing that person may have ever done.
I refuse to begin from that place. Whether someone is innocent, guilty, accused of a crime, convicted of one, or serving a sentence, incarceration does not erase humanity. These are someone's mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, grandparents and children. They are people who love and are loved. And when we talk about a beating, a rape, medical neglect, solitary confinement, abuse, or a death inside a correctional facility, we are talking about something that happened to a human being. That understanding has to remain at the center of these conversations, even when the circumstances are difficult and even when the person involved has caused harm.
We will also examine the politics and economics surrounding incarceration, because sometimes the very people elected to help change these systems become obstacles to changing them. We will talk about elected officials who walk lockstep with the establishment, even when the establishment is part of the problem. We will examine the prison industry, the billions of dollars connected to incarceration, and the economic interests that can make meaningful reform difficult. And we will bring that same scrutiny to the local level, where city and county officials may have the authority to address abuses, improve conditions, or support reforms, yet choose to block, delay, or simply refuse efforts that could help incarcerated people. Power matters, but so does what people choose to do with it.
Sometimes I will write about what is happening locally. Sometimes we will look at what is happening across New York State or elsewhere in the country. There will be commentary, policy discussions, stories from people directly impacted by incarceration, and occasions when we simply need to ask difficult questions of the people and institutions with the power to answer them.
Nothing is off the table. If a policy is harmful, we will examine it. If an institution is failing people, we will discuss it. If an elected official has the power to help and instead stands in the way, we will talk about that too.
Most importantly, this will be a place to shine a light where institutions prefer darkness and elevate the voices they have ignored.
Welcome to Freedom Unshackled.
Albany County Was Warned
For more than a year, advocates raised concerns about violence, serious injuries and accountability inside the Albany County Correctional Facility. Now some of those allegations are in federal court,
Aug 30, 2026
We want to acknowledge our partners who came together with the Freedom Unshackled Coalition in this work: NAACP Albany, Center for Law and Justice, Bridge Tha Gap, AVillage, Tru Heart Inc., New York State Jails Justice Network, New York State Council of Churches, 100 Black Men of the Capital District, and the Capital Area Urban League. This has been a collective effort.
Incarceration is not a license to abuse.
On January 16, 2025, the mother of Jai-Ream Daniels reached out to Freedom Unshackled with a frightening allegation: her son had been brutally beaten inside the Albany County Correctional Facility and was being denied contact with his attorney and family. We began raising the alarm, but Daniels would not be the last name brought to our attention.
Over the months that followed, more incarcerated people and their families came forward with allegations of beatings, serious injuries, denied legal visits, retaliation and deplorable conditions. We wrote emails. We made calls. We staged protests. We met with elected officials and correctional leadership. We appeared before the County Legislature and proposed policy changes and independent civilian oversight. We were not simply telling Albany County something was wrong. We were asking those with the power to intervene to do something before more people were harmed or, like Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi, killed.
This week, nineteen months later, Jai-Ream Daniels’ name appeared again, this time as one of four men suing Albany County and Sheriff Craig Apple in federal court. Daniels, Cory Thompson, Isiah Parker-Bagaba and Jermaine Brown allege that correction officers assaulted them in separate incidents at the Albany County Correctional Facility, with three suffering multiple facial fractures. The allegations include broken noses, fractured eye sockets and injuries serious enough to require hospitalization and surgery.
These allegations have not yet been adjudicated, and filing a lawsuit does not establish that everything alleged occurred. But for those of us who had been hearing these names, listening to families and raising concerns long before this complaint was filed, the lawsuit did not introduce a new problem. It brought allegations we had been demanding officials take seriously into a federal courtroom.
How Did We Get Here?
In April 2025, we moved beyond raising concerns publicly and sat down with Sheriff Craig Apple and members of his administration to discuss what was happening and what could be done about it. Afterward, George D. McHugh, counsel to the sheriff, contacted me and said Sheriff Apple had asked him to establish ongoing communication with us. McHugh wrote that Apple had directed him to make that dialogue “a priority.”
At a follow-up meeting, we asked to review the facility’s Use of Force and Grievance policies and proposed tracking serious injuries and hospital transports so patterns could not simply be dismissed as isolated incidents. Every FOIL request we submitted seeking information about these issues was denied for one technical reason or another.
Superintendent Michael Lyons, responsible for the facility’s daily operations, was not at that meeting. Training was suggested as part of the solution, and we were willing to help develop it. But we were clear: you cannot train your way out of policies and practices that lack accountability. Use of force, grievances, reporting and accountability had to be addressed first.
In an email following that meeting, we described our concern plainly: a culture of violence existed within the facility without accountability for correction officers. We also raised Lyons’ absence in writing because you cannot address the culture of a correctional facility without the person responsible for running it at the table.
When Access to an Attorney Becomes Another Battle
Among the most troubling issues we brought directly to Apple was the denial or obstruction of legal visits. We had received complaints from incarcerated people, including Jai-Ream Daniels and Wakeem Ricks, who reported difficulty accessing their attorneys. Particularly troubling were cases in which an incarcerated person maintained that they were trying to meet with an attorney while facility records indicated they had “refused.” The incarcerated person says, “They wouldn’t let me see my attorney,” while the institution says, “He refused to go.” Who verifies which account is true?
Apple agreed to create a numbered document for instances when someone was said to have refused a legal visit or court appearance. We asked that its use be mandatory and that the District Attorney’s Office, public defenders and private attorneys be told the document existed.
Apple said no.
He was willing to create the document but would not make its use mandatory or notify attorneys about it. What accountability does a document provide if nobody is required to use it and the attorneys who need it are not even told it exists? Meaningful access to legal counsel is too important to depend on an optional piece of paper.
The absence of Superintendent Lyons from our meeting matters even more now. What did he know about the complaints, serious injuries and allegations of excessive force occurring under his leadership, and what did he do about them?
Marquis Norwood and What the Cameras Show
In September 2024, Marquis Norwood suffered serious injuries, including a broken eye socket, during an encounter with Albany County correction officers while incarcerated at the facility. With his permission, we publicly shared the disturbing video. It shows Norwood displaying no visible aggression before being taken down, punched and kicked as additional officers converge. By the end, roughly 12 to 15 officers are present, with some appearing to position themselves between the camera and the assault. Whether it was intentional or not, the wall of correctional officers was directly in front of the camera’s view.
The brutality was chillingly reminiscent of the violence captured in the beatings of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility and Messiah Nantwi at Mid-State Correctional Facility. Both men died. Norwood survived. No one should have to die before violence captured on camera is taken seriously.
From “Make This a Priority” to “I Don’t Pay Any Attention to Them Anymore”
In April 2025, Apple directed his counsel to make ongoing communication with us “a priority.” We continued bringing concerns forward and proposing solutions.
Later, he told the Times Union, “I don’t pay any attention to them anymore. Their allegations have been investigated and disproven.” But where are those investigations, and what evidence was reviewed? This is precisely why we were calling for independent oversight: investigations into allegations of misconduct need transparency. Now, several allegations we had been raising, which Apple said had been investigated and disproven, are headed to federal court.
But what happened between “make this a priority” and “I don’t pay any attention to them anymore”?
The Sheriff Is Leaving. The Questions Aren’t.
In July 2026, Apple announced he would not seek another term as sheriff. His departure cannot close the book on what happened under his leadership. What did he know about allegations of excessive force and serious injuries, how were those complaints investigated, and what corrective action was taken, if any?
Changing the name on the sheriff’s office door does not change an institution. Accountability means examining what went wrong and ensuring the next administration does not simply inherit and continue those failures. Apple leaving cannot and will not become the reform we are calling for.
Will the Next Sheriff Change the Name or Change the Institution?
With Apple not seeking another term, attention turns to who will lead the Albany County Sheriff’s Office next. Bethlehem Police Chief Gina Cocchiara has announced her candidacy and has said incarcerated people are not second-class citizens and deserve respect. She has also described Apple as a role model and praised his leadership and integrity. What would she preserve, and what would she change?
If elected will she independently examine use-of-force practices, legal access, grievances, body-camera compliance and allegations of retaliation? Will she support independent civilian oversight? Will Superintendent Michael Lyons and the existing command structure remain in place? Cocchiara should not be held responsible for decisions made before she has even been elected, but anyone seeking this powerful office should be prepared to answer these questions.
If the sheriff changes but the leadership, policies and culture remain intact, what exactly changed?
This History Didn’t Just Begin in 2025
The allegations at the Albany County Correctional Facility did not begin with this latest lawsuit. In 2019, litigation involving four men transferred from Rikers Island who alleged beatings, sexual assault and other mistreatment ended in a settlement approaching $1 million. In 2021, Albany County authorized another $750,000 settlement involving 11 men transferred from Rikers who alleged abuse by Albany County correction officers.
Settlements are not admissions of wrongdoing. But when similar allegations surface across different years and involve different incarcerated people, at what point do we stop calling them isolated incidents and start examining the institution itself?
Albany Officers are Accused of Taking the Violence Somewhere Else
In 2025, eight men incarcerated in Oneida County sued Albany County, alleging Albany County correction officers brutally assaulted them during a jail shakedown. The Oneida County Sheriff’s Office had asked the Albany County Sheriff’s Office to send its Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT) to assist with the shakedown. One officer allegedly said, “this is how Albany gets down.”
If these allegations are true, what does that say about the culture of violence those officers brought with them from Albany?
Our Emails Stopped Getting Through
At one point during our advocacy around correctional officer violence at the Albany County Correctional Facility, even our emails to county legislators stopped getting through. We were actively trying to keep legislators informed about what was happening inside the jail, and suddenly our ability to communicate with them was blocked. It left us wondering whether information we were bringing forward was being kept from reaching the full Legislature.
Republican Albany County Legislator Paul Burgdorf helped us test what was happening. Pastor Jim Ketchum of the New York State Council of Churches and I, Roni Minter of the Freedom Unshackled Coalition, each sent Burgdorf emails to determine whether our communications were reaching county legislators. They were not. Burgdorf confirmed the problem himself, writing, “Evidently I am blocked as well,” and insisting, “I want ALL MY Mail, regardless of whether or not I agree with the subject.”
The problem was miraculously resolved, but the larger question never was: Who blocked those communications, why were they blocked, and who decided what information county legislators should or should not receive?
Who Is Accountable When Everyone Says It’s Someone Else’s Job?
We repeatedly brought these concerns to Albany County legislators through emails, meetings and public testimony. The Legislature may not run the jail, but it controls public dollars, approves settlements and can demand answers.
When allegations of abuse repeatedly end in lawsuits and settlements, how many checks should the public be expected to pay before elected officials demand that something inside the institution actually change? In Albany County and in counties across New York State, these are the people’s tax dollars being used to pay the financial consequences of correction officers’ violent behavior.
Independent Oversight Must Be the Next Step
Albany County is not alone. Suffolk County has faced major litigation over conditions in its jails, including a settlement requiring up to $18 million and facility improvements. Erie County spent years under federal scrutiny after the U.S. Department of Justice identified serious constitutional concerns involving violence, medical and mental-health care, suicide prevention and safety. These problems are bigger than one sheriff or one county.
That is why Assemblymember Gabriella Romero and Senator Julia Salazar introduced A.9617/S.8856, legislation that would require counties across New York to establish civilian complaint review boards.
This is the independent oversight our coalition has been calling for. When the same problems keep surfacing in county jails across New York, allowing institutions accused of misconduct to police themselves is no longer enough.
Incarceration Is Not a License to Abuse
Now, Cory Thompson, Jai-Ream Daniels, Isiah Parker-Bagaba and Jermaine Brown are asking a federal court to examine what they say happened to them inside the Albany County Correctional Facility. Their allegations will be tested through the legal process, but the concerns surrounding this facility existed long before this lawsuit was filed. The Freedom Unshackled Coalition and the Center for Law and Justice continue to receive calls from incarcerated people and their families about abuse and the conditions at the jail. Two weeks ago, one parent called us describing what had allegedly been done to their incarcerated child, treatment that can only be described as a form of waterboarding.
A judge does not send or remand someone to jail to be beaten, sexually abused, medically neglected, retaliated against or denied meaningful access to counsel. Incarceration does not erase humanity. Incarceration is not a license to abuse.
Albany County was warned. Now some of those warnings have reached federal court.
The question is what happens next.
The Community We Conveniently Forget
Counted for population, forgotten in conversations about justice, and treated as disposable. Incarcerated people are not outside our communities. They are our communities.
Sep 16, 2026
At an August 18 conference, I watched a presentation about community in which incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people were not even represented on a slide. What made that omission particularly striking was that the presenter partners with our coalition to address abuse in county jails.
Think about that. We can work together to confront the abuse of incarcerated people and still forget to include those same people when defining community.
How do we claim to fight for a community we cannot even remember to name?
This is bigger than one presentation. We have become comfortable discussing community, inclusion, justice and human rights while conveniently excluding an entire population.
Counted, But Not Considered
Here's another contradiction. When the census comes around, incarcerated people are counted. Under the federal census system, they are generally counted in the communities where they are confined, and population figures help determine political representation and the distribution of certain public resources.
Suddenly, we exist. We are living, breathing human beings whose presence contributes to population numbers.
New York adjusts those figures for state and local redistricting to count many incarcerated people at their home addresses, but the larger contradiction remains.
We are counted when our presence serves a government purpose, yet too often forgotten when our humanity demands attention.
When it's time to discuss community needs, public safety, human rights or the conditions under which incarcerated people are forced to live, somehow they disappear from the conversation.
You cannot count human beings for one purpose and disregard them for everything else.
The Sentence Is Not a License to Abuse
The moment someone becomes incarcerated, society seems to place them in a different category. They are no longer someone's child, parent, spouse or grandparent. They become a criminal. A number. A problem. A throwaway.
And once we convince ourselves that certain people are disposable, we become remarkably comfortable with what happens to them.
Look at the allegations emerging from juvenile detention centers, county jails, city jails and state correctional facilities. Sexual abuse. Physical brutality. Medical neglect. Retaliation. Deaths.
How many lawsuits must be filed? How many families must describe what happened to their loved ones? How many people must come home carrying trauma that never appeared anywhere in their sentencing documents?
Somewhere along the way, we have become desensitized to these horrors because of the people experiencing them.
The response is often some variation of, "Well, they shouldn't have committed a crime." Or, "Well, don't go to jail then."
That is not an answer to abuse.
A judge imposes a sentence under the law. That sentence does not authorize a correction officer to beat someone, sexually abuse them, deny necessary medical treatment or subject them to degrading conditions.
You do not have to excuse someone's crime to recognize their humanity.
Who Benefits From Their Incarceration?
We also need to talk about the economics of incarceration.
Companies such as Corcraft operate within a system in which incarceration generates revenue. Prison industries and correctional systems also use incarcerated labor, often at wages far below what comparable work would command outside.
We should be asking difficult questions about who benefits from this arrangement and what financial interests have to gain when incarceration continues.
I have serious concerns about whether the economic interests attached to incarceration influence resistance to parole reform. That connection deserves scrutiny. We need to follow the money, examine lobbying and demand transparency about who stands to benefit from keeping people incarcerated.
Because if a person's confinement generates revenue or supplies inexpensive labor, we cannot pretend that incarceration exists in an economic vacuum.
Human beings should never become more valuable to a system incarcerated than they are free.
When One Person Is Incarcerated, the Family Pays Too
People talk about incarceration as though the sentence affects only the person serving it. It doesn't.
Once you incarcerate an individual, you incarcerate that family. Children grow up without a parent at home. Parents grow older worrying about their children. Partners struggle to maintain relationships. Grandparents, siblings and other loved ones become responsible for providing emotional and financial support.
Then come the expenses.
Families may have to pay outside vendors for communication services, commissary purchases and other necessities. Add transportation, missed work and the cost of visiting someone who may be incarcerated hours away.
For families already struggling financially, maintaining contact can become another hardship. And imagine paying all that money while wondering whether your loved one is safe. Whether they received their medication. Whether someone hurt them. Whether they will call tomorrow.
The person inside may be serving the sentence, but the family lives with its consequences every single day. These families are part of our communities, too. Yet their struggles are frequently invisible until something terrible happens.
I Am a Human Being
I speak about this from lived experience.
At the end of the day, I am a human being. We all are.
Those of us who have experienced incarceration know what it means to live under the control of the state. We hurt… We cried... We laughed together. And still many of us feared for ourselves damn near every day because our safety, our movements and so much of our existence were controlled by other people. People charged with care, custody and control. People who abuse their authority over us.
Imagine living with that fear while knowing there are people on the outside who simply do not care what happens to you.
I'm not suggesting jail should be a vacation, a college campus or some wonderful experience. It's jail. It's prison. People are there to serve the sentences imposed by the courts.
But the sentence is the punishment. Sexual abuse, brutality, medical neglect, humiliation and inhumane treatment are not supposed to be part of it.
We are not throwaways.
We are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles and children. We have people who love us, worry about us and wait for us. We have histories, talents, regrets, hopes and futures.
And when we return home, we return to the same communities that somehow managed to forget we existed.
That brings me back to the conference and that missing slide.
If we are serious about community, we cannot define it only by the people whose circumstances make us comfortable. We cannot speak about inclusion while excluding incarcerated people, or celebrate justice while remaining indifferent to what happens inside correctional facilities.
We cannot claim to care about families while ignoring what incarceration does to them.
Humanity is not something people earn by being innocent. It is something we possess because we are human.
Before we talk about anything else, before we debate guilt, punishment, policy or reform, we have to begin there.
Because incarcerated people are not outside our communities.
They are our communities.
What Is the Measure of Our Activism?
If the people we claim to fight for cannot see or feel the difference, what exactly are we measuring?
Sep 09, 2026
Before we call ourselves advocates, activists or revolutionaries, perhaps the first question should be: Are we actually representing the people we claim to be fighting for?
If we are doing criminal justice policy advocacy, the voices of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people cannot become background noise while advocates speak for them. Are we including them in the conversation by echoing what they are telling us they need, or have we decided for them what they should need? Do they understand why we are taking certain positions, and are we listening when they disagree?
Advocacy requires education in both directions. We have a responsibility to educate the public and those in power, but we also have a responsibility to both the people most affected as well as keep them informed about what we are doing in their name and why. Otherwise, at some point, advocacy stops being “with” people and becomes something we are doing “to” them.
Our Struggles Intersect, But We Cannot Do Everything
The history of advocacy teaches us that movements do not exist in isolation. The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party and the LGBT movement fought different battles, but each challenged systems that determined whose lives, rights and humanity would be valued.
Today, race, class, criminal justice, LGBT , disability, mental health and addiction issues continue to intersect because people do not live in separate boxes.
Fred Hampton understood the power of building across lines. His organizing brought people from different racial and economic backgrounds together around common struggles. He famously reminded us, “You can kill a revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution.” The larger lesson is that movements become stronger when people understand that somebody else's struggle does not have to be identical to theirs for solidarity to exist.
But solidarity does not mean every organization has to take on every fight. Know your lane. Become knowledgeable and effective in the work you have committed yourself to. Lend your voice and stand beside people doing other work without trying to lead every movement.
Spreading ourselves across every issue can ultimately make us less effective at the work we were called to do.
Why Are You Doing This Work?
Advocacy has to come from somewhere deeper than recognition, access or money. There is nothing wrong with being paid for your labor, but the paycheck cannot become the purpose.
bell hooks wrote, “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.” That idea belongs in activism too. Caring about people has to show up in what we actually do.
Are we helping? Are we doing no harm? Are communities stronger because of our presence, or have we simply built bigger names for ourselves?
Once the movement becomes more about the advocate than the people affected by the issue, we have lost the plot.
Be Careful Who You Stand Beside
Advocacy requires relationships, partnerships and coalitions. None of us can do this work alone. But everybody doing the work is not necessarily somebody you should be doing the work with.
Pay attention to people's motives, practices and how they treat the communities they claim to serve. A shared cause does not automatically mean shared values.
Coalition building should never require us to compromise our integrity just to say we have a coalition.
How Do We Measure Effectiveness?
Not every victory comes with a bill signing or sweeping policy change. Advocacy takes time, and sometimes progress is the victory.
Did the bill gain another sponsor? Did another organization join? Did an elected official who once ignored us finally agree to meet? Did the media start paying attention? Are more people showing up? Are we seeing new faces?
Nikki Giovanni said, “Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.” Movements have to be willing to evaluate themselves the same way. If a strategy isn't working, change it.
And sometimes progress looks like discomfort. When institutions that were comfortable ignoring us suddenly have to answer questions, defend themselves or respond publicly, something has moved.
We may not reach the destination in one legislative session, or even several. That doesn't mean we aren't winning.
We should not measure activism only by whether we won the war. We should also measure whether we moved the battlefield.
When Attention Starts Looking Like Impact
Social media has changed advocacy. It allows us to educate thousands of people, organize quickly and bring attention to issues traditional media may ignore.
But attention is not automatically impact. Likes, shares, followers and people telling us how wonderful our work is can create the appearance of a movement without actually moving anything.
Are people learning? Are they showing up? Are they taking action? Are we building power, or simply building an audience? Visibility can be a tool for activism. It should never become the measure of it.
Who Are We Talking To?
Advocacy cannot become an echo chamber. Too often, organizations speak primarily to people who already share their politics and beliefs.
If our goal is change, we have to knock on doors we don't expect to open. That means talking to Democrats, Republicans, independents and people who may not identify politically at all. Someone who disagrees with us on ten issues may understand the eleventh because incarceration, addiction, poverty, racism, disability, mental health and LGBT issues cross political lines.
James Baldwin wrote, “Nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Sometimes advocacy requires facing people who don't agree with us.
And winning doesn't always mean turning an opponent into a supporter. Maybe they never vote with us or march with us. But perhaps they stop actively fighting us. Perhaps they listen. Perhaps they become a little quieter in the room instead of leading the opposition. A win is a win. Sometimes movements are built an inch at a time.
Bring It Back to the People
In criminal justice advocacy, we have an additional responsibility: we have to think about how our words on the outside may affect someone on the inside.
Many of us doing this work are formerly incarcerated. We understand these environments. Something an advocate says publicly can have consequences for someone who still has to live inside that institution.
Being loud is not enough. We have to be strategic. Listen to incarcerated people. Include them in the conversations. Keep them informed. Think about whether our actions could expose them to retaliation or further harm.
Our advocacy should never make us more visible while making the people we're fighting for more vulnerable. So what is the measure of our activism?
It is not perfection, and it is not overnight victory. It is movement. Another person educated. Another person showing up. Another legislator listening. Another policy challenged. Another institution forced to answer. Another person who once opposed us deciding not to stand in the way.
And ultimately, it is whether the people we claim to fight for can see themselves in our work and feel some difference because we were there.
John Lewis told us, “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” But the responsibility doesn't end with making trouble. We should always be asking what that trouble changed.