
TALES of TOMMY by Lou Simelou
When I worked at Mount Sinai as a Peer, part of my job was to work with people who had come out of prison who had been incarcerated for periods of time and to help them restablish their life in a program called Coming Home. I met a man who was incarcerated for 33 years, 19 of those in solitary confinement. His name was Tommy, who spent those 33 years incarcerated for crime they discovered he did not commit so, he was set free. I was sitting at the clinic one day and Tommy tur


Interrupting Incarceration With Writing
by Daniella Deutsch Working with Prison Writes over the last few months has been nothing short of transformational, profound, and deeply humbling. As an organization, Prison Writes has turned their attention in a beautifully detailed way by focusing on bringing intervention on a micro and mezzo level to an enormously overwhelming macro systemic problem. At a time in our country where there is so much pain, injustice, and confusion on where to turn our attention, being a part


Building Hope Through Education
by Linda Dolloff As an incarcerated student participating in the home confinement program, I am grateful to be part of the Second Chance Pell program for college education. I am the first woman from Maine in the prison education program to apply to graduate school. Even before my release, education changed my and my family’s lives. Education increased my self-worth, expanded my social capital, and given my family hope for a stable and productive future. According to the Natio