Realizing Release: Parole Advocacy and The Fight for Decarceration

Join us at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law for an engaging two-day event focused on parole advocacy and the ongoing fight for decarceration. This in-person gathering will bring together experts, activists, and community members to discuss the importance of parole reform and the impact it has on our society. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn, connect, and be part of the movement towards a more just and equitable criminal justice system.

Over 20% of the people in state prisons are there because of our punitive post-conviction supervision systems. When people are released from prison, they are not fully free. Realizing Release will convene advocates, lawyers, system-impacted folks, and community organizers for an opportunity to learn about the legal and advocacy strategies being deployed across the country, assess ongoing challenges and successes, and deepen collaborative regional and national networks working toward decarceration.

September 14 | 9:30 AM

In our opening plenary, hear from advocates who have successfully transformed pieces of parole release and revocation systems in their states through direct services, legislation, impact litigation, and grassroots advocacy. These guest speakers will provide a basic overview of the commonalities among parole systems, including their harms and challenges, while offering practical lessons for how systems can be changed to reduce incarceration.

This session will:
– Provide basic overview of parole systems and key commonalities how they function
– Provide overview of common threats/harms of the parole system
– Feature advocates who’ve advanced, or made steps to advancing, parole reforms in their state
– Describe and educate folks on what these efforts looked like
– Highlight key features of their efforts that made it successful, challenges that created roadblocks, and lessons/tips/considerations for other states/efforts to make their advocacy the most effective

Speakers:
– Keith Wattley, Executive Director, Uncommon Law
– Alexa Van Brunt, Illinois Director, MacArthur Justice Center
– John Cooper, Executive Director, Safe & Just Michigan
– Anthony Dixon, Deputy Director, Parole Preparation Project NY 

September 14 | 3:15 PM

Realizing true release from punishment requires us to address the many ways punishment continues after incarceration. In this plenary, hear directly from advocates who have navigated supervision about how systems continue to surveil, control and punish people after release, how these systems play an integral role in maintaining the prison industrial complex, and how communities are mobilizing to resist and challenge them.

This session will:
– Provide basic overview of supervision/ post-release mechanisms, how they function, and their impact on our communities through direct testimony and experiences
– Illustrate the foundational role played by supervision systems as a part of the PIC designed to surveil, control, disposes, punish, harm, and separate poor and impacted communities from access to life-affirming sectors of society (economy, politics, etc.)
– Describe ways communities are mobilizing to challenge these systems 

Speakers:
– Johnnie Veal, Executive Director, Project Sound Off
– LaTanya Jenifor-Sublett, Dir. Of Holistic and Liberatory Peer Re-entry, Chicago Torture Justice Center
– Chesa Boudin, Executive Director, UC Berkley Law Criminal Law & Justice Center
– Ken Nixon, Dir. of Outreach and Comm. Partnerships, Safe & Just Michigan  

September 15 | 9:30 AM

This plenary will situate the fight for decarceration through parole among other struggles for social change. Advocates from diverse movement campaigns will examine how structures of power and control are replicated across different systems, including prisons, policing, immigration, and environmental justice. Speakers will share strategies for building solidarity among and across movements that will strengthen our work and sustain us for the challenges ahead. 

This session will:
– Illustrate how movements for decarceration and to transform the PIC intersect with other struggles for social change
– Illustrate the ways in which the PIC impacts a diversity of marginalized communities and is a shared site of oppression
– How we can build solidarity across different issues and sectors of the movement – what it looks like in practice – and how it makes our specific struggles and demands more powerful  

Speakers:
– Jimmy Soto, Justice Practitioner Fellow, Center for Study of Race, Politics & Culture, University of Chicago
– Aislinn Pulley, Executive Director, Chicago Torture Justice Center
– Renaldo Hudson, Education Director, Illinois Prison Project
– Robert Lilly, Participatory Defense Organizer, Grassroots Leadership
– Samah Sisay, Staff Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights 

September 14 | 11:00 AM

Documenting problems is often the first step to fixing them, but parole systems are intentionally opaque and subject to little or no oversight or documentation requirements. Learn tangible and specific strategies for identifying and gathering data, records and other pieces of information that can help you define the scope and scale of the problems in your state and inform the approaches you take to solving them. 

– Data and information, alongside direct testimonies, can be a powerful tool to understand the scope and scale of harm that incarceration and parole systems are inflicting on our communities.
– Will share tangible and specific strategies for identifying and gathering data on local and state criminal-legal institutions   

Presenters:
– Matthew Bonanno, National Parole Transformation Project
– Emmett Sanders, Policy analyst, Prison Policy Initiative
– Sarah Staudt, Policy and Advocacy Manager, Prison Policy Initiative

September 14 | 11:00 AM

Supervision is justified by local decision-makers as a means of increasing public safety and offering support to people leaving prison, but what do the facts actually tell us? This session will provide an in-depth review of existing research about the impacts of supervision and an analysis of the relationship between supervision systems and public safety.

– Supervision is justified by local decision-makers as a means of increasing public safety and offering support to people leaving prison, but what do the facts actually tell us?
– Provide in-depth review of research and analysis on the relationship between supervision systems and public safety 

Presenters:
– Ryan Sakoda, Associate Professor, University of Iowa College of Law
– Kaelin Rapport, ACLS Leading Edge Fellow, Center for Law and Social Policy 

September 14 | 11:00 AM

The bars and beds of the prison are enabled by societal values and ideas just as much by policies and budgets. This session will feature experts in narrative and storytelling who will provide insight about how dominant narratives and collective values impact and shape advocacy possibilities. They will share strategies to incorporate narrative into our analysis of existing problems and shift the conversations we are having to make our efforts more effective. 

– The bars and beds of the prison are enabled by societal values and ideas just as much by policies and budgets.
– Will provide insight on how dominant narratives and collective values impact and shape what’s possible on the advocacy front and how we can incorporate this analysis to make our efforts more effective

Presenters:
– Ben Austen, Author of Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change
– Charles Preston, Community Engagement Manager, Injustice Watch 

September 14 | 11:00 AM

Participatory defense is a community organizing model that empowers individuals and communities to actively participate in the defense of their loved ones facing criminal charges. This session will explore how to apply lessons from participatory defense to the parole context, including how to build campaigns that engage our communities and build community-based power to sustain lasting change.  

– This workshop will provide guidance and how we can advance individual defense/release efforts into campaigns that engage our community and build community-based power for the long-haul. 

Presenters:
– Imani Mfalme, Community Organizer + Trainer, Participatory Defense Network
– Pauline Rogers, Executive Director, RECH Foundation