Dear PAC Community, I’m excited to share some big news with you! Over the coming months, the Prison Arts Coalition will undergo a transformation to incorporate as the Justice Arts Coalition (JAC), a 501c3 nonprofit organization. In the spirit of the vision that drove PAC’s founders, the JAC will become an organizing body for institutions …

Continue reading An important message from PAC’s manager — please read on!

California Lawyers for the Arts and the William James Association in collaboration with Santa Clara University and the Justice Arts Coalition presents Arts in Corrections: Reframing the Landscape of Justice June 24 – 28, 2019 Santa Clara University 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053 This national conference will provide professional development opportunities for artists …

Continue reading Conference Announcement: Reframing the Landscape of Justice

by Peggy Rambach Address for the HOC Mural Project Unveiling Celebration with MIT at the Suffolk County House of Correction Feb. 15, 2019 Lately, we’ve all been hearing a lot about walls – whether we like it or not. And as a result, we can’t help thinking about what a wall represents: division, protection, confinement …

Continue reading “We, the Unbound”

by Rosie Worster, Director of Programmes at The Fair Justice Initiative Nsawam Medium Security Prison is the largest in Ghana, located not far outside the capital of Accra. It is a place associated with utmost shame, particularly for the eighty or so women held in the female section. Crime is thought dirty, ungodly, unfeminine. Many …

Continue reading Remember Me

by Treacy Ziegler  (This is the second installment on kindness in prison.  The first installment can be read at Incarceration of Kindness.) On my first trip to the super-maximum security prison, I see a high stonewall building perched over distant trees. There is something surreal in the sight of this fortress-like building with its small …

Continue reading Kindness as Hostage

by Mardie Swartz Mardie Swartz has spent 29 years behind bars in Texas. This poem is about the time approaching when she will finally be beyond bars. I remember beginnings – The first time I was molested Sold, abandoned, raped The first drink, snort, shot of Whatever would numb some of the pain. The first …

Continue reading As the End Comes (a tribute to Alice Walker)

by Treacy Ziegler   This post is written in installments exploring what is understood as kindness in prison.  In writing this post, I asked prisoners across the United States to share their experiences of kindness in prison.  Kindness makes you idle, worse, unnatural.         Douglas Oliver Richie is a student in my …

Continue reading The Incarceration of Kindness – Installment 1

by Mary Cohen, PhD After attending an East Hill Singers concert in January 2002 in Overland Park Kansas, my curiosity for Prison Choirs began. In graduate school at the University of Kansas, I spent a lot of time in Prisons, literally and figuratively—learning from Elvera Voth, the Inside and Outside Choir members of the East …

Continue reading Communities of Caring through Choral Singing: an update from the Oakdale Prison Choir