Guest Contributor: Marcus Pettiford I have not been exposed to sunlight in 27 days. Who knew that sunlight is such a luxury? There are people in the nation without clean drinking water. We’re called “prisoners.” Not to mention the children in Flint. Everyday I scrape my soul for humanity just to make it through. The …

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By Clare Walker, JAC Intern Recently, JAC had the chance to speak with Rowan Renee. Rowan (b. 1985, West Palm Beach, Florida) is a genderqueer artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Their work addresses the intersections of gender-based violence, intergenerational trauma and mass incarceration through State records and family archives.  In 2019, they acquired the contents …

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By Ian Trawinski, JAC Intern The visual work of artist Chris Schulze stands out amongst its peers thanks to the preternatural geometric perfection present throughout many of these pieces. Chris displays a level of skill which surpasses that of even the most finely tuned machines, those whose ability to produce straight lines, perfect circles, and …

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Guest Contributor: Conor Broderick  Most college students would agree that there is nothing easy about getting a degree. Yet despite the hardships there are some individuals who are driven to enrich themselves while serving a prison sentence. Understandably, the educational playing field in prison is not the same from institution to institution. Pursuing a degree …

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by Clare Walker with Hunter Isenstein, Jesse DiMeglio, Iris Lin, Ian Trawinski, and Robin McNulty 2021 wasn’t an easy year, by any stretch of the imagination. We all experienced losses, confronted fears, and witnessed the suffering of people we care about. As the year draws to a close, we’re giving our grief room to breathe …

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For many, art is a pastime: for Harold Johnson, art literally helps him pass the time. In the midst of “prison drama,” he writes, art is where he finds his “serenity.” He puts on his music, begins to draw, and the rest falls away.  Harold identifies as “Kiowa, Comanche, Delaware, and Seminole” and is enrolled …

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by Dorothy Maraglino Prison Society If the local news anchor reported a story about eight women living in a 19 by 24 foot studio apartment, red flags would fly high about the subpar living conditions that might exist. Yet that is how most of women within CDCR live. There are eight women living in a …

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JAC recently spoke with Ann Bracken, an artist, poet, and author of three collections: The Altar of Innocence, No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom and Once You’re Inside: Poetry Exploring Incarceration. Ann also serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review, and is a co-facilitator for the Wilde Readings Poetry Series …

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