Open Society Foundations U.S.’s Soros Justice Fellowships fund outstanding individuals to undertake projects that advance reform, spur debate, and catalyze change on a range of issues facing the U.S. criminal legal system. Here are some of their stories. their stories.
Soros Justice Fellow Dwayne Betts tells the powerful story of how mass incarceration affects us all.I
An author, poet, and juvenile justice activist, Betts used his grant to write a book about the ways that crime and mass incarceration affect the families of both victims and incarcerated, social workers, teachers, and others who will never see the inside of a jail cell. A Question of Freedom chronicles Betts’s years in prison, reflecting back on his crime and looking ahead to how his experiences and the books he discovered while incarcerated would define him.
Soros Justice Fellow Clemmie Greenlee on empowering young people.
Like many mid-sized American cities, Nashville struggles with youth poverty and violence. For many young Nashville residents, becoming associated with a gang is seen as one way to survive in a difficult environment. By some estimates, 10 percent or more of all low-income youth in the city are involved in one of a dozen different gangs. While some consider the youth involved in gangs to be “problems” that must be “solved,” others, like Clemmie Greenlee, see the potential that these young people have for self-transformation and for becoming positive agents of change.
Soros Justice Fellow Guy Gambill on veterans and the criminal justice system
Gambill, a veteran of the armed services, advocates for alternatives to arrest and incarceration for veterans. More than two million veterans are caught up in the criminal justice system each year, and that number is growing.
Soros Justice Fellows Stokely Baksh & Renee Feltz on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “Operation Secure Communities.”
Stokely Baksh and Renee Feltz produced a multimedia investigative report at that examined Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Operation Secure Communities program. Although designed to target dangerous “criminal aliens,” there were signs that the program veered dangerously off course.
Soros Justice Fellow Alison McCrary on protecting New Orleans’s cultural traditions.
McCrary challenged law enforcement practices that criminalize New Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and Mardi Gras Indian tribes. The centuries-old cultural groups, which number almost 150 citywide, are persistent victims of racial profiling, police abuse, harassment, illegal arrests, and intimidation.
You can see more Fellows and the amazing work they do at the Open Society Foundation website.