Beyond Incarceration: The Campaign to #CLOSErikers

9:30AM, Room 111

The Beyond Incarceration (Decarceration in a Carceral Society) workshop will discuss decarceration strategies and tactics including community-based diversions and jails, divest-invest strategies to reinvest into the communities that have been most impacted by incarceration, overall campaign ground and air tactics, our plan for the design, culture and structure of new service-enriched facilities that address the root causes of incarceration (mental health, trauma, substance use, poverty, normalization of violence, etc.), the importance of collective leadership and campaign efforts being led by people with lived experience, strategies to turn opposition into a larger coalition, and a call to action to invigorate the audience so they can get involved in our work.

decarceration: Text

Panel Speakers

Darren Mack

In 1992, at the age of 17, Darren was arrested for being an accomplice to a robbery and was ultimately sentenced to 20 to 40 years in New York State prison system. His first time in the prison system, Darren served a total of 20 years straight. After being released in 2012, Darren graduated on Bard College's campus with a B.A. degree in Social Studies with the class of 2013. Since his release, Darren has been actively engaged in working to dismantle New Jim Crow practices. He became a member of the Education From The Inside Out Coalition working to remove statutory and practical educational barriers for individuals impacted by the punishment system. He advocated in front of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus to push legislation to Ban The Box on college admission applications. Darren now works as a Community Organizer with JustLeadershipUSA, and is a graduate student studying Community Organizing and Policy at Silberman School for Social Work.

Darlene Jackson

Darlene Jackson is a lifelong advocate with personal lived experience in child welfare that led to a career path to influence public policy, institutional culture and cutting red-tape bureaucracies. She is a strong voting advocate and believes participation in civic life is the foundation to a vibrant democracy with everyday people at the core of an active, engaged city. Other grassroots efforts are ending mass incarceration, transit equity, and reimagining justice, dignity, and safety for women. She currently works as the Project Coordinator with the Women's Community Justice Association, focusing primarily on the Beyond Rosie’s Campaign.

Kandra Clark

Kandra Clark is the AVP of Strategy with Exodus Transitional Community. She is on the Beyond Rosie’s, Close Rikers and Free NY Campaigns, is a JLUSA 2018 Leading with Conviction alumna, and a Board Member with WCJA. She received the Julio Medina Freedom Fighter Award in 2016, and was a 2018 NY Nonprofit Media 40 Under 40 Rising Star.

decarceration: List