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From Plantations to Prisons
This content was facilitated in person at the Brooklyn Peace Center in collaboration with Frontyard FM and the Healing Project, and our team has included further resources for you to explore, whether you were able to join us in person or not! Thank you for engaging in this work!
Further Resources
These are community resources highlighting organizations across New York City that support currently and formerly incarcerated people and their families. From legal advocacy and reentry planning to housing, art, education, and family services, these groups work inside jails and prisons as well as in the community to reduce barriers and promote successful reentry. Although this list is far from comprehensive, it can be used to find more information, direct assistance and volunteer opportunities.
Freedom Trap (Carnegie Hall) Concert at Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park
July 11th, 2026 at 3 pm
Creatives Beyond Incarceration Meeting at Brooklyn Artery
July 12th, 2026 6:30-8:30 pm
https://www.brooklynartery.com/happenings/creatives-beyond-incarceration-1
Musicambia Songbook
Musicambia released a new songbook on June 26th, 2026 featuring formerly and currently incarcerated artists at Sing Sing Prison
https://cambiacollective.bandcamp.com/album/the-musicambia-songbook
Center for Community Alternatives
The Center for Community Alternatives focuses on community-based alternatives to incarceration. They are looking for mentors, tutors and community justice advocates.
http://www.communityalternatives.org/
Community Justice Reentry Network
The Community Justice Reentry Network (CJRN) is a citywide reentry initiative offering paid transitional employment, discharge planning, job training, access to higher education, and holistic supportive services for justice system-involved individuals. CJRN was created to help prevent recidivism and ensure that people leaving jail have opportunities to pursue productive and stable lives.
https://criminaljustice.cityofnewyork.us/programs/community-justice-reentry-network/
College and Community Fellowship
Offers currently and formerly incarcerated women tools to help rebuild their lives and develop leadership skills while completing their education. Volunteers are needed for event support and tutoring.
Exodus Transitional Community provides support to formerly incarcerated men and women by helping them reintegrate into their communities. They are looking for volunteers and mentors, as well as employment opportunities for Exodus participants.
FREER records is the first record label in the United States for prison-impacted musicians. Our mission is to build the careers of our artists so their work is widely heard, uncensored, and upholding of their humanity.
New York Public Library Connections 2026 Guide for Formerly Incarcerated People
https://www.nypl.org/sites-drupal/default/files/2026-02/NYPL_JPS_Connections_2026.pdf
NYC DOJ List of Reintegration and Reentry Initiatives
https://www.nyc.gov/site/doc/programs/reintegration-reentry-initiatives.page
Musicambia
Musicambia (“music”+”change”) helps people in prison read, write, play, and perform music, cultivating collaborative communities that benefit the health and well-being of everyone involved.
Music on the Inside
Music on the Inside (MOTI) connects youth and adults impacted by incarceration with professional musicians as teachers and mentors to bring hope and healing through the transformative power of music.
Petey Greene Program
The Petey Greene Program (PGP) is the largest provider of tutoring and college readiness programs for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in the US.Women's Prison Association
WPA provides women and gender-diverse people impacted by incarceration and injustice with the essential services and advocacy needed to remain in their communities, heal, and thrive.
The Brennan Center for Justice
A fair and equitable criminal justice system is critical for a healthy democracy. The Brennan Center champions evidence-based reforms that protect both individual rights and public safety.The Council on Criminal Justice
The Council on Criminal Justice advances understanding of the criminal justice policy choices facing the nation and builds consensus for solutions that enhance safety and justice for all.The United States incarcerates its citizens more than any other country. Mass incarceration disproportionately impacts the poor and people of color and does not make us safer. EJI is working to end our misguided reliance on over-incarceration.
Innocence Project
We work to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.The Marshall Project
Nonprofit journalism about criminal justice.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
The Legal Defense Fund has always worked to ensure that our nation’s criminal justice laws are administered fairly and without regard to race. LDF’s criminal justice practice uses litigation, advocacy, and public education to eliminate racial bias in our criminal justice system.
Prison Journalism Project
An independent, national nonprofit organization that trains incarcerated writers to be journalists and publishes their stories.The Prison Policy Initiative- The Whole Pie 2026
This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some common myths about mass incarceration to focus attention on overlooked issues that urgently require reform.San Quentin News
San Quentin News reports on rehabilitative efforts to increase public safety and advance social justice. The newspaper is produced entirely by individuals incarcerated in San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and is supported by the Pollen Initiative.
The Sentencing Project
We advocate for effective and humane responses to crime that minimize imprisonment and criminalization of youth and adults by promoting racial, ethnic, economic, and gender justice.
Urban Justice Center: Freedom Agenda
Freedom Agenda is a member-led project, dedicated to organizing people and communities directly impacted by incarceration to achieve decarceration and system transformation.
Vera Institute
Mass incarceration robs people of dignity and tears at the fabric of communities. Vera brings researchers, organizers, and government leaders together to create evidence-based solutions that build thriving communities and end mass incarceration. When a solution works, we scale it nationwide.
Campaign to Close Rikers
The Campaign to Close Rikers is led by survivors and family members who’ve been directly impacted by the injustice and torture of New York City jails, with the support of faith leaders, service providers, community organizations, and other allies. Here are some of the leaders of the movement.
https://www.campaigntocloserikers.org/
Protect Kalief's Law
Discovery Reform: Known informally as Kalief's Law, the statute ensures people accused of crimes receive critical evidence early enough to defend themselves
https://protectkaliefslaw.com/
NYCLU- ACLU of New York
Our so-called justice system is anything but. The NYCLU works to reimagine public safety and reduce New York’s reliance on arrest and incarceration, improve conditions for incarcerated people and those returning to their communities, and ensure a fair day in court.
https://www.nyclu.org/issues/pursuing-justice/criminal-legal-system
Raise the Age NYC
In 2017, New York passed Raise The Age law, effectively ending the practice of automatically charging 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. This was a strong start for our state, but there’s a lot more work to be done to help young people and communities thrive.
Thank you!
We just wanted to sincerely thank you for your engagement with these materials. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated as we continue to grow this work.
Thank you to our event partners, Frontyard FM and Samora Pinderhughes and the Healing Project.
Frontyard FM is a grassroots music and community organization located in Brooklyn, NY since 2024. Frontyard is about fostering intergenerational community, collective joy, and supporting local aid through music. We host public concerts and dance parties, free political education events, and mutual aid fundraisers. As a collective of artists, DJs, and musicians, we mix live performance with DJing, spanning a range of genres including R&B, soul, reggae, hip-hop, jazz and house. Our music and events are rooted in principles of community, love, kindness, and justice. Frontyard FM believes in the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of prisons, and of all systems of oppression around the world.
The Healing Project partners with individuals impacted by structural violence to create artistic works, collective healing spaces, and advocacy initiatives that drive narrative and systemic change. The Healing Project Choir is a growing village of singers and musicians using song as a tool for truth-telling, healing, and liberation. Founded and directed by composer Samora Pinderhughes, and rooted in the traditions of Sweet Honey in the Rock, the AACM, and the Nueva Canción movement, we use collective singing and vulnerable lyricism to hold space for community, truth, and transformation. We invite people to experience what freedom sounds like and feel their way into a more compassionate world.
