Represent Justice Ambassador Nelson Morris, of Chicago, focused his project on the impact of youth mentorship in his hometown Morris describes his work as two-fold: On one hand, through mentoring, he offers an anti-violence message, even stressing how young people can use basic services like the city's 3-1-1 system to bring about improvements they want to see in their communities. On the other hand, Morris also advocates for policy reforms in the Illinois capital, Springfield, including ending the practice of sentencing children to spend their natural lives in prison.
"My message is my story. It's kind of hard to be pro-lock-people-up when you're looking at someone who got locked up at 17 and came home at 47 doing 29 years," Morris said. "I'm in your face telling you — that don't work. I'm in your face telling you that you're just throwing young people away."
Atlanta activist Waleisah Wilson's short documentary traces the throughline of slavery in Georgia from the 1800s to the contemporary prison system. The film particularly delves into how governments and private companies exploit this form of slave labor for profit.
"Once you're sentenced to prison, prison is the punishment," Wilson said. "My sentence says I'm sentenced to prison for a year. Nowhere in my sentence does it say I'm sentenced to be a slave, that if I refuse to do free work I can be raped, I can be thrown in solitary confinement, that I can be denied visitation with my children and my phone call or that a guard could abuse his authority and his power over me."
She adds: "Silence is complicitness. When you're seeing these people, and you think it's okay for people to work for free, you are actually supporting a racist and oppressive system."
In her film, Twyana Davis, a visual artist in Columbus, Ohio, reflects on being released from prison but being unable to live free. She tells Reckon that rules around supervision included paying cumbersome fees and being subjected to obtrusive rules about overnight guests and even romantic relationships.
"It's kind of like you have one foot in the prison and one foot out of prison," Davis said. "So it is, honestly, a measure of freedom that is contingent upon the parole board as well as the parole officer. So you're free, but not really free. You know?"
Daniel Forkkio, Represent Justice's CEO, said the organization was founded "because we believe that storytelling has the power to challenge the deeply-entrenched narratives that underlie our country’s criminal legal system, and in doing so, create change."
He adds that this is Represent Justice's first class of ambassadors to produce a short film as the cornerstone of their ambassadorship.
"We wanted to create a space where storytellers and advocates across the country had the means, access, and support to tell the stories they wanted to tell, in their own words," Forkkio said. "It’s been powerful to see how they’ve evolved as storytellers. We’re just grateful we can be a conduit, and help them share these stories with the world."
