What We Do
Our current brutal criminal legal system claims rehabilitation, however, its fundamental structures have been shaped by violence and racism, which punishes people over healing them. This happens because after we put people away, we forget them, leave them feeling outcasted, forgotten, and voiceless.
Transforming Lives NY takes a radical approach to rehabilitation. By pairing up our mentors with incarcerated citizens, we provide them with the human contact essential to healthy growth and mental development. We also advocate for, and bear witness to those behind the walls so they are not further injured - physically or mentally - by the prisons.
Our incarcerated members, in turn, educate their outside partners about the brutality our country inflicts on approximately 2.3 million lives. This educational process transforms the mentors and mobilizes them as agents of change. By educating the public, we seek to change the drivers of this unjust system.
We want to live in a world that is free from violence and where our loved ones have the resources to thrive.
Our goal is to transform the lives of those both inside and outside the walls.
We:
Assign each person a mentor from the outside world so they can get support for writing - as a creative tool to write their stories, as a necessary educational tool, and as a way to examine what led to becoming incarcerated.
Supply notebooks, pens, and educational resources.
Provide a Certificate of Participation, and Letter of Support for parole packets and clemency applications
Publish incarcerated writers’ work.
Offer access to create advocacy videos for sentence reduction, clemency packages, or parole.
Re-entry Support
Host outside events to educate the public