A Decade of Criminal Justice Reform: Have We Moved the Needle?

What this panel is about: Have We Moved The Needle? Just how much has changed over the course of the past decade in terms of Criminal Justice Reform and abolition efforts? Naturally, these questions beg of us to explore whether or not we, as a nation of advocates and activists, have made significant strides with our efforts to reform or abolish many of the draconian practices that came of the Tough on Crime era.

Today, our panelist will help us explore this topic and determine where we currently sit in terms of change or the need for more innovative approaches to criminal justice reform and abolition.

In concluding, they hope to inspire us all to take a closer look and ask ourselves, have we moved the needle?

Moderator: Glenn E. Martin is the President and Founder of GEMtrainers.com, a social justice consultancy firm that partners with non-profits from across the United States to assist with fundraising, organizational development and marketing. Glenn is a longstanding American criminal justice reform advocate and is the founder and former president of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA). He also founded the campaign, #CLOSErikers^[1] and co-founded the Education from the Inside Out Coalition, a national campaign working to remove barriers to higher education facing students while they are in prison and once they are released.^[2]

Willie Bankston is our tech support for today. He has an extensive background in Information Technology and loves to volunteer and give back to the community.

Lauren Wolf is an Assistant Professor in the Mathematics Department of Hostos. She received her Ph.D. in 2013 from University of Albany where she studied the non existence of eigenvalues in the essential spectrum of Toeplitz Operators. She loves teaching and embraces every aspect as she has six research students every semester. Her student research combines mathematics and social justice. She has eighteen years teaching , seven of those years she taught in medium and maximum security prisons. Professor Wolf is the advisor to two student clubs maths club and reimagining justice. The clubs do several events every semester and the student are actively involved.

• Sponsors
Reimagining Justice.
United Black Family Scholarship Foundation.
Prison Education Project.

Panelists:
Alesha Monteiro is an advocate and abolitionist who works with incarcerated people and their families. She has spent countless hours writing and reaching out to senators, media and the governor; organizing, and protesting. She has created a space for those that want to help but don’t really know how to get involved, which allows for them to become active in the movement. After spending years working in this movement, she has built many lasting relationships with both families and people incarcerated. She is very passionate and creative when it comes to campaigns and does so while always keeping her goal of creating bills and changing laws in mind. A mother, a humanitarian, and wife of an incarcerated lifer.

Ivan Kilgore is an incarcerated author, activist and philanthropist having founded the United Black Family Scholarship Foundation from within maximum security prison walls. Today, he spends 23 hours a day locked in a prison cell in Northern California. Having been sentenced to life without parole, he stands as a beacon of inspiration for those determined not to allow circumstance to curtail their ability to make a positive contribution to society. An accomplished author, lecturer, and advocate for human rights, his passion to write is driven by a need to survive, a need to understand and navigate the political, historical, and cultural forces that operate to hold him captive–both physically and mentally. His body of work includes: Domestic Genocide: The Institutionalization of Society; The King Series; My Comrades Thoughts On Black Lives Matter; and Mayhem, Murder & Magnificence: A Memoir.

Ernst Fenelon, Jr. is an international author & public speaker, transformational life coach, and holistic justice advocate. As a highly sought after Public Speaker, he uses his almost 30 years of personal lived experience with the California and global jail/prison systems to address criminal and social justice system injustices and inequalities. In the past 9 years, in his role as Senior Program Coordinator of the “Prison Education Project” (PEP) national and international programs and Representative of the Reintegration Academy (RA), (Both programs created by Professor Renford Reese), he has been instrumental in their phenomenal growth to being one of the largest volunteer-based prison education programs in the world. His body of work includes: Author of the self empowerment book “Three Things That Everybody Wants To Know About You and The Five Step Plan For Life Success”.

Tyann Salgardo is an activist who advocates against police brutality. Having lost her son to police violence, she travels with other families impacted by police brutality. Her goal is to travel and speak out against police brutality; to bring awareness to other people about the murders committed by police against our black and brown men; to be a voice for the victims; to seek justice and police reform. Her travels have led her to meet hundreds of families impacted by the loss of their sons and daughters at the hands of the police. She’s met so many families whose childrens’ stories are unheard-of. Hundreds of men and women who were killed by the police and their stories have not been told by the media. Through it all, she continues to be her son’s voice as well as other victims voices.

Natalia Arai is a Bronx native born to an El Salvadorian mother who fled the country during the 1972-1992 Civil War. Her father, a Japanese American, was an intern at Minidoka during the Second World War. She’s an Asian American & LatinX Activist and fighter for human rights and equity in underrepresented communities, BLM supporter, LGBT ally. She holds a Bachelors in Arts/Multicultural Politics and minor in Asian American Studies. She is currently pursing a degree in Physical Therapy and is working on her prerequisites at Hostos at CUNY where she resides as the President of the Reimagining Justice Club.

Joshua Rojas hails from South Bronx. His family is originally from Puerto Rico. He is a business major looking work with underrepresented communities and looks to invest in black and brown businesses. He is an activist and Reimagining Justice Club Vice President