Pictured: JoinJeremy members Corinne Shanahan (Policy Fellow at Institute to End Mass Incarceration) and Seth Stern (Chief of Advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation) at Bridging the Gap: Amplifying Incarcerated Voices in Chicago on May 30, 2026.
Through our We Are One Advocacy initiative, we work with our partner organizations to push for the inclusion of incarcerated voices in journalist and free speech organizations. Incarcerated journalists are in need of far more ready access to legal counsel, resources and other support, when retaliatory punishment is the systemic response to truth-reporting.
Bridging the Gap: Amplifying Incarcerated Voices, held on May 29-30 and organized by Look2Justice, Empowerment Ave, Institute to End Mass Incarceration, Inquest and Haymarket Books, was the first-ever conference on strengthening U.S. prison journalism. It was a meaningful two days of presentations and film screenings by incarcerated writers and artists, spreading education and tools for addressing carceral system injustices, and building solidarity across prison walls.
Pictured: Seth Stern (left) speaks alongside Juan Haines (Editor-in-Chief at Solitary Watch, phoning in), Rahsaan Thomas (Co-Founder and Executive Director of Empowerment Avenue, second from left), and Victoria Law (freelance journalist, anarchist activist and prison abolitionist, second from right) on the panel “The Unfree Press: The Challenges, Needs, and Possibilities of Writing Behind Bars.” The panel is moderated by Dan Berger (right), author and historian of activism, Black Power, and the carceral state.
In their June 26 report back from the conference, attendees Joan Parkin and Mia Bella Rodgers wrote:
As the conference closed, what remained was not simply a collection of workshops, panels, or speeches, but a clear call to action: incarcerated journalism cannot survive in isolation. Again and again, speakers returned to the idea that writing is not merely documentation—it is resistance, survival, accountability, and connection. From Kwaneta Harris writing through retaliation and solitary confinement to Christopher Blackwell’s insistence that we must “pass the mic,” participants challenged us to rethink who gets to tell the story of incarceration and who has access to the public sphere. If prisons depend on invisibility to maintain power, then journalism from inside becomes an act of disruption. The work ahead requires more than amplifying voices; it requires building the networks, resources, and solidarity necessary to ensure those voices continue to reach beyond prison walls. What we heard was a simple but urgent message: the stories are already there. Our responsibility is to listen—and to make sure they keep moving.
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