From empathy and outrage to action.

Walk in my shoes.

If you have never been arrested, incarcerated, spent time in solitary confinement—and then been released without money and someplace to go—you have not walked in my shoes. We educate and advocate, we actuate and activate to collaborate for justice. 

The number of women in correctional facilities has risen rapidly, by more than 750% in recent decades. Yet inhumane treatment is commonplace for women in confinement. Shockingly, incarcerated women are shackled during delivery of their babies. In many cases, the babies are taken away from the mother before she can touch, hold, or see them.

The Witness Digital Library is an ongoing project to compile testimonies of incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and directly impacted survivors of mass incarceration. Their unique perspectives can help us understand and end the failed policies associated with mass incarceration. These testimonies can educate and galvanize the public to advocate for needed changes. The scope of this collection includes personal narratives about life before, during, and after prison.

As a formerly incarcerated Jewish lesbian and the child of two survivors of the Holocaust, Litwok uses the intersectionality of her life experiences to call attention to mass incarceration and mass supervision. With 2.3 million incarcerated people, and close to 6 million people under mass supervision, Litwok looks to educate and activate her audiences to join her and her organization — Witness to Mass Incarceration—to end mass incarceration as we know it.

Litwok address how audiences can work and interact together in a changing world. Her story has touched audiences at universities, colleges, community and LGBTQ+ centers, synagogues and other places of worship, and at the White House for their panel on LGBTQ Criminalization. And she would welcome a request to speak to your group.

Our Day Institute focuses on issues impacting women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming/nonbinary, and queer communities in the criminal punishment system. It serves as a space to educate and engage the broader community. We build a collective strategy to foster systemic change and create stronger communities in solidarity with the goal of ending mass incarceration on the national, state, and local levels. Our institute provides many opportunities to uplift, build capacity and develop leaders in order to empower formerly incarcerated people.

presentation 1: General Overview of Mass Incarceration

The history of oppressive criminal punishment in America, post-slavery and current slave labor practices, redlining, Southern black codes. 

presentation 2: The Propaganda of Criminal Justice

Law enforcement and mainstream media are complicit in defining incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people as dangerous. 

presentation 3: LGBTQ+ Youth Criminalization

School-to-prison pipeline, including a focus on institutions like foster care, uses of truancy, disciplinary practices in early childhood education, and harmful juvenile delinquency practices. 

presentation 4: Collateral Consequences of Incarceration

Impact on families, post-traumatic stress disorder, “legal” discrimination in housing, education, and employment. 

presentation 5: Conditions of Confinement

PREA implementation, solitary confinement, homophobic and transphobic physical abuse, staff abuse and harassment, LGBTQ+ specific housing units, medical and mental health care.

presentation 6: Mass Supervision, the Next Jim Crow

Parole and probation are being extended. Today Mass Supervision has increased by 100% for individuals under local, state, and federal community supervision in America

presentation 7: Failure of Current Government Based Reentry Services

Without reentry support upon release from incarceration, the most marginalized people are forced into a cycle of incarceration to be left in a state of hopelessness

presentation 8: The Criminalization of Immigration

U.S. Border Patrol Abuse, Immigration Detention Abuse, Privatization of Immigration Detention Centers 

“When we allow ourselves to be shielded and disconnected from those who are vulnerable and disfavored,” we lose our effectiveness, but “proximity is a pathway through which we learn the kind of things we need to know to make healthier communities.” ~Bryan Stevenson

In order to understand a population you have to stand in closer proximity to them. Witness’ dedication to reimagining employment for formerly incarcerated women and LGBTQ+ people begins with equipping corporations with the necessary training required to understand the prison experience, which is traumatizing.

For employers to be inclusive of this population, they need to understand them. For example, for those who’ve been in solitary confinement, being placed in a small or confined workspace might be difficult.

Every element of the profoundly corrupt and abusive system called mass incarceration must change. To this end, Witness, along with groups at the federal, state, and local levels, have worked to eliminate solitary confinement, end cash bail, release the elderly and now, release all those whose health may be challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to participating in all efforts designed to challenge the system, Witness works on promoting legislation that focuses on changing the unlimited power of the prosecutor. Prosecutors decide who to arrest, who to try in court, and for how long each person will spend in prison. Their collective bias has put a disproportionate number of black, brown and LGBTQ+ people in prison.

It is time to put a check on their power.

The U.S. president and governors have the ability to grant clemency to provide relief to people who have been convicted of crimes. This power can be exercised in two primary ways -  pardon or commutation of sentence. A pardon exempts a convicted individual from any remaining punishment or future consequences of a conviction. Commutation reduces a sentence, either fully or partially. Clemency is usually requested through a petition or an application process and can be granted for any number of reasons. Pardons can be issued with or without a formal process. Witness advocates for policy changes that increase the use of clemency whenever it is appropriate, whether for humanitarian reasons or because sentences have been unjust or excessive, as has been common in recent decades due to mandatory sentences and other aspects of our country’s mass incarceration policies.