OUR MISSION
Prison Journalism Project was founded in April 2020 with the aim of changing the storytellers. We are an independent, national nonprofit initiative that trains incarcerated writers to be journalists and publishes their stories, so they can shift the narrative, challenge stereotypes and serve as powerful voices in the broader conversation about the prison legal system across the U.S. and in their local communities. We see an opportunity to make a systemic impact by providing prison writers — many of whom are BIPOC — with hands-on journalism training grounded in literacy development and workforce readiness.
OUR VALUES
Inclusivity, transparency and collaboration are at the heart of every decision we make as an organization, as educators and as journalists. We uphold the principles of fairness, accountability, accuracy and independence to create responsible journalism.
PJP recognizes that our mission can only succeed if we are making space for everyone’s voices, perspectives and experiences in every aspect of our work and our publication. We embrace the diversity that each person in our community — our writers, staff, volunteers, advisors and supporters — brings to the organization, and we reflect that richness in our journalism, education programs and outreach.
We also understand that values must evolve along with our organization and the broader society, and we commit to listening to our community and reviewing our values periodically, so it is not static.
Inclusivity: We recognize and represent the many identities, experiences, environments and circumstances of currently incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated people, their families and friends and those who work in and around the prison system.
This includes — but is not limited to — ability, age (current age as well as the age people were incarcerated), citizenship status, education, ethnicity, gender, geographic location, incarceration status, length of sentence, location, language, nationality, nature of the crime, political affiliation, religion, race, sexuality, socioeconomic status and veteran status.
PJP commits to fostering an environment in which people of all identities are welcomed, valued and supported. We seek to create an organization with diverse voices and experiences that are representative of our society and the communities we serve.
Transparency: Transparency is essential to creating a diverse, equitable and trustworthy organization. We acknowledge that we are working with a community where its members are easily exploited. We are also supporting journalism in an environment with limited access to outside sources, working with writers who, for the most part, have not been traditionally trained in journalism prior to their involvement with PJP. We are seeking to build trust with mainstream publications, who may lack experience working with incarcerated writers.
PJP commits to full transparency in the way we run our organization as well as in our editorial and educational processes and the content we publish.
Collaboration: We believe that the work we do can only be strengthened by collaborating with others with shared interests and that our community benefits when like-minded organizations support each other.
We work with other publications to co-publish or share PJP stories to amplify our writers’ voices. We support our writers’ ambitions to publish outside of PJP. We support journalists who want to work with our writers. We work with educators to share curricula and enlist student and faculty volunteers. We also work with and support prison education programs and other advocates to promote journalism, journalism education, greater access and transparency within the criminal legal system.