RETURNING CITIZENS: LIFE BEYOND INCARCERATION


#101 - With Rigor and With Love

Long Description:

The Philadelphia Mural Arts Project provides an opportunity for probationers and inmates to learn new skills, to channel their energy into repairing harm instead of their repeating mistakes. Anger and despair are replaced by pride in creativity and self-expression. Not art for art’s sake; art for our sake.

Short Description:

At Philadelphia Mural Arts, formerly incarcerated citizens learn useful new skills and creative pride.

#102 - Testimony

Long Description:

A sentence of life in prison without parole was a common one for teen offenders, until the groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama ruled it unconstitutional. In the interim, thousands of young lives were virtually thrown away, consigned to hopeless imprisonment, “death by incarceration.” Suddenly, hundreds of these inmates were unexpectedly set free, to reconnect and re-enter their lives. We hear their truth.

Short Description:

Sentenced to “life without parole” as teens, then freed by the Supreme Court, inmates tell their truths.

#103 - The Simple Dignity of Work

Long Description:

Jeff Brown runs grocery stores, a lot of them in urban “food deserts,” neighborhoods where access to fresh, healthy food is in short supply. For his workforce, he turned to an unexpected, though surprisingly logical labor population: ex-convicts who need work in the communities that form his customer base. "In general, they are

grateful for the chance… they just want to take care of themselves and their families,” say Brown, “like everybody else.”

Short Description:

Grocery store owner Jeff Brown hires returning citizens to work in stores that serve their neighborhoods.

#104 - On Our Own

Long Description:

The formerly incarcerated face a range of barriers re-entering society, but one of the most challenging and persistent is the search for meaningful employment. Though certain state and corporate mandates have helped to ease the stigma, many returning citizens have taken hold of their own destinies in bold and surprising ways by becoming business owners and entrepreneurs, often by using skills they’d learned behind bars.

Short Description:

Returning citizen entrepreneurs create businesses and take hold of their destinies in surprising ways.

#105 - Running the Traps

Long Description:

Seth Williams was Philly’s first black DA, was convicted on corruption charges and served three years in prison. He’s now a community activist who calls himself “the poster child of second chances,” advocating for returning citizens and working with credible messengers to combat street gun violence. Says Williams, “If we are going to talk about solutions, we have to understand the whys. If we don’t understand the why we can’t affect the solution.”

Short Description:

Disgraced Ex-Philly DA finds redemption by advocating against gun violence and for returning citizens.

#106 - Never Going Back

Long Description:

Susan Burton has helped guide thousands of women in transition from prison back to life in their community through A New Way of Life, that provides women assistance with housing, social and legal issues. Ardella’s House, founded by Tonie Willis, offers women a safe refuge, help with employment, with family reunification, counseling, peer to peer mentoring and most importantly, dignity and a place to be again.

Short Description:

Renowned activist Susan Burton visits Ardella’s House, a safe refuge for formerly incarcerated women.