New England Law | Boston recently welcomed volunteers from Families for Justice as Healing (FJAH), along with Fulbright Scholar and CORI initiative director Professor David Siegel and Professor Eliot Tracz, Clemency Advisor to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for a panel discussion on prison abolition and criminal justice reform.

Families for Justice as Healing is a Roxbury-based, statewide organization led by women directly impacted by incarceration. The organization’s mission is to end the imprisonment of women and girls and to advance community-based alternatives to incarceration.

FJAH Executive Director Mallory Hanora spoke to a full audience of law students, professors, and legal professionals, offering both organizing insight and concrete legal strategies aimed at bringing women home from prison. She also discussed efforts to challenge the state’s proposed $360 million plan to construct a new women’s prison.

Angie Jefferson shared her lived experience at MCI–Framingham, powerfully illustrating the systemic neglect within the Massachusetts Department of Correction. She highlighted the ongoing harm suffered by incarcerated women and condemned the state’s decision to allocate $360 million in taxpayer funds toward building a new prison instead of investing in community-based solutions.

The New England Law chapter of the National Lawyers Guild would like to thank all the speakers, participants, and attendees for contributing to an engaging and inspiring evening of education, solidarity, and action.