Freedom Stories: How Storytelling Can Be Used To End Mass Incarceration
Saturday, April 15, session 1
11:00 AM- 12:30 PM PST
We are in the midst of a national reckoning over crime and punishment, and what it will take to achieve public health and safety. Yet for decades, lawmakers and the media have overlooked the perspective, voice, and expertise of those closest to mass criminalization. As a result, misinformation spreads, fear wins out over reason, and the status quo prevails. Zealous aims to right this historic imbalance.
This workshop will get participants imagining about ways we can end mass incarceration. Workshop participants will first be shown a film, to understand the power of art to breathe life into data with Los Angeles stories of everyday freedom. Facilitators will present concrete ways we can use creative storytelling to advocate for ending mass incarceration. Facilitators will then guide participants to rewrite problematic and sensational headlines using person-first language.
Asia Johnson
Asia Johnson is a writer, storyteller, and filmmaker who has worked with several organizations in the criminal justice reform space, including The Bail Project, cut50, Shakespeare in Prison, Prison Creative Arts Program, Hamtramck Free School, and the Michigan Prison Doula Initiative. Asia is a 2019 Right of Return Fellow, 2019 Room Project Fellow, and 2021 Brennan Center for Justice Fellow. Her Chapbook, An Exorcism, was released in 2018 and her upcoming directorial debut, Out of Place was released in 2022.
Asia is the Senior Associate of Storytelling and Local Organizing at Zealous. When Asia isn’t helping to uplift the stories of those impacted by the criminal legal system and making her dream of a world without cages come true, she is writing poetry.
lishe Davis
Iishe is a visual artist, community organizer, afrofuturist, and abolitionist. She recently graduated from Scripps College with a BA in Media Studies, and spent most of her time studying media theory, race, and digital art. During her time at Scripps, Iishe co-founded Nobody Fails at Scripps, a mutual aid organization led by a collective of 40+ students to combat the inequitable effects of the pandemic.
As a Creative Communications Associate, Iishe supports the team in developing and launching social media plans, toolkits, creative design strategies, and illustration projects to uplift and amplify the critical messages and content of Zealous.
Scott Hechinger
For nearly a decade, Scott served as a public defender in Brooklyn, representing people charged with crimes who couldn’t afford an attorney, but also long shared his perspective as a public defender outside of court in a variety of media to shift the narrative and drive systemic change.
While practicing, Scott co-founded the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, which freed thousands of people caged pretrial solely because they couldn’t afford to buy their freedom. After years of practice, Scott was appointed Director of Policy leading creative defender advocacy, as well as design and implementation of multiple new media advocacy films and campaigns, including We Have Rights (immigration nationally), Justice is Blindfolded(laws that allowed prosecutors to withhold evidence in New York), Power of Prosecutors (national Get Out the Vote effort for DA races); and Perpetual Punishment (collateral consequences nationwide).
Scott founded and now Executive Directs Zealous to build on the successes of the model developed at Brooklyn Defender Services and the promise of non-traditional legal advocacy, media and movements for defenders, social justice leaders, communities, and artists. Scott speaks widely, lectures at law schools and universities, advises companies and organizations on criminal justice media projects and campaigns, and his work and commentary are regularly featured in a range of major national and local outlets. Scott serves as Lecturer-In-Law at Columbia University Law School.