Creative Acts in the Associated Press

Last year a crew from the Associated Press joined us at one of our Arts and Virtual Reality Reentry programs at Valley State Prison.

They watched our innovative programming and made a video piece that shares what they learned. They spent time with our co-founder, Sabra Williams, our teaching artists with lived experience of incarceration: Misti Hassan, Richard Richard, and with our partners inside participating in the week-long workshop.

We currently operate the program in 4 California prisons, including Corcoran State Prison and the Central California Women’s Facility. At Corcoran, the number of infractions among men in solitary confinement dropped from 735 to 1 following a week-long session. As a result, the warden at the facility was able to commute enough solitary confinement sentences that one of four buildings dedicated to the practice was closed. This work has proven mental health and behavioral benefits, and is seen as a mental health resource by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation mental health professionals.

We developed the virtual reality part of the program after observing that people released from long prison sentences often struggle to adjust to life outside prison, which was also backed up by our formerly incarcerated teachers and community. Using this information, and collecting requests from our partners inside, we have created multiple pieces of content that support reentry into a highly digitized world, as well as reentering social and familial environments after incarceration.

We thank Haven Daley and the Associated Press for their time and care in making a piece that amplifies our work and its impact.

We want to also note that language is very important in the work we do. At Creative Acts we use people-centered language like “formerly incarcerated” or “people with lived experience,” instead of words like “inmate.” It may seem small, but language makes a big difference in shifting perception and understanding of the carceral system and those impacted by it.

Watch the full video and read the whole article HERE.