Chicago, IL — This May, Andrew Crespo, Executive Faculty Director, and Corinne Shanahan, Policy Fellow, spoke on a panel about the need for legal protections for press access in American prisons at a groundbreaking conference on prison journalism, Bridging the Gap: Amplifying Incarcerated Voices. IEMI co-hosted the conference alongside Look2Justice, Empowerment Ave, Haymarket Books, as well as our own magazine, Inquest.
Their panel, titled “Bridges, Not Walls: Building the Future of Journalism in and about American Prisons” explored threats to essential coverage of carceral institutions as well as potential solutions. Andrew and Corinne shared detailed insights on the landscape of press access in the U.S. and an overview of our model legislative framework to advance protections for journalists and whistleblowers reporting on prisons—work that is part of our ongoing Exposing Prisons Project.
Andrew and Corinne were joined on the panel by award-winning journalist Phillip Vance Smith II, Prison Banned Books Week founding director Moira Marquis, and Princeton professor and founding director of Princeton’s Policy Advocacy Clinic Udi Ofer.
Adam McGee, Managing Editor of Inquest, also spoke in a workshop on best practices for editing incarcerated writers, rooted in his experience at Inquest, which regularly publishes writers in prison.
