The below resources are provided in connection with The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists, on view at The Drawing Center from October 11, 2019 through January 5, 2020.

The following organizations and initiatives have developed outreach, service, advocacy, and public programming services in support of incarcerated individuals and other marginalized communities locally, nationally, and internationally. This list is by no means comprehensive, and will be updated during the run of the exhibition as we continue to learn with our audience. We encourage you to use this list to learn more about the ways in which you can help communities of justice-involved individuals. An abbreviated version of this resource document is also available in physical form in our front lobby.

• Artists at Risk Connection
  • https://artistsatriskconnection.org/
  • Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) safeguards the right to artistic freedom of expression and ensures that artists everywhere can live and work without fear.

• Art For Justice Fund
  • https://artforjusticefund.org/
  • The Art For Justice Fund is a five-year initiative that aims to turn art into action, investing more than $100 million into strategic efforts to reform the criminal justice system.

• Artistic Noise
  • https://www.artisticnoise.org/
  • Artistic Noise exists to bring the freedom and power of artistic practice to young people who are incarcerated, on probation, or otherwise involved in the justice system.

• The Bail Project
  • https://bailproject.org/
  • The Bail Project™ National Revolving Bail Fund is a critical tool to prevent incarceration and combat racial and economic disparities in the bail system.

• Bard Prison initiative
  • https://bpi.bard.edu/
  • The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) works to redefine the availability, affordability, and expectations typically associated with higher education in America. Since 2001, BPI has created groundbreaking opportunities for college within America’s prison systems.

• Black and Pink
  • https://www.blackandpink.org/
  • Black and Pink’s mission is to abolish the criminal punishment system and to liberate LGBTQIA2S+ people/people living with HIV who are affected by that system, through advocacy, support, and organizing.

• A Blade of Grass
  • http://www.abladeofgrass.org/
  • A Blade of Grass provides resources to artists who demonstrate artistic excellence and serve as innovative conduits for social change.

• Blind Injustice Opera
  • https://www.cincinnatiopera.org/blind-injustice
  • The world premiere opera, “Blind Injustice,” explores the true stories of six people who were tried, convicted, imprisoned, then ultimately freed by the Ohio Innocence Project.

• Brooklyn Community Bail Fund
  • https://brooklynbailfund.org/
  • Brooklyn Community Bail Fund is committed to challenging the racism, inequality, and injustice of a criminal legal system and immigration and deportation regime that disproportionately target and harm low-income communities of color.

• The Brotherhood/Sister Sol
  • https://brotherhood-sistersol.org/
  • The Brotherhood/Sister Sol (Bro/Sis) provides comprehensive, holistic and long-term support services to youth who range in age from eight to twenty-two. 

• Cellblock Visions
  • https://cellblockvisions.com/
  • Cellblock Visions is a lively collection of inmate artwork, created behind bars, from county jail to death row – the alternative art world flourishing today in American prisons.

• Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES)
  • https://www.cases.org/
  • The mission of the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES) is to increase public safety through innovative services that reduce crime and incarceration, improve behavioral health, promote recovery and rehabilitation, and create opportunities for success in the community.

• Center for Court Innovation
  • https://www.courtinnovation.org/
  • Originally founded as a public/private partnership between the New York State Unified Court System and the Fund for the City of New York, the Center for Court Innovation creates operating programs to test new ideas and solve problems, performs original research to determine what works (and what doesn’t), and provides expert assistance to justice reformers around the world.

• College Behind Bars
  • https://www.pbs.org/show/college-behind-bars/
  • A documentary presented by Kens Burns that explores the transformative power of education through the eyes of a dozen incarcerated men and women trying to earn college degrees – and a chance at new beginnings – from one of the country’s most rigorous prison education programs. A film by Lynn Novick. Tune in or Stream November 25 and 26 at 9/8c.

• ColorLines
  • https://www.colorlines.com/ 
  • A daily news site where race matters, featuring award-winning in-depth reporting, news analysis, opinion and curation.  Colorlines is published by RaceForward, a national organization that advances racial justice through research, media and practice.

• Critical Resistance
  • http://criticalresistance.org/
  • Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe.

• DreamYard
  • https://www.dreamyard.com/
  • DreamYard programs develop artistic voice, nurture young peoples’ desire to make change and cultivate the skills necessary to reach positive goals. 

• Ear Hustle
  • https://www.earhustlesq.com/listen
    
  • The podcast Ear Hustle brings you the daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration, and is a partnership between Nigel Poor, a Bay Area visual artist, and Earlonne Woods, formerly incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, and was co-founded with former San Quentin resident Antwan Williams.

• Equal Justice Initiative
  • https://eji.org/
  • The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.

• The Fortune Society
  • https://fortunesociety.org/
  • The Fortune Society’s mission is to support successful reentry from incarceration and promote alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of our communities.

• Groundswell
  • https://www.groundswell.nyc/
  • Groundswell is a NYC-based organization that brings together youth, artists, and community organizations to use art as a tool for social change, for a more just and equitable world.

• Howard League for Penal Reform
  • https://howardleague.org/
  • The Howard League campaigns for meaningful change in the criminal justice system. Everything we do seeks to achieve our aim of less crime, safer communities, fewer people in prison.

• Freedom for Immigrants
  • https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/
  • Freedom for Immigrants uses a wide range of advocacy tools, including community organizing, coalition building, and legislative advocacy, to fight for a country without immigration detention.

• Immigrant Bail Fund
  • https://www.immigrantbailfund.org/
  • The Immigrant Bail Fund frees Connecticut residents from immigration prison so they can fight deportation from a place of freedom.

• Immigrant Justice Corps
  • https://justicecorps.org
  • Founded from direct experience with the systemic failings of our broken and outdated immigration system, Immigrant Justice Corps mobilizes quality counsel to meet the needs of immigrants nationwide.

• Innocence Project
  • https://www.innocenceproject.org/
  • The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

• International Coalition of Sites of Conscience
  • https://www.sitesofconscience.org/en/home/
  • The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is the only global network of historic sites, museums and memory initiatives that connects past struggles to today’s movements for human rights. We turn memory into action.

• Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services
  • https://www.lirs.org/
  • LIRS works to protect and embrace refugees, migrants, and children seeking a new life in America. Having carried out this work for more than eight decades, LIRS and our national network of service providers are uniquely equipped to provide holistic, trauma-informed, and age-appropriate care to the vulnerable individuals we serve.

• New Sanctuary Coalition
  • https://www.newsanctuarynyc.org/
  • For 10 years, the New Sanctuary Coalition has been led by and for immigrants to stop the inhumane system of deportations and detentions in this country.

• The Osborne Association
  • http://www.osborneny.org/about/
  • The Osborne Association works in partnership with individuals, families, and communities to create opportunities for people affected by the criminal justice system to further develop their strengths and lead lives of responsibility and contribution.

• PEN America
  • https://pen.org/
  • PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.

• Prisoner Visitation & Support
  • https://www.prisonervisitation.org/
  • Prisoner Visitation and Support (PVS) is a volunteer visitation program to federal and military prisoners throughout the United States. 

• Prison Public Memory Project
  • https://www.prisonpublicmemory.org/
  • Prison Public Memory Project uses public history, art, story-telling and media to engage communities in conversation about the complex roles of prisons in America.

• Race Forward  
  • https://www.raceforward.org/ 
  • Race Forward brings systemic analysis and an innovative approach to complex race issues to help people take effective action toward racial equity. 

• Raices
  • https://www.raicestexas.org/
  • RAICES is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency that promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees.

• Survived & Punished
  • https://survivedandpunished.org/
  • S&P organizes to de-criminalize efforts to survive domestic and sexual violence, support and free criminalized survivors, and abolish gender violence, policing, prisons, and deportations.

• The Sentencing Project
  • https://www.sentencingproject.org/
  • The Sentencing Project works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarceration.

• Texas Civil Rights Project
  • https://texascivilrightsproject.org/
  • The Texas Civil Rights Project is boldly serving the movement for equality and justice in and out of the courts. We use our tools of litigation and legal advocacy to protect and advance the civil rights of everyone in Texas, and we partner with communities across the state to serve the rising movement for social justice. 

• Theatre of the Oppressed
  • https://www.tonyc.nyc/
  • Theatre of the Oppressed NYC partners with community members at local organizations to form theatre troupes. These troupes devise and perform plays based on their challenges confronting economic inequality, racism, and other social, health and human rights injustices.

• We Got Us Now
  • https://www.wegotusnow.org/
  • We Got Us Now is a national movement built by, led by, and about children and young adults impacted by parental incarceration with the mission to engage, educate, elevate & empower.

• Words Uncaged
  • http://www.wordsuncaged.com/
  • Words Uncaged helps incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men and women address their past and imagine new, empowered narratives for themselves, their families, and their communities.

• Young New Yorkers
  • https://www.youngnewyorkers.org/
  • Young New Yorkers (YNY) provides arts-based diversion programs to court-involved young people. The ultimate goal is to empower participants to transform the criminal justice system through their own creative voices.