Sign up for our next Zoom discussion “The Elephant Meets...”, with California-based prison artivist, Sabra Williams

In a moment when the eyes of the world are on America’s policing and justice systems, and their treatment of fellow black Americans with an often lethal harshness, we are delighted to have UK born and raised Sabra Williams as the next speaker in our The Elephant Meets… series (where we interview those trying to forge the “next system”, now).

It’s on Tuesday, June 16, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM BST. Sign up here, and Add to Calendar. Or sign up at the form below:

Sabra is the founder and director of the California-based Creative Acts, which she describes as:

an organization that seeks to transform our most pressing social justice issues through the revolutionary power of the Arts; to heal trauma, build community, raise power and amplify the voices of the most marginalized to change commonly held narratives and improve opportunities for our most impacted communities.

Sabra has received international acclaim for her work as an actor and co-founder of The Actors' Gang Prison Project, where she oversaw the program’s growth from one California State Prison to thirteen. Sabra was named a “Champion of Change” by President Obama in 2016, and was given a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to the Arts & Prison Reform in 2018.

Read this piece on the power of prison arts programs (Sabra co-writing with Jane Fonda in the Washington Post! PDF). And watch the video above in which Sabra introduces herself and her work, what frustrates her most about the current system and the better system she is trying to give rise to.

Sabra writes for us below on the work that Creative Acts does in prisons:

Mass incarceration creates a whole host of collateral consequences that include restricted employment prospects, housing instability, family disruption, stigma, and disenfranchisement. These consequences set individuals back by imposing new punishments after prison.

Collateral consequences are felt disproportionately by people of colour, and because of concentrations of poverty and imprisonment in certain jurisdictions, it is now the case that entire communities experience these negative effects.

People who return to our communities after long prison sentences face huge obstacles to success as indicated by the US state recidivism rate of 68% in the first three years and 83% in the next six.

And while legislation is starting to reflect the importance of civic responsibility and voting for systems-impacted people, the lack of engagement and information and being removed from society leaves a very low voting rate.

In Los Angeles County children’s prisons legislation was passed in 2017 allowing them to vote, however, in the first year only 35 of more than 600 voted.

With strong vision and relentless commitment to transforming the way we address social justice issues, Creative Acts has accomplished a great deal in a short time.

In our first two years we have developed and implemented our 'Art Attacks' civic engagement workshops in every LA County juvenile probation facility, reaching 600+ students and witnessing an 86% increase in their voter participation in the 2018 primary election.

We are about to pilot our cutting edge Arts-based Virtual Reality Reentry program for people who have served many decades or life sentences in maximum-security prison yards.

This program uses the tool of Virtual Reality to bring daily experiences that our returned citizens tell us are debilitating for them, inside the prison to better help them reenter our communities safely and confidently.

Simple daily experiences like pumping gas or checking out at a supermarket can cause deep stress and embarrassment for people who have never had the chance to learn how to deal with our computerized world.

We wrap the entire program in Art practices such as theatre, writing and drawing to transform the emotional outcomes of returning.