Incarceration Nations Network and Global Freedom Fellows

Post #280

1000 words; 4 minutes to read

Summary: The Incarceration Nations Network is an international effort to support, through a number of projects improvements in criminal justice and support for people around the world who have direct experience in this system.  

Social conditions and criminal justice policies vary greatly from country to country around the world, but the experience of being incarcerated, and the challenges it poses for life after prison are similar everywhere.  Many people have endured harsh experiences, and yet have been able to do really positive things after release, even with all the challenges of having a criminal record.

The Incarceration Nations Network (INN) is a global network that supports, instigates and popularizes innovative prison reform and justice reimagining efforts around the world.

INN is largely the creation of Dr Baz Dreisinger, Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York whose unflagging energy and determination is visible in everything the network does.

INN

INN is a partner-led organization that is: globally minded but locally grounded, attuned to problems but driven by solutions, focused on systemic change even as we work to clean up the mess of mass incarceration in the here and now. We are committed to transnational solidarity, intersectionality, working toward a world without prisons and ensuring that those directly impacted by the justice system lead the way to its radical reimagining.

INN works toward peace and community safety by thinking past prisons, correcting and connecting global justice work by:

• Raising awareness about mass incarceration and the challenges of a prison-based system of justice in mainstream international contexts.
• Connecting the dots between efforts in myriad countries, creating a global network of forward-thinking justice workers who consistently collaborate and learn from each other.
• Supporting and promoting global organizations doing innovative, effective work related to incarceration, in ways that build safer communities and reduce recidivism.
• Globally changing the narrative about prisons and the people in them by producing informative, accessible content and events related to incarceration and community safety; when appropriate, supporting strides made by governments in this arena by translating and amplifying progressive programs and policy changes to the masses.
• Promoting the use of radical imagination in rethinking how we do justice both globally and locally.
• Offering a wide-reaching international platform for those directly impacted by the justice system to lead the movement for its reform.

Prison as a failed approach

Prisons have been shown to be ineffective in increasing public safety and reducing crime. Massive increases in prison populations did not result in lower crime rates, while many jurisdictions have seen declines in crime at the same time as they have reduced their prison populations.  A recent meta-analysis of research reported that.  A 2017 Open Philanthropy Project report reviewed 35 international studies and concluded that tougher sentences “hardly deter crime” and prison time “tends to increase [a person’s] criminality after release”—in other words, prisons produce crime at least as much as they reduce it.

Despite that compelling evidence, the number of people in prison globally has been rising even as crime rates around the world have declined (something one would never know from most media reporting).  Between 2000 and 2015, the total prison population in Oceania increased by almost 60 percent; in the Americas it increased by over 40 percent overall: over 80 percent in Central American countries, and 145 percent in South American countries. The number of prisoners around the world with life sentences has nearly doubled since 2000.

Any other industry showing the lack of success exhibited by prisons, with high costs offering few benefits, would be facing bankruptcy or dismantling.

At the same time, tens of millions of people around the world face the challenge of life with a criminal record.  The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015 stress that we should “leave no one behind.”  But around the world the incarcerated are being left behind; they are among the most disadvantaged people on the planet.  This is so when they enter prison—on average an incarcerated person, prior to confinement, earns 41 percent less than a non-imprisoned person and has much less formal education – and then again when they are cycled out of it, to face unemployment, trauma, homelessness and limited civil rights.

In essence, prisons are global repositories for the profoundly underprivileged, the mentally ill, those with substance abuse issues and other marginalized populations.  This is the situation that INN is trying to change.

INN has partner organizations in many countries, on every continent.  It is involved in a variety of projects around the world.  These include producing books and video content on criminal justice issues, encouraging partnerships between universities and prisons to improve post-secondary education opportunities, building networks of current and former prisoners who want to write about their experiences.

Global Freedom Fellows

An important recent project is the creation of the Global Freedom Fellows (GFF) scholarships and network, an international community of leaders with lived experience of the justice system.  INN supports this network and works to keep international connections together.  In 2024, INN launched the Global Freedom Scholars Network, the world’s first transnational network of justice-involved university students. The GFS Network has chapters in 16 countries on every continent except Asia.

The stories of the Fellows are remarkable in so many ways; a few are available here.  Most of them grew up in very difficult circumstances.  Many of them experienced very harsh treatment in the ‘justice’ system and in prison.  Yet all of them have found ways to make a significant contribution to a better and fairer society.  Many of them had their lives changed by a single person they happened to meet, or by an opportunity they were unexpectedly given.

A central theme in these stories, so consistent with the broader INN message, is that there is a vast amount of talent and positive contribution locked up – literally – in the people we imprison.  We know many ways in which this capacity could be unleashed, yet our systems and institutions often seem to work against those positive developments.  INN and the GFF show us how much we are losing when we focus on punishment and restriction instead of human development and the capacity for positive change.

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