This past weekend All of Us or None Publishing hosted a book release event at Rutgers University’s Center for Law and Justice in celebration of Rutger’s alma mater, Tia Ryans and Karen Kaplan’s new book Your Journey Behind the Cell: Pre-Release Manual for People Incarcerated in New Jersey. This manual consolidates the stories of several people formerly incarcerated in New Jersey who’ve been able to successfully lead positive and impactful lives following their transition out of New Jersey’s Dept. of Corrections. Ryan’s idea to help others returning home from incarceration have a smoother transition was born out of her own experience wishing she had a collective resource to turn to immediately following her release from 10 years at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, NJ. Her idea evolved into a mission to ensure that all people incarcerated in New Jersey do have access to the resources that they need to plan to be successful following their release, even before the end of their sentence.
Your Journey Behind the Cell‘s publication pioneers a new coming era, where those impacted by mass incarceration are embraced as leading experts in the movement to repair the devastation perpetuated by mass incarceration in New Jersey. Through the incorporation of real-life experiences shared by a series of formerly incarcerated people, the introduction acknowledges the collective wisdom with, “Approximately 273 years have been spent confined within correctional facilities, and 87 uninterrupted years of release.” Understanding that hundreds of years of incarceration and many decades of growth and development outside of prison are molded into a product specifically crafted for those preparing to join the “free world”, having the opportunity to “hear” from 87 years of experience on the outside is invaluable.
Building upon this, during the release party, attendees had the privilege of hearing from many of those storytellers directly. So many participating storytellers refereed to a lack of knowledge and access to resources that made so many aspects of being successful post release prohibitively challenging including: finding permanent housing, securing employment, being mentally sound as well as staying physically healthy and maintaining healthy relationships with friends and family. All of these aspects of returning to society from a life of isolation and daily dehumanization requires aggressive intention to reverse the oppressive impacts of long term incarceration. With constant surveillance, ongoing threats of violence and very little responsibility over making one’s own own choices has a crippling effect on incarcerated individual’s mental and spiritual well being. With all of these complexities in mind, Your Journey Behind the Cell was born.
As the stack of books got shorter and shorter during the event, Christopher Agans, Dir. of NJ Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons (NJ-STEP) committed to purchasing 400 books for current students incarcerated across the state. Along with that many donations were given to allow for books to be purchased for the many copies sold at no cost for the men and women in prison that may not be involved in the STEP program. I even purchased a book for a friend incarcerated in Michigan, as much of the advice in the book are relevant regardless of one’s state of incarceration. Make sure to get yourself and a friend on the inside a copy at All of Us or None Publishing.
