Presented in collaboration with Incarceration Nations, join the Petey Greene Program’s Puttkammer Center for Educational Justice and Equity staff and the Global Freedom Fellows for a conversation on the global landscape of education and mass incarceration.
We are thrilled that the Petey Greene Program has been selected as a Charity Affiliate for the 2024 Philadelphia Marathon Weekend on November 23 and 24. Through this partnership, we provide runners with the opportunity to make their race meaningful and support the academic goals of currently and formerly incarcerated learners through high-quality volunteer tutoring and other educational programming.
We hope you will consider donating to our awesome runners’ fundraising pages and join us to cheer on our runners this fall if you are in the Philadelphia area.
The Petey Greene Program is proud to be an official charity partner of New York Road Runners for the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon! The iconic course runs through all of New York City’s boroughs and we’re thrilled that the PGP will be represented on this impactful and celebratory day. Through this partnership, we are able to provide runners with the opportunity to make their 26.2 miles meaningful and support the academic goals of currently and formerly incarcerated learners through high-quality volunteer tutoring and other educational programming.
We have a team of six runners. Please support The Petey Greene Program and help our runners reach their $3,000 goal by donating to their fundraising pages. Even a small donation will help achieve their goal! The process is fast, easy, and secure. Thanks so much for your support.
Join the Petey Greene Program for a dive into the barriers and challenges that people with disabilities might face while navigating the criminal legal system and mass incarceration. We were joined by leaders in the field who are doing the work to improve their experiences and spread awareness of what faces people with differing abilities in these settings.
Going Greene, the Petey Greene Program’s annual fundraiser, brings together our students, volunteers, staff, community, and other individuals who have played a significant role in furthering our mission of supporting the academic and career goals of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people through high-quality tutoring and other educational programs.
This year, we are gathering with and recognizing leaders in sports who have made criminal justice reform one of their key philanthropic goals. Sports have a unique ability to transcend boundaries, bring people together and highlight our common humanity while offering opportunities to people beyond what they may have thought was initially possible. In celebration of both the power of sports and education, we will be honoring Larry Miller, the Chairman of the Jordan Brand, for his commitment to activism based on his personal experiences through the criminal legal system.
Get your tickets now for an interactive evening including:
Mingling with the Petey Greene Program community
Silent auction with sports memorabilia
Panel discussion with Larry Miller, Chairman of Jordan Brand
Program spotlights
Sports-themed activities
Delectable cuisine, music, and fun
Dress code: Business casual
Join the PGP’s Puttkammer Center for Education Justice and Equity and the Global Freedom Fellows to hear how incarcerated and system-impacted people around the world are organizing to fight for their rights and foster a more equitable access to legal counsel and support, reimagining justice from behind the walls.
Join the PGP staff and volunteers as we walk in the 2024 Princeton PRIDE Parade. We will also be tabling after the parade. Come out and show your solidarity!
Petey Greene Reunions Event: “Tell Your Story”
May 24 @ 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
Frist Campus Center, North Arcade
The Giving Tent will be a networking opportunity for alumni to reconnect with fellow volunteers and the Petey Greene Program staff! We would love to hear about your volunteer experience and how it impacted your career or life journey. Come network with staff, current volunteers, and the Princeton community while adding your artistic flare to a mural created by incarcerated students at SCI-Chester. For those who didn't have the opportunity to volunteer with us yet, visit our tent to learn about our program and the importance of our service work.
From Prison to College and Beyond: Advocating for Educational Justice and Systemic Change in Carceral Spaces
May 24 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
McCosh Hall, Room 28
Moderator: Chiara Benetollo *21, executive director, Puttkammer Center for Educational Justice and Equity, The Petey Greene Program. Panelists: R.L. Goldberg *21, instructional specialist, Prison Teaching Initiative; Jill Stockwell *17, associate director, Prison Teaching Initiative.
There are more people incarcerated in the United States than in any other country, and the U.S. also has the highest incarceration rates in the world. Black and Latinx people are disproportionately affected by mass incarceration: Black people are incarcerated at six times the rate of Whites. According to the most recent available data, 30% of those who are incarcerated do not have a high school diploma or GED, and only 5% have a college degree. Education not only is essential to disrupt the cycle of incarceration, but it also helps create spaces of freedom that are not dominated by carceral logics inside prisons and jails. This panel will bring together representatives from the leadership of the Prison Teaching Initiative (PTI) and the Petey Greene Program (PGP), two Princeton-based organizations that support the academic goals of incarcerated learners, offering college-level courses, tutoring, and college readiness programs inside state and federal correctional facilities in New Jersey and across the northeastern US. Building on their experience designing and implementing academic programs in correctional facilities, the panelists will discuss recent policy and legislative changes that have the potential to dramatically expand access to education in prison, while reflecting on the many challenges that still stand in the way.
Key to Change: Unlocking Housing Opportunities for Returning Citizens
May 24 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
McCosh Hall, Room 28
Moderator: Jeff Abramowitz, CEO, The Petey Greene Program. Panelists: Yusuf Dahl *17, CEO, The Century Promise; Carl Gershenson, director, The Eviction Lab, Princeton; Nicholas Kikis, vice president, legislative and regulatory affairs, New Jersey Apartment Association; Madeleine Marr ’21, legislative assistant, Office of Senator John Fetterman
Housing denials, not because of present circumstances but because of a past mistake —sometimes decades ago—is the harsh reality for countless justice-impacted individuals seeking housing today. It’s an unfortunate truth that those who have paid their debt to society often find themselves locked out, with homelessness rates among them nearly ten times higher than that of the general population. Please join us for a thought-provoking discussion as our panel of experts uses the short film “Backgrounded” to launch a discussion on how past incarceration remains a barrier to housing and opportunity long after reentry into society and provides a roadmap on how landlords, advocates, and policymakers can work together on a path forward.
Join us in Boston, Philadelphia, Princeton, or virtually on Saturday, April 13th at 1:00 PM EST for our 3rd Annual 5K Run/Walk for Education Justice! This is a family-friendly run/walk with strollers and young runners welcome as well as leashed furry friends at no additional cost. Only runners over 16 need to purchase a ticket. This event will be held rain or shine. There is no rain date.
With every step we take, we will demonstrate that everyone deserves a chance, that we cannot discount anyone, and that we are responsible for each other.
In connection with our upcoming 3rd Annual 5K Run/Walk for Educational Justice, we are hosting a Justice Education Series webinar on nutrition and health inside correctional spaces. We hope you will join us for what will be a great conversation!
The first webinar of the Petey Greene Program's Spring 2024 Justice Education Series was presented by the Puttkammer Center for Educational Justice and Equity. In "Beyond the US: Incarceration and Educational Justice Across the World," we took a global look at other countries’ carceral systems, discussed trends in incarceration and heard from organizations that foster educational justice across the world.
LGBTQ+ people are overrepresented in our country's prisons and jails. In this Justice Education series webinar, we spoke with justice-impacted people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. They shared their experiences and offered advice on how we can become better allies and advocates in this space.
Going Greene: The Art of Educational Justice celebrates the intersection of the creative and performing arts with educational justice and personal achievement. Join us on Saturday, November 18th from 7:00 - 10:00 PM, either in person at WHYY in Philadelphia or virtually. We will be honoring Jane Golden and Mural Arts Philadelphia for their contributions to art and educational justice. We are also looking forward to highlighting artists and community organizations who are active in this space.
Get your tickets now for an interactive evening including a community art project, an art auction, awards, and spotlights along with delectable cuisine, music, and fun with the PGP community.
Visit our silent art auction and place bids on our unique collection of local art with many works created by currently and formerly incarcerated artists. Funds will be split equally to support the artists and PGP's direct services. You don't have to attend the event to participate in the art auction.
We will gather in Boston, Princeton, and virtually on Saturday, October 28th at 1:00 PM EST for our 2nd annual 5K Run/Walk for Education Justice! This is a family-friendly run/walk with strollers and young runners welcome as well as leashed furry friends at no additional cost. Only runners over 16 need to purchase a ticket. This event will be held rain or shine. There is no rain date.
With every step we take, we will demonstrate that everyone deserves a chance, that we cannot discount anyone, and that we are responsible for each other.
In celebration of our 2nd annual 5K Run/Walk for Education Justice, Petey Greene Program trustee and Explorer CEO, Cason Crane speaks with Markelle "the Gazelle" Taylor of the documentary, 26.2 to Life: The San Quentin Prison Marathon and Wylie Belasik of UliftU about the importance of physical fitness as a skill and outlet for people in prison and reentry.
People in our prisons and jails are more likely to have complex medical challenges such as substance use disorders, mental health problems, diabetes, HIV, and other conditions. However, healthcare can be difficult to access in the carceral setting and when it is available, is often low-quality or confusing for patients to navigate. In this conversation, we spoke with individuals and organizations leading efforts to improve healthcare options for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and learned how we can better advocate for improved health outcomes for these vulnerable populations.
In celebration of our upcoming 2nd Annual 5K Run/Walk for Education Justice on October 28, 2023 at 1 PM, Petey Greene Program trustee and Explorer CEO, Cason Crane speaks with Markelle "the Gazelle" Taylor of the documentary, 26.2 to Life: The San Quentin Prison Marathon and Wylie Belasik of UliftU about the importance of physical fitness as a skill and outlet for people in prison and reentry.
Art can serve as a powerful outlet for people navigating the criminal legal system, incarceration, or reentry. During this webinar, we explored how art can be a form of healing, liberation, humanity, and more. Join the Petey Greene Program and justice-impacted artists and advocates for a panel discussion on their experiences and work accompanied by an art showcase.
Sentenced to a Wisconsin prison at 18, Yusuf Dahl MPA *18, deliberately decided not to let his past dictate his future. Following his release, he created over 200 affordable housing units in his native Milwaukee and he received an advanced degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
While a graduate student at Princeton, Yusuf became a tutor in prison classrooms with the Petey Greene Program (PGP). Although he was incensed by what was considered acceptable education inside the walls, he was encouraged by how the presence of Princeton volunteers changed outcomes and, ultimately, the lives of incarcerated students. He went on to serve as the Chair of the Board of the PGP. Currently, he is advocating for legislative change to a feature of the Fair Housing Act which discriminates against formerly incarcerated people. Yusuf is joined by Udi Ofer, the John L. Weinberg Professor and Lecturer in Public International Affairs and a former trustee of the PGP. He is the Founder of the Policy Advocacy Clinic at PU. The Clinic offers students an experiential learning opportunity in policy-making and advocacy. Completing the panel is Jeffrey Abramowitz, CEO of the PGP, who will discuss the future of the organization as it celebrates its 15th Anniversary. Join us for a stimulating conversation and to be uplifted by how these transformational initiatives founded at PU are creating a better world.
Cited by President Eisgruber as a magnificent example of Princeton in service of humanity, the Petey Greene Program is now the most extensive prison and reentry tutoring program in the country, providing free quality tutoring, an essential element in the academic success of incarcerated people. Petey Greene implemented its first program in New Jersey, recruiting Princeton students to tutor in a single youth corrections facility; it is now active in 7 states recruiting, training, and coordinating hundreds of college students.
Please join us for a celebratory breakfast on Friday, May 26th at the Louis A. Simpson 171 Atrium as we recognize the fifteenth Anniversary of '58's, 50th reunion class project, and the extraordinary members who have made a positive difference in the lives of currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and a profound impact on college student volunteers, many of whom have gone on to careers promoting social justice.
All are welcome!
When the PGP launched our HBCU Forward Initiative in 2021, we argued that our efforts to recruit, elevate, and support Black volunteer tutors were important because those most harmed by the criminal legal system, should be the ones leading efforts to change it. For this webinar we highlighted the educational justice work of four Black-led student organizations from three Historically Black Colleges. While many college students are aware of the system that funnels people from defunded schools and communities to incarceration, these student organizations are trying to do something about it.
As part of our theory of change, the PGP believes that we cannot discount anyone, and that everyone deserves access to education. But as we began discussing last spring, women and girls are left out of conversations about educational justice for currently and formerly incarcerated people, even though incarceration rates for women have increased sevenfold since the early 1980s. Black women and girls are especially treated as what education justice advocate Kimberly Haven calls correctional afterthoughts. This is the case, despite their disproportionate criminalization and incarceration in the United States.
In this webinar, we explored this exclusion by learning about how Black women and girls became societal afterthoughts and victims of domestic, carceral, and anti-Black violence. In conversation with Black feminist historian Dr. Treva B. Lindsey, author of America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, And The Struggle For Justice (2022), we grappled with the history of violence and criminalization of Black women and girls while also learning of their strivings for justice. PGP volunteer tutors, Virginia Union University, and the broader concerned community, ended this webinar with an expanded vision of educational justice by looking at the roots of injustice towards Black women and girls.
Join the Petey Greene Program on Monday, March 27 at 6PM EST for a screening of "Art and Krimes By Krimes," followed by a panel with New Jersey regional staff from the Petey Greene Program.
While serving a six-year sentence in federal prison, artist Jesse Krimes secretly creates monumental works of art - including an astonishing 40-foot mural made with prison bed sheets, hair gel, and newspaper. He smuggles out each panel piece-by-piece with the help of fellow artists, only seeing the mural in totality upon coming home. As Jesse's work captures the art world's attention, he struggles to adjust to life outside, living with the threat that any misstep will trigger a life sentence.
Two members of the Petey Greene team, Reginald Gaines and Een Jabriel, will join Jared Owens, a formerly incarcerated artist featured in the film, for a conversation about the film's themes of incarceration, reentry, human potential and more.
Not in the Princeton area or can't make it to the screening? You can stream "Art and Krimes By Krimes" online or attend another event.
On Thursday, February 9, 2023, @ 6 p.m. PGP hosted our first webinar of our Spring 2023 Justice Education Series, The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration. For the spring series, we are partnering with the Center for African American History and Culture at Virginia Union University.
As many of us have come to know, the United States is the global leader in incarceration, as each individual state confines more people than any other whole nation. We also know that of the 6.7 million people under correctional control (2.3 million in jails, prisons, and detention centers and another nearly 5 million on parole or probation), Black people are incarcerated at much higher rates than any other racial/ethnic group and are disproportionately represented in the carceral system compared to their population share. While we often leave our understanding of mass incarceration here, mass imprisonment harms families, too. This is especially the case for Black families and communities: in a 2021 study, 62.9% of Black respondents reported having an incarcerated family member.
During this webinar, our panelists helped us understand the policies and practices that have harmed Black families while also helping us grapple with the impact of mass incarceration on Black families and communities. While we learned about how incarceration produces income loss for families, pushes children into foster care, makes families vulnerable to housing insecurity, maintains or leads to over-policed communities, increases risk of incarceration to children of incarcerated parents, etc., our panelists also helped us understand how to advocate for policies and practices that restore Black families and Black communities.
We were thrilled to have Dr. Bahiyyah Muhammad as our moderator of this conversation. Our panelists included Chelsea Higgs Wise, Executive Director of Marijuana Justice, Dominque Jones-Johnson, Founder of Daughters Beyond Incarceration and Parenting from Prison, Josie Pickens, Program Director at the upEND Movement, and Region LaCour, Mentee at Daughters Beyond Incarceration.
In June 2022, the PGP published a blog titled “Supporting the Freedom Dreams of Incarcerated Learners and Volunteer Tutors'' which argued that “access to high-quality educational programming and educational support for currently and formerly incarcerated learners are matters of justice… Because, as we have learned from the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners we serve, educational programming is one of the only services focused on their freedom dreams.”
During this webinar the following panelists will continue this conversation: Ved Price - executive director for the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, Rebecca Ginsburg - co-founder and current director of the Education Justice Project, William Freeman III - manager of Higher Education Education Justice Initiatives for the Education Trust, and Christina Dawkins - social justice consultant of A4Abolitionist.
These practitioners are engaged in the work of educational justice and they will help us think about and apply answers to these five broad questions: (1) What is educational injustice/justice? (2) What is the relationship between mass incarceration, the carceral state, and educational justice? (3) Why should prison education programs pursue education justice? (4) In what ways does high-quality educational programming support the freedom dreams of currently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people? (5) What is the relationship between educational justice, reform, abolition, and freedom dreaming?
Join us remotely or in person at the Artesani Playground Charles River Reservation in Allston, MA for a family-friendly 5K Run/Walk in support of The Petey Greene Program on Saturday, October 29, 2022, at 1:00 PM. The event will be held rain or shine. There is no rain date.
Your sponsorship directly empowers The Petey Greene Program to support the academic goals of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people through high-quality volunteer tutoring programs. Learn more about how you can sponsor this event.
We would love to have your support! Visit our fundraising page and click "I Want to Fundraise For This" and start your own campaign to share with family and friends. You are not required to register for the 5K to fundraise for the cause.
Please contact Meg Tavares at mtavares@peteygreene.org.
The Petey Greene Program (PGP) and the Philadelphia Reentry Coalition (PRC) hosted the panel discussion titled “Tutoring in Diversion, Incarceration, and Reentry: The Continuum of Educational Programming,” on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, as part of Philadelphia Reentry Month. The panel explored how the PGP developed a continuum of educational programming model and what it looks like in practice in Philadelphia, where the PGP and its partners support learners during diversion, incarceration, and reentry. This event is relevant for educators, students, PRC members, and anyone working at an organization that is hoping to expand their continuum of services for people impacted by the criminal legal system.
The conversation brought together partners working at different points along the PGP’s continuum of educational programming. Panelists included Jordan King, Director of Juvenile Diversion Programs at the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and Marcus Hall, Director of Workforce Development at Beyond Literacy.
According to the Sentencing Project, as a result of new laws, tougher penalties, and “barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women,” since the 1980s, incarceration rates for women and girls have increased sevenfold. However, access to vocational and educational programs that assist incarcerated people and their families in living sustainable lives post incarceration hasn’t kept pace. This conversation among formerly incarcerated women and education administrators will help us to understand why and to learn how we can advocate for greater educational access for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women.
The Petey Greene Program seeks to develop justice-oriented citizens—those who understand the root causes of injustice—by providing college students and community members with the opportunity to tutor, and educating volunteers on the need and opportunity to effect systemic change in the criminal legal system. To that end, we offer the Justice Education Series, which is designed to raise volunteers’ and public awareness of the policies and and practices that create mass incarceration and produce the educational experiences of the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners that we support.
With the pending reinstatement of Pell Grants for the more than 400,000 eligible incarcerated learners, combined with decarceration efforts at the federal, state, and municipal levels, most of those who begin their educational journeys while incarcerated will complete them outside. To do so, they will need support to successfully overcome the challenges that make continuing education post-incarceration difficult. For this reason, the PGP recently joined over 100 people and organizations in the field of prison education in signing a memo, authored by College & Community Fellowship) and the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network, that urges the Department of Education to support education in reentry by providing a regulatory framework for programs serving both incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners.
Panelists conferred on policy initiatives like Banning the Box, standardization of educational programming, housing support, counseling, and financial aid, and helped us understand how we can advocate for policy change that supports an education continuum for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners.
The Petey Greene Program seeks to develop justice-oriented citizens—those who understand the root causes of injustice—by providing college students and community members with the opportunity to tutor, and educating volunteers on the need and opportunity to effect systemic change in the criminal legal system. To that end, we offer the Justice Education Series, which is designed to raise volunteers’ and public awareness of the policies and and practices that create mass incarceration and produce the educational experiences of the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners that we support.
Learn how system-impacted people, including formerly incarcerated people and children of currently and formerly incarcerated parents, are fighting to change carceral policies that impact them directly, and all of us indirectly. Panelists will help us understand why it’s important for system-impacted people to lead movements for systemic change. They will share how we can all join in their efforts on a range of issues, such as increasing access to education, ending solitary confinement, mitigating the harm of incarceration on children and families, and removing employment and voting restrictions.
A panel of scholars, practitioners, and system-impacted people examined how to increase access to high-quality education for pre-collegiate incarcerated learners. While many colleges and universities have developed prison-based programs in recent years, there also remains a shortage of high-quality programming for the roughly 30% of incarcerated learners who don’t have a GED or high school diploma. Even those with a high school credential often lack crucial skills that are necessary to succeed in today’s workplace and post-secondary education and thus benefit from additional college readiness programming.
Panelists discussed the landscape of pre-collegiate education for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, helped us understand what high-quality pre-collegiate education looks like, and how we can advocate for it.
Petey Greene Program Division Manager, Een Jabriel, and volunteer leader, Hannah Baynesan, spoke with The Innocence Project’s Director of Digital Engagement, Alicia Maule, to shed light on some of the intricacies of The Innocence Project’s work, their challenges, and what part the public can play to help advance their mission.
Over the past year, the demands to "Defund the Police," "Decriminalize Marijuana," and "Abolish Prisons" have risen from grassroots movements to the mainstream conversation and political campaigns. But what do they mean?
Through this webinar, activists, scholars, and writers-Reginald Dwayne Betts, Victoria Law, and Elizabeth Hintonhelped us become more familiar with each of these movements. Panelists explored how each of these movements intersect, discussed the role of education in these movements, and imagined how these movements might lead us toward a more just future.
