Georges' Story
Georges Clement
“I’m a prison abolitionist. That is born out of an understanding of how the criminal justice system works.”
The Petey Greene Program (PGP) wasn’t Georges Clement’s first experience with incarceration. When he was 21, Georges had been arrested for carrying and intent to sell THC in Wisconsin.
Ten years later, in May 2020, he would graduate from the Harvard Kennedy School in Boston with a master’s in public policy. Georges is now the Executive Director of JustFix.nyc, a New York City-based nonprofit that helps tenants, housing organizers and legal advocates fight against displacement.
While studying at Harvard, Georges tutored with PGP. As a volunteer tutor who had also spent time in jail, what he saw while tutoring incarcerated people further ignited his interest in prison abolition, which is a growing movement to completely reimagine America’s criminal justice systems by reallocating resources to community building and eliminating prisons.
Georges believes it will take more people learning about the criminal justice system through programs like PGP to raise the public awareness necessary to fundamentally change the system. Whether it be volunteers with PGP or individuals who have experienced the criminal justice system first-hand, it’s important that people learn from and share with the world the stories of those who are trapped in America’s prison systems. Even though he tutored just once a week, he says that sharing those stories is a crucial step in that process.
“Lifting up the stories of the people you work with once a week is so critical to changing the system. It’s those stories that change the narrative and that can counter any preconceived notions about folks that are incarcerated. Tell those stories. Lift up those stories of the people that you meet.”