Returning home from being incarcerated can feel a lot like starting from ground zero, but that doesn’t have to be the case. On April 16, our Women Rising program hosted annual gratitude event, where we launched a Community Closet open for women returning home to access free necessities every Thursday and Friday. Thank you to...
On the evening of Friday, June 9th, Community Works West hosted an opening night reception for The Welcome Home Project, a collection of stories and photographs of formerly incarcerated Alameda County residents who turned their lives around after years in prisons and jails.
For prison inmates, being a parent is hard. You’re far away but you’re still here. And the visits and letters, those small points of contact, can become that much tougher for the distance.
Luna Garcia swipes through the photos on her phone until she finds it — the one of a young man with a slight mustache standing against a wall, his blue shirt neatly pressed, holding a chubby baby girl. It’s the kind of picture someone might snap at a holiday dinner, a grainy image of a...
Sean Sanchez knows the routine. Before anyone can ask, the 12-year-old pulls his pants pockets inside out and takes off his shoes, wiggling his toes to prove he’s not concealing drugs or weapons. Cleared by deputies, he’s allowed inside San Francisco County Jail No. 5 to see his father. [spacer]
We pay a high price when our loved ones are entangled in a punitive justice system that often leads to incarceration. The Sentence Unseen bears witness to the impacts of the US criminal justice system when family members are taken away from our community. The exhibit sheds light on the collateral consequences of arrest and...
