Reiko Hillyer, an associate professor of history at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, gave the keynote address at the EPI conference on Tuesday to discuss the “rise and fall” of access to society incarcerated individuals have nationwide. 

The talk centered around her book, “A Wall Is Just A Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in the Twentieth-Century United States,” which documents the history of physical connections people in prisons have to the outside world and tracks “the thickening of prison walls” by specifically looking at the practices of clemency, conjugal and family visits, and furlough in three parts. 

She began by dedicating the keynote to Arnold “Armie” King, a formerly incarcerated prison rights activist and central figure in the book, who spent nearly 50 years in prison for a murder charge he committed at age 18. He passed away on Feb. 20.

Hillyer’s discussion leaned heavily into the idea that southern prisons, pointing to case studies in states like Mississippi, were more lenient decades ago compared to today’s more liberal states, like Massachusetts, which are less permeable. 

Throughout the talk, Hillyer also emphasized that teaching in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, a nationwide education system that embeds campus-based students with those in the carceral system, has heavily impacted her view of the prison pipeline. Teaching in a correctional facility, she said, is “empowering” and allows for a “breeding of different forms of knowledge” when students with all kinds of perspectives come together. 

“The students who were incarcerated have a tremendous sense of empowerment by being allowed to think and speak and express themselves and be a student, rather than in the confined identity of a rigid space of the prison,” Hillyer said. “The outside students who were really adept at theoretical analysis and abstract thinking and experienced with lots of academic scholarly reading can benefit tremendously from hearing from the lived experience of incarcerated students.”

“Together through that encounter, we’re creating different forms of knowledge, something that is greater than the sum of its parts, where all of us are transformed, and where every single voice is valued,” she added. 

Hillyer said the inspiration from her book stemmed from research she had done into a prison strike in Virginia in 1968—in the middle of the Vietnam War—during a time when there was much public anxiety and social divisions. Regardless, the governor at the time signed executive orders to allow incarcerated individuals to leave prison to participate in chess tournaments and boxing matches. 

Digging deeper while researching the book, Hillyer found that historically, imprisoned people had a greater chance of release from prisons permanently and a greater chance for interaction with society in Southern, more conservative states. In examining clemency (the practice of pardoning), conjugal and family visits (spending time alone with visitors), and furlough (the practice of temporary release from prison for a specific purpose), she found that residents in each state believed the practices improved public safety overall.

“We’ve become obsessed with thinking about an entitlement to zero risk when it comes to the carceral system, which is not a standard that we expect in any other realm of life,” Hillyer said. “What has happened is that any kind of risk of violence or harm is used as a blank justification for extreme measures.”

Mass incarceration is fairly new, she argues, and “mass disappearance,” the trend of longer sentences with less chance of release and less contact with the outside world, are becoming more common in modern-day prisons.

Immediately following Reiko Hillyer’s keynote speech, EPI alum David Baxter spoke about his experiences within the Emerson program and the opportunities education can give to incarcerated people.

The CEO of Motivational Dreamers, a public engagement service that delivers encouragement, Baxter told the audience an anecdote about his upbringing and said he could blame his hardships on his experience growing up in the projects with a single mother, or he could take accountability for his actions.

“At some point you are no longer the product of your environment, you’re a product of your choices,” he said.

Baxter was given a 55-year sentence while studying at a higher education institution and served 19 years before his release. He recounted how when EPI was first introduced to MCI-Concord, the men’s medium security prison where it started, the thought of finishing his degree, something he had started so long ago, was important. 

“I started to tell myself what others told me—that I was too far gone—and I almost believed it,” he said.

Baxter graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in media literature and culture in 2022, among the first cohort of incarcerated students to do so. He credits EPI with instilling discipline and purpose into him, and says he was able to take his life back because of the program.

“Education is not just about knowledge, it’s about liberation, power, ensuring you can build a future far beyond what was handed to you,” he said, earning a round of applause.

Before he finished speaking, Baxter awarded Tamera Wright a $5,000 scholarship as part of Motivational Dreamers’ initiative and mission to give back.

Hugging is not allowed in prison, but when nearly a dozen EPI alumni gathered in the Bordy Theater on March 18, they could finally embrace their peers and former instructors. The room’s chatter and energy resembled a family reunion, full of laughter and an energy that continued throughout the panel session. 

“The education that I received in prison by EPI was transformational,” said Siraaj Abdul-Nur, a member of the first EPI cohort who completed his bachelor’s degree on the main Emerson Boston campus last year. 

“We didn’t believe in ourselves. We were destroying our communities, not building them up,” he said. “EPI helped me understand myself better, identify my brothers and community better.” 

The two other panelists, Kevin Keo and Charlie Rosario, were also part of the program’s first cohort, launched in 2017. They both graduated in prison with a bachelor’s degree in media literature and culture. Keo, who was released a year ago, now works at the Transformational Prison Project, where he helps youths in the carceral system. 

“Going back to these places … and seeing kids in the same position I was at breaks my heart but also keeps it together at the same time. It gives me hope,” Keo said. 

Rosario spent 19 years in prison, moving from a maximum security facility to MCI-Concord, where he began getting involved in various programs. Before EPI, Rosario joined Toastmasters, a public speaking program. He quickly became the president of the program and helped develop it. 

“They were all there because they wanted to be there,” Rosario said, noting that often people in incarceration only participate in what is required of them. “I saw early on when I started doing programming that I have an impact on individuals.” 

Joining the EPI cohort is not an easy task. To get into the exclusive group of 20 students, individuals need to pass a writing assignment, go through interviews, and have a good behavior record. The panelists reflected on this exclusivity, saying they were the “translators of knowledge” to the greater prison community. 

“I think about it like [Plato’s] ‘Allegory of the Cave,’” Keo said. “You see the light [outside] and then you come back and need to adjust. We translated what we learned in class and brought it back to our people.” 

Abdul-Nur shared a similar view to Keo’s, saying that the knowledge they brought back positively affected others in prison.

“They saw we wanted to change, so they wanted to change too,” he said. 

For Rosario, this new responsibility shifted his perception of himself. He said that instead of people looking at him solely as a criminal, people started looking at the cohort “for the right reason.”

“I internalized that identity of being a criminal,” Rosario said. “I felt that the system sent messages to me that I’m a criminal. Finding myself incarcerated and going to EPI transformed that and opened my mind.” 

Abdul-Nur said the transition from prison classes to classes on the Boston campus was challenging. He balanced work, finding housing, and doing school work at the same time. 

“On a lot of different things, [my classmates and I] could not relate,” he said. “I was studying with people who were different from me, had a different reality from me, but the commonality was that we were all here to learn.”

Part of Abdul-Nur’s support network was EPI’s Reentry and College Outside Program (RECOUP), which provides resources and support for recently incarcerated college students transitioning out of prison. “This is a story about love and support,” Abdul-Nur said. 

Such support was evident when Abdul-Nur’s mother passed away a month and a half before graduation. Despite his grief, he was able to complete what he started.

“I told myself, with the support of the EPI staff, my brothers, and my cohort that I’ll get my degree and walk across that stage,” he said. 

Rosario is the first EPI alum to join its staff. He spends most of his week on Emerson’s Boston campus as a program coordinator and mentor in RECOUP. 

“I took this job because I felt like the people I would be impacting … directly relate to me,” he said. “Those guys in there are an extension of me and I’m an extension of them.”

Someone from the crowd asked the panelists what it feels like to “not be who they said they were.” Abdul-Nur quickly responded: “It’s amazing, man.” 

Before the clock even hit 4 p.m., people were scrambling to find seats and spilling out into the hallway of the Bill Bordy Theater, trying to catch a glimpse of “Massissippi.” 

The film was created, directed and produced, by recent EPI alum Mac Hudson. The panel event was presented by EPI, Inthrive Film Festival, and Inquest. The intention was to record the oral histories of three formerly incarcerated Black Bostonians and chronicle their time in the Massachusetts Department of Correction. 

When talking about the film, Hudson first explained the name “Massissippi.”

“It is enriched with such a historical context … We have a way of thinking of Massachusetts as very liberal … the reality of it is there is a lot of institutional racism practiced,” said Hudson “It’s the status quo every day … this is very real, it’s still happening to Black and brown folks.” 

Hudson explained how many associate institutional racism, specifically with the implications of slave labor within carceral systems, with the U.S. South. However, Hudson says the same racist practices we associate with the South are just as prevalent in the North—namely, Massachusetts.

For instance, Hudson pointed toward John Boone, the first Black prison commissioner in Massachusetts, who helped combat institutional racism. The white guards who worked under him not only disobeyed him, but hurled racist insults at him and even paid off inmates to sabotage him.

“We kind of inherited that struggle [Boone] encountered, and we’re still [fighting] that struggle every day,” Hudson said. 

The film follows three individuals who experienced this racism first hand and who now work to make change. The first introduced was Omar Abdur-Rahim who spent 48 years in the carceral system. He currently helps youth leaving prison reintegrate into society. 

The next person featured, Stacey Borden, was in and out of prison for 30 years and now works in public service. 

Lastly, Gregory Davis, who spent years in and out of prison for decades, discussed how the prison industrial system feeds off cyclical recidivism. When he began his sentence, it was intended to be five years but extended by decades due to recidivism as a result of shock and lack of support. Even if you leave, Davis says, within a couple months “you’ll be back.”

Davis added that he forged a friendship with Boone when he first began working in the prison.

“When we were alone, he became a human. A brother. Going through the same kind of racism that I was,” Davis said.

The panel, moderated by former EPI student Dwayne Cruthird, was attended by Hudson, Addur-Rahim, Davis, and Borden. All four panelists have an extensive history of community organizing, advocating against discrimination, and supporting those looking to reintegrate into society or recover from drug addiction.

“It’s time for us to take accountability and not rely on the system to hold us accountable,” Borden said. She said she recognized she had a problem and she needed care, rehabilitation, and an education.

“I get emotional when I look at the film,” Davis said. “Who’s right, who’s wrong? The system is wrong,” he finished.

The film begins with Abdur-Rahim telling the story of what he perceives was the beginning of him entering the prison-industrial complex. He used heroin at 12 years old for the first time, drugs ushered him into a life of crime, later leading him to be an accomplice for first degree murder in an armed robbery that ended fatally. He ended up at Walpole Maximum Security Prison, which announced plans to close in 2022.

He recounted the day of his sentencing, saying, “I passed my mother and when I looked at her face, my knees buckled,” Abdur-Rahim said on the day of his sentencing.

All three individuals grew up in low-income neighborhoods in Boston with little familial support and easy access to drugs. Borden lived a childhood toiled by depression, poverty, trauma, and neglect. She spiraled into drug addiction and eventually, the criminal legal system. Davis also struggled in childhood. These struggles were further complicated when the individuals ended up in the carceral system, where recidivism is high, and rehabilitation is not prioritized. 

This was exemplified in the 1988 presidential election, wherein Massachusetts Gov.Michael Dukakis ran against Republican George H.W. Bush. During the election, an incarcerated individual named Willie Horton was released under a Dukakis furlough policy. He then travelled to Maryland and murdered a young boy. Abdur-Rahim recounted how this campaign undermined the initiatives of prison reform and rehabilitation Dukakis had been working towards in Massachusetts such as the furlough system. 

This policy failure turned into a media frenzy that was ultimately reductive and harmful to incarcerated people at the time and long after, said Abdur-Rahim. 

The result was a parole board in disarray and an unforgiving new policy for those wishing to be paroled or furloughed like Abdur-Rahim. He sought commutation for his life-with-no-parole sentence under Dukakis’ policies. His commutation was eventually denied, and after years of fighting with the parole board, from 1987 to 2020, he was finally granted medical parole following a cancer diagnosis. The fact that he was only granted parole after a Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis, and not by merit, left him “with no words.” 

Despite being told he only had 18 months to live, he sat before the EPI session’s audience five years later. This fact was met by raucous applause and tear-laden eyes in the audience.

“I’m living in the miracle of my life,” he said to the crowd. 

Part of Abdur-Rahim’s journey in recovery and reintegration has been propelled by his deep faith in Islam.

Faith, whether religious or otherwise, is a central theme of “Massissippi,” according to all three panelists. 

“Either you can do the time, or you can let the time do you,” Davis said. Part of this is to focus on “deconditioning the mind,” by way of helping other inmates do this, or doing this work on one’s own self. 

The panel, moderated by former EPI student Dwayne Cruthird, was attended by Hudson, Addur-Rahim, Davis, and Borden.  All four panelists have an extensive history of community organizing, advocating against discrimination, and being a resource of support for those looking to reintegrate into society or recover from drug addiction post-incarceration.

Davis, once freed, founded Metro Boston Alive, spreading awareness about substance abuse and giving hope to those in recovery or wishing to rehabilitate. 

In the film’s closing, Borden said, “when I get out of here, I’m coming back.” 

She became a licensed clinician, opened up a re-entry home in Dorchester, and now works with formerly incarcerated people, providing them resources to reintegrate into society. She focuses much of her work on re-entry for formerly incarcerated women in particular, a demographic often overlooked and undermined. She focuses her care and activism specifically on women who experienced sexual violence, like herself.

“Nobody ever talks about us,” Borden says. “We often talk about men … [women are] buried in prisons … people are trying to survive trauma … we can’t get women out as fast as we should be.”

While all four panelists have dedicated their lives to prison reform and helping others rehabilitate, they say their lived experience is not without pain.

“You gotta struggle for change,” Davis said.

After a short break, panelists convened to discuss the fight for prison reform and civil rights in Massachusetts and nationwide. The panel included the chief of the civil rights division and senior advisor to the attorney general Lizz Matos, Micheal Milleman, and Calvin Arey, and was moderated by EPI founder and director Mneesha Gellman.

Arey, who was incarcerated in the 1960s and 1970s, is the last living plaintiff from Landman v. Royster, a 1973 landmark prison reform case that argued that the Virginia prison the plaintiffs were incarcerated in violated the Eighth and 14th amendments. It also challenged the long-standing “hands-off doctrine.” The doctrine was a position that prevented judges from interfering with administrations of correctional institutions on behalf of incarcerated people. The case, while decided in Virginia, paved the way for improved living conditions and basic due process rights for incarcerated people nationwide.

While Arey and his fellow litigants were building their case, they caught the attention of Milleman, who was a lawyer with the Virginia American Civil Liberties Union at the time. Landman was one of the ACLU’s first significant prison reform cases. Milleman, along with lawyer Philip Hirschkop, were crucial in bringing the case to the forefront of the incarcerated rights movement. Currently a law professor at the University of Maryland, Milleman has fought for civil rights and prison reform his whole career.

Matos, the former executive director of Prisoners Legal Services of Massachusetts, provided an overview of rights, and rights struggles, for incarcerated people in Massachusetts. PLS works through the legal system to “promote the human rights of incarcerated persons and end harmful confinement.”

The second day of the EPI conference kicked off with a pair of films screened at the Bright Family Screening Room that tackled the power of hope and peace, and the impact education can have on those incarcerated.

“Holding Up The Sky” is a 2025 film created by Bob Nesson, an adjunct professor at Emerson, that follows the stories of two formerly incarcerated individuals as they navigate reentry into society after serving multiyear sentences. The men come from different backgrounds but share a united struggle: Can the circumstances of their crimes, their journeys through the prison system, and their return home lead to success? 

“Holding Up The Sky” is a multipart educational project meant to assist with reintegration efforts. The website and film give guidance to formerly incarcerated individuals in their pursuit to regain their lives, educational models are useful resources for engagement and discussion with the topic, a podcast brings narrative storytelling to life, and a graphic novel makes the material more accessible.  

Contrasting the first film, the second, “It Starts With Us,” the short documentary work of We Are Better Together and Emerson students who worked in the Engagement Lab, follows the way gun violence tears families and communities apart. The film follows a number of mothers who have lost children to gun violence and engages with them in the midst of the personal healing process.

Both films explore themes of healing and forgiveness, but also self-advocacy and what it means to rebuild when one has lost everything.

“If we can’t heal ourselves, we can’t heal our village,” says one mother in the film.

Fifty pairs of eyes were glued to the screen in the Bright Family Screening Room at 2 p.m. on March 19 where the films “Cell Blocks to Mountain Tops” and “On Beyond Fences” were shown during the second day of the EPI conference. A panel featuring one filmmaker and one film subject followed.

The two films were part of a larger film festival series screened at Emerson last week to showcase the importance of education in prisons. “Cell Blocks to Mountain Tops” is a multi-episode series that follows Sterling Cunio, a formerly incarcerated individual, as he reckons with his actions and takes accountability. “On Beyond Fences” is an intimate look inside of Maine State Prison, a reformed correctional institution that focuses on rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates in the name of public safety.

The panel featured Lara Hartzenbusch, a journalist and documentarian, and Randall Liberty, the commissioner of corrections in Maine, who both dove into the unusual structure of the prison and its “residents,” which is what those incarcerated are referred to in the film. The pair discussed their unprecedented access into the state prison, the data that proves the work Liberty is doing is helping make the community safer, and how other states could seek to replicate its success.

“[‘On Beyond Fences’] started as a student film, and we had the access that we had and the limited time that we had, and didn’t go beyond that,” Hartzenbusch said. “There were things that we didn’t cover, like from the victim’s point of view, but I think we brought that out in questions to Commissioner Liberty and the guards that were returning.”

Hartzenbusch first came across Maine State Prison while completing a media workshop in Rockport, Maine, with three other individuals with different areas of expertise. The intensive only lasted a number of weeks; Hartzenbusch spent nearly a year afterward pursuing the project.

“The filmmakers were not filmmakers. They came from all different walks of life,” she said. “I just started asking questions and trying to make them feel comfortable, getting to know them in that first meeting … I’m also not an activist or an advocate. I’m a journalist, so that’s how I approached it.”

Prior to becoming a corrections official himself, Liberty had firsthand experience with prisons. Growing up, his father committed several crimes over the course of his life that landed him in jail. Liberty got used to seeing his father behind bars, and eventually became a prison reform advocate himself as he lobbied to implement gardening, bee keeping, service animal training, and other kinds of rehabilitation programs into one of the most notorious state prisons in the country.

“I’m not naive to this. I worked the road for 30 years. I’ve seen everything you can imagine and beyond,” he said. “I would say that to [other corrections officers], and again, it’s about making the community safer.”

The rehabilitation programs that Maine State Prison offers work, Liberty and Hartzenbusch said. The tricky part is fostering that buy-in from other state prisons around the nation.

“For me, really, it’s at a point where sharing this nationally, that this model works, and … we have incremental change,” Liberty said.

Four short films were screened in the Bright Family Screening Room on Wednesday afternoon, focusing on the internalized perceptions of incarcerated individuals. 

A single voice filled the Bright Family Screening Room as the short film “Two Wolves” kicked off another section of the conference.

“We are defined by the stories we tell, we are defined by the messages we learned,” a voice sang, only accompanied by the sound of chains rattling.

The film focused on self-empowerment and breaking the mold of what is expected of the formerly incarcerated.

“They say so we say, we’re crazy, we’re thugs, we’re criminals, they say so we say, we’re unstable, we’re dangerous, we’re the crimes we committed,” a new voice spoke, in accompanying dialogue in the film. “We can have what we have because we are what they don’t see.”

For those incarcerated, the effect of public perception’s influence on self-identity is one of the most difficult battles one can face when re-entering society, according to David Smith, the founder and director of Inthrive Film Festival.

“We all have a vision of who a person is the first time we meet them, no matter how we try to pull that back,” Smith said in an interview with The Beacon after the screenings.

The films “Two Wolves,” “Little April,” “Roommates,” and “Until We All Count” each discussed different challenges that incarcerated people face when re-entering society, with each containing a throughline of identity. The goal of the screenings, and the film festival as a whole, was to change the narrative surrounding those incarcerated.

“If people begin to see … as more than what they did,” Smith said, “then that’s really the excitement here in changing how we understand our justice system and how we understand the repercussions of what it means to have been arrested.”

The second film, “Little April,” focused on the filmmaker, April Grayson, coming to terms with her past and understanding that what had happened to her, including her incarceration, was not her fault but the fault of systems that had failed her. “This is not your fault,” the film concludes.

Grayson spent most of her childhood in the foster care system and households that abused and mistreated her. By 19, Grayson had been arrested and sentenced to 20 years and eight months in prison. The film’s narrative follows Grayson, using some real and some fictional elements, to showcase her journey with acceptance and reconciliation with her past.

The third film, “Until We All Count,” showcased the battle against the practice of barring those convicted from voting in Georgia. Currently, in every state but two (Maine and Vermont), the right to vote is denied for those who have received felony convictions. Specifically, the film discusses how many of the laws regarding felony disenfranchisement remain from Jim Crow laws and unproportionately affect Black Georgians.

“Vote in honor of people who can’t. If you feel like your vote doesn’t matter, it definitely matters when you lose it,” said Page Dukes, a formerly incarcerated individual who was recently granted the right to vote again through appeal, in the film.

The final film, “Roommates,” told the story of two women who are roommates in a nursing home catering to the formerly incarcerated. Their story focuses on how, without information on what they had done time for, they looked like any other person in a nursing home. The film is designed to show a positive present tense for the duo in the wake of complicated pasts as they center their lives around simplicity, routine, and each other.

“We just want to put a human face on this population,” said Beatrice Alda, one of the filmmakers.

According to the filmmakers, most nursing homes in the United States do not accept residents with criminal records, largely as a result of background checks, leaving a challenge for those who come out of incarceration after serving long sentences who are now elders.

“To look at them as any two really old people in a nursing home,” said Alda, “Whatever they did, they [can] barely lift a fork. I don’t know why they couldn’t be allowed in any nursing home.”

When asked about why Inthrive had chosen to host the screenings at Emerson, Smith explained how the goal of the festival is to change people’s views on incarceration and that college students are those who are more likely to take that view and further it.

“When you have people that are college students that have the time to dig into these issues, to do the research, to pull these different threads and see where they come from, that’s what’s so exciting about this,” he said.

In reflecting on the festival as a whole, Smith explained that he was excited that they were able to reach so many people and that he hopes it will further change the narrative around incarceration.

“It will shift. It will correct itself,” he said.

“What does it mean to be held? Not by walls, not by chains and iron bars, but by love?” asked Adamu Chan in the opening scene of his documentary, in which he showcases how the iron bars within a Californian prison did not suppress the creativity, hope, and love held by incarcerated people while awaiting freedom from incarceration.

Chan is the director and cinematographer of the award-winning film “What These Walls Can’t Hold,” the screening of which concluded the EPI conference on March 19. The documentary outlines his experience as an incarcerated individual in the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We’re all inside this place trying to find a way out of here, but also trying to find a way to be together despite the separations that are inherent in the prison structure,” Chan wrote in a letter to his friend, Isa Borgeson, the campaign manager at The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

San Quentin is California’s oldest prison for men and rests north of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. As waves lapped against the shores outside the prison, the film follows the inmates as they grapple with being detained within one of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the country, with 2,600 inmates and employees testing positive for the virus, leaving 29 dead.

The inmates received very little information about how COVID-19 was affecting the rest of the world, Chan said, but those outside the prison walls took initiative to reach out to those incarcerated to listen to their experiences and give information on the wider impacts of the virus. 

“We were getting real-time information because of relationships that were pre-existing,” said James King, an inmate at the time of the outbreak. “Any time we could connect people to people on the inside, so people were able to speak for themselves.”

Chan and King were interviewed by multiple news platforms while incarcerated during the pandemic, sharing details about the conditions of a secluded institution, which was further isolated by the demands of the virus.

While incarcerated, Chan worked for the prison’s media center, First Watch, where he discovered his love of filmmaking and built long-lasting connections with other inmates.

“Through filmmaking, I found a way to access the thing that I needed most to heal the parts of myself that felt broken,” Chan said.

After 13 years in the California prison system, Chan was eventually released. With this newfound freedom, he seeks to uplift the voices of his fellow inmates and showcase how people come together in isolation through his films. 

“As much as I would like to leave this place and this history behind me, I cannot deny it as part of myself,” Chan said. “I will continue to use the tools that I have at my disposal, my voice, my camera, and my newfound privilege as a free person to make sure that all that has been is undone and that we find a way back home together.”