Mission Statement
The Center for Institutional and Social Change mission is to advance just and equitable legal and social institutions by anchoring systems change in the full participation of those directly impacted by racism and mass incarceration.
Our Featured Projects & Programs
The Reimagining Access to Justice project is a collaborative initiative dedicated to making the Jailhouse Lawyers Manual (JLM) – a vital legal resource used by thousands of incarcerated individuals – more accessible, practical, and impactful. Developed alongside an innovative course at Columbia Law School, this effort brings together law students, formerly incarcerated individuals, advocates, and interdisciplinary experts to enable justice-involved people to understand and exercise their legal rights and, through that process, increase to their ability to become agents in their own lives, support others, and seek much needed change. Click here to learn more!
The Paralegal Pathways Initiative (PPI) seeks to amplify the talents and perspectives of those who have directly experienced incarceration in an effort to create economic opportunity for our participants, advance racial equity in the legal field, build knowledge of the impacts of the criminal legal system among current and future legal professionals, and expose the legal profession to an untapped wealth of legal experience and talent. Click here to learn more about this groundbreaking program.
Community Centered Participatory Justice (CCPJ) engages the leadership of formerly-incarcerated individuals in anchoring people-centered systems’ change responses to the impact of mass incarceration and structural racism on the social and economic infrastructure of marginalized communities. Click here to learn more about this innovative program.
This course and practicum, the first of its kind, will enable participants to blend artistry, law, policy, and community engagement, and in this way to produce narratives with powerful impact in policy spaces where change can happen. The course will equip law students to tell powerful stories--themselves and in collaboration with artists and community members--and use legal knowledge and skills to amplify artists’ and community activists’ impact in venues where laws are made and power is exercised. The workshop will also build artists’ capacity to merge high quality, high impact, rigorous artistry with community narratives and research & high level policy activists. In the process all the participants will work with community members to amplify the power of their stories through artistry informed by legal and policy research. With criminal justice and education as the policy focal point, the workshop will enable participants to craft and enact compelling stories about justice and injustice in “theaters for change” where they can shift hearts and minds of thought leaders and policy makers. Click here to learn more about the course.