Panelists & Speakers

Thomas "Arocks" Porter

Thomas “Arocks” Porter – preferred to be called “Arocks” is a formerly incarcerated person who spent 9 years in NY State Prisons. He is one of the Co-founders and leading Healing Justice Organizers with (H.O.L.L.A!) How Our Lives Link Altogether!  Arocks is a Consultant/Senior Mentor/Credible Messenger for the Arches and Next STEPS program, located on the west side of Harlem. In the Arches program, he works closely with the Department of Probation to support and assist youth between the ages of 16 and 25 who are entangled in the criminal injustice/punishment system. An activist at heart, Arocks is sincerely passionate about making systematic changes in urban communities. Arocks has shared his past experience within the criminal punishment system with many.  He has volunteered with individuals, other community-based organizations, colleges, and community centers to promote social change. Leveraging his past entanglement with the criminal punishment system, Arocks believes education and giving back is a way to indirectly and directly support youth living in under-resourced communities.

Faolan Jones

Faolan Jones is a filmmaker of Irish and English heritage, born in London and now living in Colombia. His work is primarily focused on social justice, education, system change and movement building.

Chauntel Norris

Chauntel Norris is a dynamic DONA trained birth doula, Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator and Certified Lactation Counselor. She serves as Co-director for the Alabama Prison Birth Project where she provides compassionate and dignified care to pregnant and postpartum incarcerated women. Her goal is to help them overcome obstacles so that they are able to maintain maternal bonds, protect their mental health, and decrease the harm of being separated from their babies and communities. Chauntel believes that bonded mothers and babies lead to healthier families, which in turn lead to healthier communities. Chauntel is a 2021 Aspen Healthy Communities Fellow, the Co-Founder of Baobab Birth Collective where she does birthwork in the community, a Kindred Partner of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, a Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE) Community Transformer and serves on the board of the Alabama Breastfeeding Committee.

Robert Greenwald

Robert Greenwald is president of Brave New Films, a nonprofit film company that he founded after a career in commercial television and film to motivate and educate viewers on the most pressing issues of the day. Brave New Films distributes its work for free through social media and in concert with nonprofit partners and movements. The group’s movies and videos have been screened around the world and viewed over tens of millions of times and counting. At Brave New Films, Greenwald has directed and produced gripping full-length documentaries and exposés, as well as shorter documentary films and videos. His latest documentary, Suppressed: The Fight to Vote, tells the story of rampant voter suppression in Georgia’s 2018 midterm elections. Greenwald’s investigative documentary shorts include Healing Trauma: Beyond Gangs and Prisons on Los Angeles’ Homeboy Industries, 16 Women and Donald Trump on President Trump’s serial abuse of women, and Immigrant Prisons on America’s system of privately-run immigrant detention centers. Previous feature-length investigative documentaries include Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA, Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars, War on Whistleblowers, Koch Brothers Exposed, Rethink Afghanistan, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism and Uncovered: The War on Iraq. Greenwald and Brave New Films’ work has been featured widely in the media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Hollywood Reporter and many more. Before launching Brave Films in 2005, Greenwald produced and/or directed more than 65 TV movies, miniseries and films as well as major theatrical releases. His early body of work includes Steal This Movie!, Breaking Up, A Woman of Independent Means and The Burning Bed.  Greenwald has earned 25 Emmy Award nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, the Peabody Award and the Robert Wood Johnson Award. He was awarded the 2002 Producer of the Year Award by the American Film Institute.

Faylita Hicks

During a period of homelessness, Faylita Hicks was arrested after the car in which she was living broke down. The police discovered there was a warrant for a bounced check at a Texas grocery store, worth $25. Because she was homeless, she never received the notice to appear in court. Unable to cover bail, she spent 45 days in jail. Since her release, she has been dedicated to changing the system and helping others raise their voices through her activism, writing and oral performances. Faylita is a Black poet, essayist, and interdisciplinary artist. The former Editor-in-Chief of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. Her creative work has been featured in American Poetry Review, the Cincinnati Review, Huffpost, Longreads, Poetry Magazine, Slate, Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, and others. Faylita received an MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University and she is currently at work on a multimedia project about pretrial incarceration and immigrant detention in the Southwest.

Bruce Reilly, J.D.

Bruce is the Deputy Director of Voice of the Experienced (VOTE) in New Orleans and a graduate of Tulane Law School. He served as a self-taught jailhouse lawyer while incarcerated for 12 years, before organizing with Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) in Rhode Island where he played a lead role in passing significant criminal justice reforms.

Baz Dreisinger

Incarceration Nations Network Founder and Executive Director is Dr. Baz Dreisinger, Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York; author of the critically acclaimed book Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World; founder of John Jay’s groundbreaking Prison-to-College Pipeline program; 2018 Global Fulbright Scholar and current Fulbright Scholar Specialist. Dr. Baz speaks regularly about justice issues on international media and in myriad settings around the world.

FoxandRob

Affectionately known among their peers as FoxandRob, Sibil Fox and Robert Richardson are a popular New Orleans based couple who endured and survived 21-years as an incarcerated family. FoxandRob have touched the lives of millions with their story through the most honored documentary of 2020, TIME, and through their work with their organization PDMNola, where they teach legal awareness as the best form of defense to justice involved citizens. They have committed their lives and their resources to not only bringing greater awareness, but also providing sustainable solutions to families suffering from the hardships associated with crime and punishment. They have six sons and are life-long residents of Louisiana.

Ingrid Archie

Kate Bryan