Discipline/Field: Prison Reform Research

Based in: Los Angeles

About: Kenneth E. Hartman is author of the memoir, Mother California: A Story of Redemption Behind Bars (Atlas & Co. 2009), and numerous thought provoking essays about prison life that have been widely published. He is a leading prison reform advocate and a grassroots pioneer of the effort to end the sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

As a Redesign Resident, Ken will be documenting and memorializing the year before and the year after he got out of prison.

Project Title: This qualitative study of criminology and mass incarceration is a broad reflection on the lived experience of re-entry and re-integration into society. It articulates to a wider audience the public’s return on investment in the criminal justice system, discussing widely, the feelings and the dreams of the men and women still incarcerated.

Relevant link: kennethhartman.com