Resources

Illinois Humanities’ Envisioning Justice program seeks to strengthen efforts to visualize a world without prisons and to make change within our current criminal legal system. Our work is informed by the knowledge and creativity of those directly impacted by mass incarceration. Envisioning Justice is made possible through our collaborations and partnerships with artists, humanists, and community organizers who believe in the power of the arts and humanities to shift our understanding of the carceral system and build approaches to justice that center care, community, and restoration. Find resources here to learn more about the knowledge and practices that inform our programs, and the dedicated work of our partners who make it possible.

Recommended Reading

Read about mass incarceration and the criminal legal system

Alexander, M. (2010), The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, The New Press
Betts, R.D. (2015), Bastards of the Reagan Era, Four Way Books
Davis, A. (2003), Are Prisons Obsolete?, Seven Stories Press
Kaba, M. (2021), We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, Haymarket Books
Kilgore, J. (2015), Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time, The New Press
Miller, R.J. (2021), Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, Little, Brown and Company
Richie, B. (2012), Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation, New York University Press
Stevenson, B. (2014), Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Spiegel & Grau
Taylor, F. (2019), The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago, Haymarket Books

Explore these resources from organizations committed to the struggle for justice

Against Punishment by Project NIA and Interrupting Criminalization
All Children Are Children by the Equal Justice Initiative
Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0 by African American Intellectual History Society
The Prison Industry: The Curriculum by Worth Rises
Transformative Justice: A Curriculum Guide by Project NIA

Check out other digital spaces using community engagement to work through complex ideas

do it (home) by Independent Curators International
Prompts by Elastic City
Rendering Justice by the African American Museum in Philadelphia

Get to know these impactful organizations

Check out the work of Project NIA and Interrupting Criminalization, two organizations that have created helpful educational resources for those seeking to learn more about abolition and transformative justice.

Browse the Equal Justice Initiative’s work on wrongful convictions, long-term sentencing, and the death penalty.

Learn more about the human and financial toll of mass incarceration based on the numbers, aggregated by the Prison Policy Initiative.

Get Connected Locally

Envisioning Justice is fortunate to partner with organizations and individuals throughout Illinois working toward justice in their local communities. Find an Envisioning Justice grantee partner organization in your town to get connected and learn about important work happening where you live.

View Our Grantee Partners

Chicago Torture Justice Memorials protest

Members of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials stage a demonstration honoring victims of police torture. (Photo courtesy of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials)

The humanities are the examination of what it means to be human through the interpretation and discussion of all forms of thought, interest, and expression.

A group convenes around a speaker at An "Elective Studies Supper Club" event hosted by Illinois Humanities.

An "Elective Studies Supper Club" event hosted by Illinois Humanities. (Photo By Matthew Gregory Hollis)

Animated G-I-F of a person writing in a notebook

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