Ballots Over Bars: The Fight for a Voice

By Elly Kalfus 

People incarcerated in Massachusetts have a long history of fighting to make their voices heard on the outside, from running for office to forming political action committees. This oral history project and grassroots campaign is a collaboration with currently and formerly incarcerated people in Massachusetts to document and learn from their creative acts of resistance in order to maximize their political power. My research explores the motivations that drive people to risk years in solitary in order to have a say in government, the history of resistance including different tactics employed, and what the future holds for the national movement to re-enfranchise people convicted of crimes. Criminal justice reform advocates must recognize the agency of ‘the people they are trying to help’ in order to be effective.

Ballots-Over-Bars-Transcript

 

 

I am a penal abolitionist, an improviser, and a fan of jellyfish. I grew up in the Bronx, went to the Bronx High School of Science and then Brandeis University, graduating with a bachelor of arts in English in 2013. Since then I have considered Massachusetts my home, where I have found amazing community and radical organizing.

I have worked to challenge the prison industrial complex for many years, investigating cases of wrongful conviction with the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism and the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Innocence Program, and evaluating states’ indigent defense systems with the Sixth Amendment Center.

I seek to end reliance on the carceral state by calling attention to the widespread harm it causes all of us and the specific harm it causes imprisoned people and the communities they are stolen from. I want to create storytelling projects in collaboration with people directly affected by the carceral state, and wish to situate my work within the context of oral history and narrative storytelling for social change.  Most recently I have been exploring Massachusetts’ history of taking voting rights away from incarcerated people, and the creative resistance incarcerated people have mounted in opposition. I am inspired by the risk-taking, intelligence and organizing of incarcerated people across the world.