Seeing the Humanity

of Incarcerated People

Marc Howard is one of the country’s leading voices and advocates for restoring humanity to the American criminal punishment system.

He is the founder of a network of interlocking organizations that bring humanity to the heart of the criminal legal system. Together, these programs educate, connect, and advocate for people affected by incarceration, showing that safety grows from understanding and that justice requires compassion as well as accountability.

Each initiative focuses on a different pathway to reform: education, advocacy, proximity, and evidence. All share a single mission to affirm dignity, inspire empathy, and build a more just society.

The Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative empowers incarcerated people and returning citizens with education and occupational skills. PJI aims to help end mass incarceration by using educational enrichment as a means to highlight humanity and promote second chances.

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In Making an Exoneree, undergraduate students seek to free wrongfully convicted people from prison. Students become investigators, advocates, justice warriors, and documentarians – producing campaigns that highlight innocence and humanity.

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The Frederick Douglass Project for Justice changes public attitudes about criminal legal reform by engaging with the humanity of incarcerated people. The Douglass Project brings members of free society into direct proximity with people in prisons, in order to discover firsthand our common humanity and advocate for systemic change.

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The Reckoning Project pursues justice for people who have been harmed by law enforcement misconduct. By promoting accountability and transparency, the Reckoning Project aims to center our justice system on the human dignity of all participants and to prevent future misconduct.

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