Poetic Justice equips people experiencing incarceration in women’s prisons with creative and restorative tools for healing from trauma so that they can actively participate as agents of change in their own lives. Poetry, embodied mindfulness, and visual art are the vehicles through which they begin to acknowledge their inherent worth as human beings.

Poetic Justice is an arts organization created and run by formerly incarcerated artists, artist activists, and concerned members of the community who are impacted by the prison system, bringing their lived experiences of art and justice to the development and implementation of restorative writing and arts programming.

In 2022, the total cost to house one person in a California prison exceeds $106,000/year (https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost), and almost none of it pays for data-driven rehabilitative arts programming, so Poetic Justice creates a space for participants to heal from trauma through poetic expression and self-discovery. We hold space for participants to develop the capacity to acknowledge the impact of trauma in their lives, restoring their human right to be people of inestimable worth. Even in a system that says otherwise, people with long sentences or life without parole use restorative poetry, embodied mindfulness, and therapeutic visual art practices to show the world that their lives are worth living and their voices are worth hearing. They become their own agents of creative social change, demanding their equity and inclusion, despite the systemic punishment inherent in the prison system.

Poetic Justice is guided by the community it serves and led by people who have experienced the daily traumas associated with survival in prison, addressed the root causes of trauma in their lives, and exposed the socio-cultural and economic devastation brought on by incarceration.