Echoes of Incarceration Project

Echoes of Incarceration is an award-winning documentary initiative produced by youth directly impacted by the criminal justice system.  The project provides hands-on video production and advocacy training for young adults, and creates documentaries and video journalism pieces told from the life experiences of the filmmakers themselves. 

The goal is to explore all the ways the criminal justice system interacts with, and misunderstands, young people, while harnessing the intelligence, energy, and creativity of youth to rethink our understandings of crime and punishment.

Our first level of instruction involves a filmmaking and advocacy training through school workshops, and through our 5-week summer camp.  These hands-on trainings create films in our "Resiliency Film" series  - which are made by and for young adults impacted by the justice system. 

The next level of training is our Junior Crew - which is a 2-year intensive video production and journalism training.  This crew creates short documentaries and training material for criminal justice stakeholders. To date we've created films for police officer, correctional officers, social workers, lawmakers, as well as material for incarcerated parents and families of the incarcerated. We've partnered with agencies such as the US Department of Justice, US Department of Health and Human Services, New York City ACS, NYC Mayors Office of Criminal Justice, and the Brooklyn Public Library.

Our Senior Crew works on more ambitious, general audience documentaries and journalism stories, partnering with organizations such as Sesame Street, Upworthy, NowThis News, Democracy Now, and the Columbia University Justice Lab. 

Throughout the process, young people are provided job skills, mentoring, and professionsl experience on freelance productions. As a team we also practice restorative justice and mindfulness exercises, and make personal development and self care central to our work.

We believe that if young people are the most disproportionately impacted by the justice system, they should be given both tools and a platform to raise their voices and advocate for for reform.