Herstory Beyond Bars

Since Herstory’s first workshop for women behind bars in 2004, Herstory Beyond Bars has expanded to provide opportunities for incarcerated people of all ages and genders to use memoir writing to give voice to the stories that for many have remained hidden or buried inside them for too long.

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Herstory Beyond Bars uses a story-based strategy to change hearts, minds, and policy in the realm of carceral justice. This holistically conceived program brings to light the lived experiences of incarcerated people, those in reentry, court-involved youth, and their families through memoir writing workshops held behind and beyond prison walls around the country. The program also engages correction officers, judges, law students, and professors and students of criminology through trainings and writing workshops that foster their capacity to open new avenues of empowerment, second chances, and growth to the people they serve.

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Memoir is about the past, and nowhere is the shadow of the past more present than in prisons, where one pays for what cannot be rewritten. By using memoir to revisit moments of their journeys with new eyes, those who have been caught in a system that too often results in a downward spiral find hope, creative freedom, and the opportunity to build on their spirit and strength. 

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By publishing and sharing writing produced behind and beyond bars with correction officers, prison administrators, educators, scholars, legislators, and activists, Herstory participates in and strengthens the ongoing movement for prison reform in the US. Excerpts from these memoirs in progress, with the authors’ permission, have been used in successful campaigns such as New York State’s Raise the Age campaign, which resulted in legislation in 2017 forbidding the incarceration of 16- and 17-year-olds with adults for nonviolent crimes, a practice that only two states in the nation still employed prior to the legislation. Herstory Beyond Bars publications have also been used in the training program required for graduation from Suffolk County’s Correctional Academy, reaching 150 people who have trained to be correction officers.