Confronting Conditions of Confinement

Heather Ann Thompson

Professor of History/DAAS/ Residential College, Carceral State Project co-director, DCCR co-PI, and directs the Confronting Conditions of Confinement Team. She writes regularly about prisons and policing for popular and scholarly audiences, serves on myriad policy boards, and has been the recipient of the Life Long Dedication to Social Justice Award from the Alliance of Families for Justice and the Regents Distinguished Award for Public Service from University of Michigan. She has also been awarded a Bearing Witness for Justice Fellowship from the Art for Justice fund, and has also been a Soros Justice Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. Heather’s book Blood in the Water: the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (Pantheon, 2016) won 7 awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize. She is also author of  Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor and Race in a Modern American City (Cornell, 2001, 2017), and is currently writing a book on the Philadelphia police’s bombing of MOVE in 1985 as well as one on the Bernhard Goetz subway shootings of 1984 in New York City

Joseph Foley

Joseph Foley joined the CSP as a postdoctoral research fellow in the fall of 2023. Joseph works with
both Confronting Conditions of Confinement teams and oversees the work of the broader project.
His work includes forging ties between the CSP and community organizations, as our teams seek to
make our research useful to those organizations in their vital, ongoing advocacy work. He also
serves as a hands-on researcher, currently working on a project that illuminates the powerful
recovery work that people are doing on the inside as well as how they navigate and shape their
experience of returning to families and communities after serving time. Joseph received a doctorate
in US history from the University of Virginia (UVA) in 2023. His dissertation investigates the role of
the carceral state in reinforcing class and racial dichotomies within Baltimore. Over the past 16
years, Joseph has participated in a wide range of volunteer and recovery opportunities with the
imprisoned and unhoused populations of Oregon, Montana, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

Jamie Hein

Jamie is a Ph.D. Student in History and Women’s & Gender Studies. Her research focuses on power and resistance, criminalization, and women’s confinement in U.S. history. Jamie came to the University of Michigan from Berkeley, California where her undergraduate work focused on deinstitutionalization in the mid-20^th century and subsequent use of jail and prison for mental health care. She was incarcerated in Las Vegas from 2007-2017, where she trained dogs, tutored women in the adult education department, earned her Associate’s degree, and served on the Inmate Advisory Committee. Jamie remains inspired by the women she knew in prison.

Amy Grimes

Amy has a graduate degree in Criminology and Applied Theatre from the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Both in the UK, and at the University of Michigan via the Prison Creative Arts Project, Amy has worked closely with marginalized youth in the community as well as in juvenile prisons, and inside of adult facilities, where she has taught in drama and storytelling workshops as well has offered courses in English and Music.

Amy serves as a researcher for the Carceral State Project where she works on the ways in which people on the inside confront the conditions of confinement through drama and storytelling, both in Michigan and in California.

Charlotte Boucher

Charlotte is a PhD candidate in Political Science. Her research focuses on the effects of police violence on the subjective citizenship of people living in neighborhoods with both very high and very low violence. She is using neighborhoods in Chicago, IL and Paris, France as case studies.

Alex Melody Burnett

Ph.D. Candidate (History and Women’s and Gender Studies). Alex Melody Burnett studies gender, race, sexuality, labor, and state power in the twentieth century United States from a transfeminist perspective. Her dissertation explores the criminalization of transfemininity and the rise of trans politics in northern California after the 1966 anti-police uprising at Compton’s Cafeteria. With the Carceral State Project, Alex has written about the 2016 uprising at the Kinross Correctional Facility, Michigan’s juvenile court fine system, and, most recently, incarcerated women’s political organizing and survival tactics in Michigan jails and prisons. Her scholarly writing has appeared in the Journal of The History of Sexuality. 

Claudia Rubalcava

Claudia is an undergraduate student in Political Science (BA); Minor in History of Law and Policy. Born and raised on the Southside of Chicago, she is passionate about the intricacies surrounding the American prison-industrial complex and how it targets disenfranchised communities in the United States. Her research with the Carceral State Project primarily focused on jail systems in Michigan, specifically Washtenaw County.

Kyra Newman

Kyra is a senior studying Political Science and Sociology who is passionate about social justice and advocacy for those who are incarcerated. Her research focuses on women’s incarceration, resistance, and addressing structural issues within the criminal legal system. Kyra’s work with the Confronting Conditions of Confinement team has involved working and speaking with incarcerated women from Michigan prisons and compiling written and spoken experiences into comprehensive and cohesive resources.

Kat Brausch

Kat Brausch is a PhD Candidate in the History Department and a legal historian of the American Left. Her research explores the connections between personal injury law, radical labor movements, and resistance to the carceral state in the third quarter of the 20th Century. She received her JD from the University of Michigan Law School in 2018. 

Sammy Bodin

Sammy recently graduate from UM with a BA, with a major in psychology and minors in criminology and social class and inequality studies. Her research focused on the history of the Washtenaw County Jail, prison conditions and treatment, and the intersection between incarceration and race, ethnicity, and social class. Her work with the Washtenaw County Jail project involved conducting research on the history of the jail through various research papers, articles, and seeking out and collecting accounts of treatment from previously and currently incarcerated individuals.

Kate Holcomb

Kate is a first-year MSW student who is passionate about social justice and policy. Her research focuses on resistance, women’s incarceration, and issues impacting mental health within the criminal legal system. Her work with Confronting Conditions of Confinement has involved archival policy research as well as analyzing and curating written testimonials of escapees and whistleblowers from Michigan prisons. Kate plans to pursue a career in the juvenile justice system and help at-risk youths.

Peter Martel

Ph.D. Student (Public Policy/Sociology). Peter Martel is a graduate student in the Public Policy & Sociology program at the Ford School of Public Policy. His research focuses on the U.S. legal system, mass incarceration, and criminal procedure. Pete was incarcerated in Michigan from 1994-2008, worked as a prisoner advocate at the American Friends Service Committee from 2010-2016, and earned his law degree from Wayne State University Law School in 2016.

Patrick Bates

Community Researcher for Documenting Prison Education and the Arts and Confronting Conditions of Confinement. After spending his life inside correctional facilities across the state of Michigan, Patrick Bates came home to change a pattern of systematic slavery and death by incarceration. He has worked on several projects with various organizations based on reforming and abolishing a system of which he was a victim. The advocacy groups with which he has worked include the University of Michigan Carceral State Project, #UMBehindBars, Prison Creative Arts Project, and American Civil Liberties Union.

Julia Reinach

Undergraduate Student (History/Sociology/Crime and Justice). Julia Reinach is from Natick, Massachusetts. On the Prisoner Uprisings in America team, Julia focused on the legislative response, national significance, and grievances of incarcerated individuals during the 2016 Kinross Uprising. She also serves as the current coordinator for the Kinross Project, as well as student-coordinator for the upcoming Jackson State Prison project and is part of the Policing and Social Justice HistoryLab’s Detroit-based policing project. 

Parker Kehrig

Undergraduate Student (Sociology/Social Work/Women’s and Gender Studies). Parker Kehrig is a junior from Harper Woods. Their focus on Confronting Conditions of Confinement has been on collecting written testimonials of currently incarcerated people and conducting oral histories with formerly incarcerated people. Parker hopes to begin a MSW program after graduation.

Noor Moughni

Undergraduate Student (Philosophy/Middle Eastern Studies). Noor Moughni is a first-year student from Dearborn, Michigan. On the Confronting Conditions of Confinement team, Noor’s focus has been collecting written testimonials from currently incarcerated people and researching archival materials relating to commissary prices and religious opportunities at women’s facilities in Michigan. Noor hopes to attend law school after graduation.

Ashley Hayes

Undergraduate Student (Afro-American and African Studies/Education for Empowerment). Ashley Hayes is a senior from Southfield, MI. Her work on Confronting Conditions of Confinement involves collecting, analyzing and curating the written testimonials of many voices and identities of people who are currently incarcerated in the state of Michigan, with the goal of improving the present conditions of confinement. Ashley hopes to begin a doctoral program in African-American Studies upon graduating.

Nora Krinitsky

DCC/CSP Project Director (2019-2021), RC Lecturer, Co-Director DPEA Team. Nora Krinitsky is Director of the Prison Creative Arts Project and Lecturer in the Residential College at U-M. She is a historian of the modern United States and specializes in urban history, African American history, and the history of the American carceral state. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of History at the University of Michigan in 2017. Professor Krinitsky is co-director of the Documenting Prison Education and Arts team and a contributor to the Conditions of Confinement team. She served as Project Director for Documenting Criminalization and Confinement from 2019-2021.

John Hibbard

J.D. Candidate (Law). John Hibbard is a law student from Plymouth, Michigan. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 2018, majoring in political science. As a law student, he also has worked on the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse with Professor Margo Schlanger, where he tracked the lawsuits that arose out of the protests following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.

Mahnoor Imran

Undergraduate Student (Public Policy/History). Mahnoor Imran is a second-year student who is passionate about confronting the injustices of the criminal legal system, and she aspires to do meaningful work that helps incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. She is currently a member of the Prison Creative Arts Project Executive Committee and a writer for the Michigan Specter focusing on prisons, policing, and surveillance.

Allyson Moralez

Undergraduate Student (Cognitive Science and Crime & Justice). Allyson Moralez graduated from the University of Michigan in 2021 and is from Fennville, Michigan. She worked on the oral histories and Kinross Uprising projects for the Conditions of Confinement team.

Anya Satyawadi

Undergraduate Student (History/Program in the Environment). Anya Satyawadi is from Pittsburgh and graduated from the University of Michigan in 2021. Her work with Confronting Conditions of Confinement involved collecting and analyzing testimonials from those who were formerly incarcerated and creating a space for contextualizing their voices. Anya also worked on the Crackdown project for the Policing and Social Justice HistoryLab. She is currently attending law school in New York City. 

Megan Wilson

Ph.D. Student (Classical Studies). Megan Wilson is a member of the Prison Creative Arts Project and, as part of the Confronting Conditions of Confinement team, has undertaken archival research on the history of Michigan prison conditions and conducted oral history interviews with returning citizens about their lived experiences.  Megan also leads the DCC Communications & Outreach Team.

Ava Wells

Undergraduate Student (History and Crime and Justice). Ava Wells is a researcher for the Confronting Conditions of Confinement team and contributed to the Kinross Uprising report. In addition to her work with DCC, Ava is also involved with the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan. In the future, she hopes to pursue a career in history, with a focus on recovering and revealing historically unrecognized narratives. 

Payton Walsh

Payton graduated from UM with a BA in Women and Gender Studies and Social Theory and Practice in December 2022 and is from Macomb, Michigan. While working with the Carceral State Project, she analyzed and summarized testimonials of conditions at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility. In the future, she plans to pursue a law degree with hopes of improving the criminal legal system.

Nina Rosenberg

Undergraduate Student (Public Health/Public Policy/Computer Science). Nina Rosenberg is a junior from Westchester, NY. Her work on the Prison Uprisings in America team focuses on healthcare, food, and legal action taken by incarcerated people. She contributed to the Kinross Uprisings report and is also a member of the Policing and Social Justice HistoryLab’s Detroit-based project. After graduation, Nina hopes to begin an MPH program.