| People who can speak to various aspects of the use of isolation in prison |
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  | Last Name | First Name | Organization | Biography | Phone | E-mail Address |
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| | Naima | American Friends Service Committee | | 215-241-7137 | nblack@afsc.org | | | Natalie | American Friends Service Committee MI Criminal Justice Program | | 734-761-8283- ext.5 | nholbrook@afsc.org | | | Bonnie | American Friends Service Committee |
Bonnie Kerness has been an anti-racist activist since she was 14, working at the University Settlement House as a volunteer on issues of housing, neighborhood and gangs. In 1961, at the age of 19, she moved to Tennessee to participate in the Civil Rights Movement. In Memphis she was trained as a community organizer by the NAACP. She continued her work and training at Highlander Training School in Knoxville, where organizers from throughout the Civil Rights movement met for training and brainstorming. Bonnie moved back North in 1970 and became active with welfare rights, tenants rights and anti-war groups. Bonnie has worked as a professional organizer on gay rights, welfare rights, women’s rights and other campaigns and has her MSW in community organizing. She has been a human rights advocate on behalf of prisoners since 1975, working as coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee’s Prison Watch Project. Bonnie has raised eight children, three Caucasian and five of African decent. She has served as Associate Director and Acting Director of the AFSC Criminal Justice Program in Newark, the National Coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Control Unit Prisons and serves on the Board of Directors of the World Organization For Human Rights, USA, the Advisory Board of California Prison Focus and Money, Education and Prisons Committee of Madison, Wisconsin. She has helped publish, “Our Children’s House”; “Torture in US Prisons – Evidence of US Human Rights Violations; and “The Prison Inside the Prison: Control Units, Supermax Prisons and Devices of Torture”, and the Survivor’s Manual. Bonnie speaks publicly on behalf of people in prison on US human rights violations of the UN Convention Against Torture and has been quoted in articles, books and other publications on prison related subjects.
| work-973-643-3192 | bkerness@afsc.org; b.kerness@verizon.net | | | Matthew | American Friends Service Committee Arizona | Matthew is a native of Portland, Oregon, but now calls Tucson, Arizona home. He is a graduate of Eastern Mennonite University with a B.A. degree in Justice, Peace, & Conflict Studies where he divided his focus between restorative justice practices and international conflict transformation. He helped to develop the student mediation and conciliation program at the University. Following his studies, he spent a total of two years living and working in Guatemala with the Network in Solidarity to the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) providing international human rights observation for survivors of war and genocide. His ability to speak Spanish and his training in the field of conflict studies made the work in Guatemala a perfect fit for his interests and skills. He has also worked as a Residential Counselor at a residential care facility for adjudicated boys, spent nearly three years working in a law office, and organized and led numerous speaking events on the legal cases in Guatemala against two ex-presidents for war crimes and genocide. From Guatemala, Matthew moved to Philadelphia to work with pre-adjudicated youth at the Good Shepherd Mediation Program through youth diversion programs, community service, and as coordinator of the Victim & Offender Conferencing Program. During his time in Philadelphia, he co-facilitated weekly workshops of prisoners at SCI Graterford on restorative justice, received over 100 hours of training in different forms of mediation and facilitation, and trained hundreds of youth in practical conflict resolution skills. As Program Coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee, his work in the area of criminal justice includes fighting the use and proliferation of control units (Stopmax Arizona), responding to issues related to prisoner re-entry, and prisoner correspondence. He also hopes to begin working on the growing and dangerous overlap between anti-immigrant policies and the proliferation of prisons. | 520.623.9141 | mlowen@afsc.org | | | Laura | American Friends Service Committee | Laura has worked on criminal justice issues for over 35 years - first for the Friends Committee on Legislation in Sacramento. She received her BA from the University of California in Ethnic Studies in 1971 and an MA from the Pacific School of Religion in 1982. She has worked on criminal justice issues for the AFSC since 1989. She wrote "American's First Penitentiary,: A 200 Year Old Failure in 1990 and co-authored the AFSC publication,"Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System" in 2006. | (510) 238-8080 Ext. 308 | lmagnani@afsc.org |
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