Student organization works to bring awareness to prison reform
Logo for the student organization, Student Advocates for Prison Reform and the Incarcerated.
Some people view incarcerated people as scary, perhaps even dangerous. But a group of Central Michigan University students want to change that perception.
Student Advocates for Prison Reform and the Incarcerated (SAPRI) is a student organization founded in Fall 2017 by four students who include Roseville junior Morgan Barbret, Farmington Hills junior Sydney Harless, Grand Rapids junior Megan Lawrence and alumnus Amy Howell who graduated last year. Their focus is to bring awareness to issues relating to criminal justice reform by organizing events on campus.
They were inspired to create SAPRI after taking a course through the honors program called "service behind bars." Through the class, they went to the Saginaw Correctional Facility, and worked with prisoners who had been given life sentences. Lawrence said that class gave them passion and knowledge about this issue.
“Before I took that course, I didn’t know anything about incarceration, or prison reform,” Lawrence said. “After working with those individuals at the correctional facility, I developed a passion for helping the CMU community on what prison reform is, and how it effects everyone in our country.”
SAPRI has hosted a faculty panel, and a documentary showing last school year, Barbret said. Lawrence said the group brought in the director of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), Ashley Lucas, to campus. PCAP is a program at the University of Michigan that allows the campus community to collaborate with inmates to create art.
Lucas performed a one woman play, "Doin' Time: Through the Looking Glass" last semester. The play talked about the affects incarceration has on families.
SAPRI also partners with Beyond These Walls, a pen-pal program that connects people to inmates that are a part of the LGBTQ community.
The program is open to anyone to participate in, and Harless considers the partnership with the program a big success.
“It gives another side to the advocacy,” Harless said. “You get to know someone on a more personal level.”
Harless and Lawrence also said current and former members have developed friendships through the program.
Another success for SAPRI was the turnout and participation from general members. Lawrence said their general meetings have anywhere from 15 to 40 people, with their first meeting this year bringing in 50 members.
Barbret said E-board and the general members meet every other week, where the E-board will discuss sub topics related to criminal justice. She said these include private prisons, capital punishment, the War on Drugs and solitary confinement. This is done to help the general members and E-board be more informed about the larger issue of prison reform.
“That’s a key focus of ours,” Lawrence said. “To make sure that our membership heavily understands the issue and can discuss the issue with other people.”
In continuation with keeping their members and CMU’s campus informed, SAPRI is already planning more events. Barbret would like to have another documentary showing and would like to organize an incarceration simulation as well.
Lawrence also said they are discussing with the Saginaw Correctional Facility about the possibility of having their members consistently volunteer with inmates.
But most importantly, they want to breakdown the negative stereotypes of inmates by humanizing them and bringing awareness to the issues relating to prison reform.
“Part of the problem with incarcerating so many people behind bars is that we often forget about them, and forget the fact that they are human,” Barbret said. “That’s one of SAPRI’s biggest goals is to re-humanize the incarnated population.”
