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our story

Often, and sometimes before the day had even started, people would line up outside the cells of our incarcerated co-founder with questions.

What does this bill mean?
Will this session finally bring relief? What can we do?

Their lives were quite literally at stake, yet the complexity and opacity of the legislative process meant they were met with constant anxiety and misunderstanding instead of answers.

WE ARE NOT VOICELESS

For a long time, many of us inside prisons tried to push for meaningful change. Organizations purporting to reform the criminal legal system took the lead without the people most impacted in the room. What they were willing to concede was never in line with what incarcerated people were willing to concede. Because they weren't living it. In 2020, that changed.

We founded Look2Justice, and those in prisons were empowered to voice the direction of the movement. We are the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, the families of the incarcerated, and the Black and Indigenous people of color targeted by this system. We are not voiceless. We never were.

our first win

Our first campaign, the Chance Campaign for Youth Justice, was designed by incarcerated people to end the practice of using juvenile convictions in adult sentencing calculations, a policy that disproportionately impacts Indigenous and Black communities at a higher rate than anyone else.

We built a coalition, surveyed incarcerated people across the state, partnered with Tribes, countless community members and organizations (national and local) and in 2023, we won. Today, approximately 18% of all people entering the criminal legal system in Washington State annually will now receive shorter sentences.
In most cases years.

WHERE WE ARE NOW

That first win proved what we had always known: when people most impacted lead, the movement wins. And it opened the door to something larger. Today, Look2Justice operates across three pillars: Inside/Out Advocacy and Organizing, Youth Empowerment, and The Bridge, a national narrative change initiative.

Our statewide network of incarcerated Lead Organizers, our policy newsletter reaching nearly 4,000 (33% of the entire prison population in Washington) incarcerated people, our youth programs, our documentary and media work, and our national writing initiative have grown into something this country has never seen before.

The work that began on a prison yard, with people lining up at a cell door before breakfast, has grown into a national force. We are still building. And we are still led from the inside out.Because when we lead with those most impacted, we win.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Lead from the
Inside Out 

Every decision, every campaign, every program begins with the people living the experience of incarceration. This is not a methodology. It is a conviction. The people most impacted by the criminal legal system are its most essential experts, and they hold the lead here.

Power Belongs
to the People 

We don't build power for system-impacted communities. We build it with them, and we hand it over. Civic knowledge, organizing skills, narrative platforms, legislative access these are tools that belong in the hands of the people who need them most.

Narrative is
Inseparable from
Justice 

The stories told by incarcerated people are written and shared by incarcerated people. We teach people to share their lives and experience to help society see incarcerated people for who they are - human beings, not numbers and data, or the worst day of their lives. The stories work to humanize the very people we often demonize. We understand that changing policy requires changing the culture that permits harmful policy to exist. The Bridge and our advocacy work are not separate tracks. They are a single movement working to reshape the disfunctional carceral system.

When We Lead with Those Most Impacted, We Win 

This is not a slogan. It is a track record. Our wins are proof that the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution. We return to this truth in every campaign, every coalition, every conversation.

We Are Building for the Long Game 

Change takes time. Relationships take time. Trust across prison walls takes time. It took time to get here, it will take time to rethink and rebuild from here. We are not interested in quick wins that leave root causes intact. We are building the infrastructure inside and outside for, transformation that, lasts. 

OUR STAFF

Scroll through the team and tap any portrait to learn more about them.
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Christopher blackwell

Co-Founder & Incarcerated Executive Director

dr. chelsea moore

Co-Founder & Community Education Specialist

KJ Jones

Director of Programs

katherin hervey

Director of Development

Antoine E. Davis

Incarcerated Director of
Inside Organizing

yq jiang

Director of Comms and Media

eugene youngblood

Director of Community Organizing

ethan corey

Director of Narrative Development

Vauhini vara

Director of Freethinker Book Fellowship

deborah zalesne

Director of Writers Development Program

sherri Caldellis

HR and Programs Manager

connie Palmersheim

Office Manager and Bookkeeper

aryanna branch

Executive Assistant

kwaneta harris

Lead Advisor for The Bridge

phillip vance-smith, ii

Lead Advisor for The Bridge

OUR INSIDE ORGANIZERS

L2J employs a network of currently incarcerated Lead Organizers embedded in every major Washington State facility. These are not advisory roles. They are leadership roles. Our organizers disseminate information on current legislation, host group and one-on-one civic education trainings with their incarcerated peers to help them better understand the legislative process, build our base inside, and feed intelligence directly into how we design and adapt our programs. They are the connective tissue of our inside-out model.
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amanda Knight

Washington Corrections Center for Women

andrew rowe

Monroe Correctional
Complex

Annousheh adAb

Washington Corrections Center for Women

atif rafay

Monroe Corrections
Center

carlos Bernardez Jr.

Washington Corrections
Center

demar nelson

Washington State
Penitentiary

Jerry "Jay" thomas

Stafford Creek Corrections Center

Jontae chatman

Washington Corrections
Center

marcus reed

Stafford Creek Corrections Center

stafone Fuentes

Stafford Creek Corrections Center

thomus manos

Washington Corrections Center for Men

travis comeslast

Airway Heights Corrections Center

Thomas Butler

Coyote Ridge Corrections Center

Vincent "Tank" Sherill

Coyote Ridge Corrections Center

Loren Bigleggings

Clallam Bay
Corrections Center

OUR board of directors

Scroll through the team and tap any portrait to learn more about them.
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cassandra butler

Board President

atif rafay

Board Co-President

devon adams

Board Treasurer

martina kartman

Board Secretary

Dan Berger

Board Member

udi ofer

Board Member

mike daniels

Board Member

sandy herbert

Board Member

deryl davis-bell

Board Member

CONTACT US

We love to hear from our community, if you want to reach out with any thoughts or comments or to see how to get involved, we’d love to hear from you.
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Look2Justice is a network of system - impacted leaders transforming the criminal legal system through education, advocacy, and narrative change.
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Christopher blackwell
Co-Founder & Incarcerated Executive Director
X
Christopher directs organizational strategy, sets campaign priorities, and leads programmatic decisions from inside prison. He is an award-winning journalist whose writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, HuffPost, and many more.

He was awarded Narratively's prestigious 2023 Memoir Grand Prize, a Galaxy Fellowship in 2024, the 2024 Incarcerated Journalist of the Year by Prison Journalism Project, and was the first incarcerated person to present live with The Moth at their 2025 Community Showcase event in NYC. He is co-author of Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement (Pluto Press, 2025).

Chris dedicates his time to advocacy, education, and storytelling, amplifying the voices of those impacted by the criminal legal system.
Dr. Chelsea moore
Co-Founder & Community Education Specialist
X
Dr. Chelsea Moore holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Washington. She is a published researcher, an award-winning teacher, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and a former American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellow. She belongs to an art collective dedicated to supporting women with incarcerated loved ones.
Kj jones
Director of Programs
X
KJ brings lived experience and professional rigor to managing L2J's program operations, curriculum development, and partner relationships. A University of Washington graduate in Law and Policy, he is the organizational backbone that keeps L2J's programs running with integrity and impact.
katherin hervey
Director of Development
X
A former Los Angeles Public Defender, award-winning documentary filmmaker, restorative justice practitioner, and J.D. from Loyola Law School, Katherin brings deep firsthand knowledge of the criminal legal system to building the partnerships and resources that sustain and grow L2J's work. Earlier in her career, she was Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Shades of Contradiction, a nationally distributed arts and culture magazine dedicated to critical thinking and creative action. Her latest film, The Prison Within (Amazon Prime, Discovery+), has won multiple awards, including the Evident Change Media for a Just Society Award, recognizing impactful work in the criminal legal system.
Antoine e. davis
Incarcerated Director of Inside Organizing
X
Currently serving a 63-year sentence at Washington Corrections Center, Antoine is a licensed minister at Freedom Church of Seattle and founder of the Inside Out Mentoring Program. He coordinates L2J's network of 15 paid inside organizers embedded across every major Washington State facility and leads the Washington Youth Empowerment Coalition alongside his wife Brittani Davis from the outside.
yq jiang
Director of Comms and Media
X
YQ holds a double B.A. in Writing and Gender Studies from UC San Diego and an M.A. in Cultural Studies from the University of Washington. A survivor with a background in harm reduction advocacy and queer-of-color responses to interpersonal violence, YQ ensures L2J's communications are culturally grounded and authentically reflective of the communities we serve.
eugene youngblood
Director of Community Organizing
X
Eugene was arrested at 18 years old in 1991 and released on clemency at 48 in 2021. He now brings a rare depth of lived experience into every space he enters.Youngblood is a transformative justice practitioner, community organizer, and trauma-informed facilitator who centers healing as the foundation of public safety. His work integrates violence prevention, restorative justice, and emotional and psychological healing—supporting individuals and communities in breaking cycles of harm, addressing root causes of violence, and rebuilding connection.
ethan Corey
Director of Narrative Development
X
Ethan is a writer, editor, and researcher with more than 10 years of experience working as a journalist. As research & projects editor at The Appeal, he helped coordinate the publication's collaborations with incarcerated writers, which have included award-winning investigative journalism, first-person essays reprinted in books and national newspapers, and an original podcast that reached thousands of listeners.
Vauhini Vara
Director of Freethinker Book Fellowship
X
Vauhini  is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated novelist, journalist, and editor, and the author of three books. She has written and edited for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic, where she led a special series on criminal justice, and has mentored dozens of writers through the Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Book Project and the Periplus mentorship collective. Several of her former mentees, including the incarcerated journalist John J. Lennon, have released books with major publishers.
professor deborah zalesne
Director of Writers Development Program
X
Professor Deborah Zalesne is a tenured professor of Law at CUNY School of Law and a widely published scholar on race and gender justice, solitary confinement, legal pedagogy, and the use of contracts to empower disenfranchised communities. She has authored or co-authored three books and over fifty scholarly articles and is co-author of Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement, bringing deep expertise in critical legal scholarship to the program’s editorial vision.
sherri Caldellis
HR and Programs Manager
X
Sherri oversees human resources, staff operations, and organizational systems, ensuring L2J has the people, structures, and support in place to do its work well. She is an activist and has been involved in community and criminal justice reform for many years. She has two sons, and one of them has been incarcerated for the past twenty years. She strongly believes in the power of community and making changes for a better world.
Connie Palmersheim
Office Manager and Bookkeeper
X
Connie has worked in finance for 20+ years and loves keeping things organized. She believes in building strong communities and supporting others. When she’s not working you’ll find her with her dogs or in her garden - they keep her grounded and bring joy to her life!
aryanna Branch
Executive Assistant
X
Aryanna is a recent college graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. As a system-impacted individual, she is committed to supporting and uplifting the voices of people living in or connected to the carceral system.
Kwaneta harris
Lead Advisor for The Bridge
X
Kwaneta is an award-winning journalist currently serving a fifty-year sentence in a Texas prison. An abolition feminist, her work focuses on the intersection of gender, race, and place, and has appeared in PEN America, Truthout, Slate, the Boston Globe, the Dallas Morning News, Teen Vogue, Lux, and Prism, among others. She was interviewed by Al Jazeera for a documentary on solitary confinement and is currently working on a book about youth from juvenile facilities now held in adult solitary. She is a recipient of the prestigious 2024 Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellowship.
phillip vance smith, ii
Lead Advisor for The Bridge
X
Phillip has been serving life without parole in North Carolina since 2002, advocating for reform through legislation and journalism. He coauthored the Prison Resources Repurposing Act, which would make release possible for lifers in North Carolina after completion of behavioral, educational, and vocational requirements. His journalism and op-eds have appeared in Bolts, HuffPost, and NC Newsline, illuminating how carceral systems fail through the stories of those he serves time alongside. He is a Smart Justice Fellow with the ACLU of North Carolina, a Stillwater Award-winning journalist, and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and is currently working toward publishing a memoir about activism from behind the wall.
Amanda Knight
Washington Corrections Center for Women
X
An abolitionist and justice-impacted advocate serving a 71-year sentence, Amanda is a General Council Member and Reentry Lead for The Village at the Washington Corrections Center for Women, a program started and operated by incarcerated people. She networks with the Department of Corrections and community programs to connect women approaching release with resources and opportunities, and believes every person has a choice in the narrative of their lives — and will always be its author.
Andrew Rowe
Monroe Correctional Complex
X
On year 25 of a 56-year sentence, Andrew is a founding member of the Men Facilitating Change Program, a member of the Black Prisoners Caucus (BPC), and a member of the Concerned Lifers Organization. He helped facilitate the BPC Career Bridge program connecting incarcerated people to job readiness resources, mentors young gang members, and has remained infraction-free for 25 years. He leads by example as a living embodiment of real change.
Annousheh adab
Washington Corrections Center for Women
X
An abolitionist and scholar, Annousheh serves as President of the Black Prisoners Caucus at the Washington Corrections Center for Women, is a member of the FEPPS Advisory Council, and sits on annual INCHEP conference panels. A recent Bachelor's degree graduate, she is a fierce advocate for post-prison education, LGBTQ+ rights, and dismantling all hierarchical systems of oppression. She stands on the backs of generations of ancestors as a visionary voice for change.
atif rafay
Monroe Corrections Center
X
A student, teaching assistant, and advisory board member for University Beyond Bars and Unloop, Atif assists in Edmonds College's Web Application program and is completing an honors thesis through Ohio University. He has published essays on prison, mass incarceration, education, and philosophy, and contributes policy research to organizations working on criminal justice reform and public health in Washington State prisons.
Carlos Bernardez Jr.
X
Incarcerated for nearly 16 years and organizing for 12, Carlos has been a youth committee facilitator for the Black Prisoners Caucus (BPC), helped create the TEACH program, and served as the first President of the BPC Stafford Creek chapter. His passion is to grow, develop, and encourage people, and his goal through L2J is to inform as many people as possible about the legislative process and the power in their voices.
demar nelson
X
President of the Black Prisoners Caucus, Demar is a strong advocate for change inside and outside the community. Through L2J he channels his passion to model change and create new possibilities for those around him.
Jerry "Jay" Thomas
Stafford Creek Corrections Center
X
An anti-racist organizer, activist, and abolitionist, Jay was given a 23-year sentence at 23. He is the lead facilitator of the Black Prisoners Caucus TEACH program, an International Sports Sciences Association certified Master Trainer and Transformation Specialist, and is working toward his Human Services Associate degree. He is motivated by the collective power of community and the pursuit of liberation for all marginalized people.
Jontae chatman
Washington Corrections Center
X
Sentenced to 756 months at 21, Jontae came across an L2J newsletter and found a path toward understanding the legislative process and his own power within it. As a Lead Organizer, he is dedicated to spreading accurate information through prison hallways and helping people find not just a path to reentry, but a path to correcting the legal system itself.
Marcus Reed
Clallam Bay Corrections Center
X
From Tacoma, Marcus was struck out at 24. Recent changes in legislation gave him another chance, and with the work he does for Look2Justice, his sincere hope is to impact others the same way. A member of the Black Prisoners Caucus, dedicated father, and advocate for community building through social justice, his goal is to be the same person inside that he will be in the world.
stafone Fuentes
Coyote Ridge Corrections Center
X
A proud father of three, Stafone is serving life without the possibility of parole and is dedicated to serving every day with purpose, being an example of growth and betterment for those around him.
Thomus Manos
Washington Corrections Center for Men
X
Thomus has firsthand knowledge of the juvenile-to-prison pipeline. Sentenced to life a month after turning 21, he has since turned toward self-improvement, higher education, and art. He volunteers with Bears From Behind Bars, the Native American Regalia program, and the Dog program. He is a self-improvement course facilitator, mentor, member of the Concerned Lifers Organization, and is working toward his Associate of Arts degree.
thomas Butler
Coyote Ridge Corrections Center
X
COMING SOON!
Travis comeslast
Airway Heights Corrections Center
X
Assiniboine, Ogalala, and Hunkpapa, Travis has been incarcerated for 28 years and has spent two decades using his transformation to help others. He has counseled hundreds of people inside, drawing on decades of experience working with individuals in gangs, addiction, and trauma. He leads sweat lodge ceremonies, makes regalia, and appears in the award-winning documentary Minor Differences. His passion upon release is to work with at-risk youth and help the next generation break the cycle of incarceration.
vincent 'tank' sherrill
Coyote Ridge Corrections Center
X
A prison organizer, mentor, violence disruptor, peacemaker, youth advocate, and freedom fighter, Vincent defines himself as a concrete root activist, a term he coined to describe the work done under unnatural conditions. A member of the Black Prisoners Caucus and Concerned Lifers Organization, he is trained in the HEAL restorative justice curriculum and is a poet, griot, human developer, and peer educator. His peers honor him as an "Ourstoriographer," someone who tells prison stories in prose and poetic form.
Cassandra butler
Board Director
X
Cassandra, is the founder of Resilient Luv Coffee and a community organizer with decades of experience working with family members of incarcerated people.
atif rafy
Board Co-President
X
Atif, is currently incarcerated and affiliated with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Group, the Concerned Lifers Organization, and University Beyond Bars. His leadership from inside ensures that L2J's board reflects the inside-out model at every level.
devon Adams
Board Treasurer
X
Devon, is formerly incarcerated and serves as Co-Executive Director of the Policy and Advocacy Division of Civil Survival, organizing system-impacted people across Washington State to build political participation and community power. He brings deep organizing experience and policy expertise to the board.
MArtina Kartman
Board Secretary
X
Martina, is the Co-Founder of Collective Justice and the HEAL project, building a movement of survivors and incarcerated community members to meaningfully address violence, heal, and build alternatives to state systems of punishment across Washington State.
dan berger
Board Member
X
Dan, Author and Professor at the University of Washington, Dan is an interdisciplinary historian focusing on critical race theory, twentieth century U.S. social movements, and critical prison studies.
udi ofer
Board Member
X
Udi, Founding Director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic at Princeton University, Udi served as Deputy National Political Director of the ACLU and Director of the ACLU's Justice Division. He brings national-level policy expertise and strategy to the board.
mike daniels
Board Member
X
Mike, Owner of Common Sense Studios, a music studio empowering system-impacted people in South King County through music and creative expression.
Sandy Herbert
Board Member
X
Sandy, Owner and founder of Sandy's Food for the Soul, a Black-owned catering company serving the greater Seattle area. A Minister and community leader, Sandy brings spiritual grounding and deep community roots to the board.
deryl w. davis-bell
Board Member
X
Bio coming soon!
MENU
ABOUT
the bridge
INSIDE/OUT ADVOCACY
Youth Empowerment
Events
DONATION & SPONSORSHIP