The web of our country’s criminal justice system is far and wide and has devastating impacts across multiple sectors of our society. It not only has significant impacts on the health and well-being of the 2 million men and woman in prison across the United States – but on our larger food system and the deep reverberating short-and long-term effects it has on communities and millions of children and families.

In this session, we’ll examine the prison system that traces its roots back to slavery, and the ways in which the conditions facing people in prison — and when they return home — have significant costs when it comes to health, public safety, and human dignity. We’ll also look to the people and organizations that are working to reframe the national dialogue around criminal justice and building food systems based on health, equity, and justice for all incarcerated and free people.

Featured Speakers

  • Dr. Douglas Wood, Director of Criminal Justice Reform Initiative at the Aspen Institute
  • Kanav Kathuria, Founder at the Maryland Food & Prison Abolition Project
  • Sam Lewis, Executive Director, The Anti-Recidivism Coalition
  • Vonya Quarles, Executive Director, Starting Over, Inc.

More Conversations on Food Justice

  • Four square portraits of the three panelists and one moderator who spoke about philanthropy and food justice as part of a regular series, Conversations on Food Justice. From left to right, Caesare Assad (brunette, smiling at the viewer, and wearing a dark blue shirt), Christina Chauvenet (short light brown hair, smiling at the viewer), Mel Jackson (a smiling black women with shoulder length hair, arms crossed wearing a white suit coat) and Chuck Scofield (a smiling man wearing a dark sport coat). The image is outlined in orange and blue. The logos for Share Our Strength (in bold black) and Food & Society at the Aspen Institute (bold blue underlined in red, light blue, yellow, and turquoise blue) are placed in the lower left corner.