Photo by UncleVinny (CC BY 3.0) To read more of Hollie Garrett's article, please click here. In 2011, a 20-year prison sentence turned my life completely upside down. This was not my first time being incarcerated, but it was the longest sentence I had ever received. This new reality was hard to accept. Twenty years was enough time to lose the people I cared about and damage the relationships I hoped to maintain. My biggest fear centered around my relationship with my three sons. I worried we...

Emancipation Day, Richmond, Virginia, circa 1905 (Photo source: Library of Congress) To read more of Antwann Lamont Johnson's article, please click here. We use the holiday to reflect on the resilience of our Black ancestors. I didn’t learn about Juneteenth until after I came to prison. Being incarcerated made me want to learn more about the history of slavery in this country. Most of what I’ve learned is sad, but it’s helping me understand the present better. Juneteenth celebrates the...

Credit: Freya Lowy Clark for The 19th To read more of Barbara Rodriquez' article, please click here. Cierra walked into the Bowens Senior Center with trepidation, but also hope. The promotional flier that brought the mother of three to this community center a few miles outside of Detroit offered to help people eliminate any active warrants for their arrest — people like her, who had a warrant for a years-old traffic violation. But something else on the flier also caught her attention: Along...

[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site — abuseresearch.info — that focuses on the effects of abuse, and includes research articles on PACEs. Every month, she posts the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs, PCEs and PACEs. Thank you, Harise!! — Rafael Maravilla] Domestic Violence – Effects on Children Makris G, Eleftheriades A, Pervanidou P. Early Life Stress, Hormones, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Horm Res...

Susan Burton and Cari Lynn’s social justice memoir follows Burton’s journey from a prison inmate to a leading campaigner for criminal justice system reform. Susan Burton is the founder of A New Way of Life, a nonprofit organization that provides housing and other support to formerly incarcerated women. She is nationally known as an advocate for restoring basic civil and human rights to those who have served time. Susan is the 2010 recipient of the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award from the...

Ben David, co-chair of the North Carolina Chief Justice's Task Force on ACEs-Informed Courts, shares plans to sustain the work done during the two-year term of the Task Force, to "care for our own" speaking of North Carolina's children, youth, families, communities, victims of crimes, members of law enforcement, the judiciary and court officers and staffers. He also shared Chief Justice Paul Newby's hopes of "getting ACEs-informed courts" into the culture, and said a national conference for...

Amy Read of Coastal Horizons introduces the panel following a viewing of "Resilience: The Biology of Stress, The Science of Hope", at the Pender Resiliency Task Force Mini Conference Thursday, June 8 ,at Heide Trask High School in Rocky Point. A "dream team" of subject-matter expert panelists (L-R) were Ryan Estes of Coastal Horizons, Ben David, district attorney for Pender and New Hanover counties, Judge J. H. Corpening, district court judge for New Hanover and Pender counties, Taylor...

Ben David, co-chair of the North Carolina Chief Justice's Task Force on ACEs-Informed Courts, shares plans to sustain the work done during the two-year term of the Task Force, to "care for our own" speaking of North Carolina's children, youth, families, communities, victims of crimes, members of law enforcement, the judiciary and court officers and staffers. He also shared Chief Justice Paul Newby's hopes of "getting ACEs-informed courts" into the culture, and said a national conference for...

Image Credit: Aidi Tanndy from pexels.com To read more of Isaiah Thompson's article, please click here. This past Mother’s Day, a group of activists, most of them women, gathered outside the Alameda Courthouse in Oakland, Ca. to “call attention to the harm of mass incarceration on generations of Black women, families, and communities,” according to a press release by the California nonprofit Essie Justice Group, which organized the rally. “The justice group is a loving and powerful community...

PACEs Connection is excited to roll out our summer 2023 *CRC* curriculum dates. Members who complete the CRC will qualify for a fall 2023 fellowship program.

The connection between trauma and incarceration runs deep. ILLUSTRATION BY KEITH BISHOP/GETTY IMAGES To read more of Allen Arthur's article, please click here. Shawanna Vaughn fights prisons with equal amounts of forgiveness and fury. The forgiveness she offers is one that she hopes everyone will embrace — one that sees people who have committed harm as wounded, not evil, and that can become the basis for prioritizing healing over punishment. She even extends forgiveness to the man who...

Are you over 60 and successful despite your Adverse Childhood Experiences? Are you realizing that it’s truly now or never for your Soul’s original desire? Do you want to secure your Soul’s full incarnation before you leave this Earth? Are there family relationships you’d like to mend?