The Harriet Tubman Center for Freedom and Equity hosted a conference at the University Downtown Center on Thursday titled “From Punishment to Rehabilitation: A New Prison Paradigm,” with speakers from the Innocence Project.

The event was co-sponsored by Binghamton University School of the Arts, Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls and the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences. The day of learning featured guest lectures, panel discussions, live music performance and poetry readings.

Open to the public, the event brought together students, faculty and community members, including State Senator Lea Webb ‘04. Webb told Pipe Dream that she appreciates the Center’s efforts to bring attention to the work needed within the prison system.

“The speakers that are here today, [and] most certainly participants, myself included, are here to not only gain more understanding on our respective criminal justice system, but also what are some ways to not only strengthen accountability but really have restorative justice,” said Webb.

Anne Bailey, director of the Harriet Tubman Center and a history professor at BU, shared in her opening remarks that the research institute is carrying on Tubman’s legacy of continuing to fight against oppression and not leaving anyone behind.

“We’re not content until everyone, both here in our community and those who are incarcerated, have the opportunity for freedom, have the opportunity for justice and mercy,” said Bailey.

Christina Swarns, executive director of the Innocence Project and Marvin Anderson, a member of the board of directors at the Innocence Project and the event’s exoneree speaker, began by speaking about their work with the organization helping wrongly incarcerated individuals get exonerated.

Anderson was 18 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of sexual crimes and sentenced to 210 years in prison. Convicted by an all-white jury, Anderson, who is a Black man, spoke about how the discriminatory procedure deprived him of an impartial jury, as promised by the Bill of Rights.

Swarns explained that her organization works to provide accurate DNA sampling to ensure accurate evidence to prove the innocence of accused individuals.

Professionals who work within the prison system presented in two concurrent panel discussions about particular aspects of incarceration reform.

The first conversation included representatives from California Correctional Health Care Services, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, SUNY’s Office of Higher Education in Prison, Cares Advocates for Families and Thomas R. Porter, a Mohawk elder and author.

The second panel featured CCPA faculty member Lauren Warren Hill, history graduate student Michaela Fortunato and Executive Director of The Sentencing Project Kara Grotsch for a discussion titled “Women, Children and Youth.”

“To believe in humanity, we must reject a belief in prison,” wrote a representative from the BU chapter of the Remedy Project in a statement to Pipe Dream. “We have to believe people can improve. We have to believe that through restorative justice, people can take accountability for the harm they caused, and cause less harm in the future.”

The BU Remedy Project chapter was founded in 2023 and works to create administrative remedies, which are legal documents outlining the problems and solutions needed to correct abuses and injustices in prisons.

“The criminal ‘justice’ system has always been about preserving racism,” the Remedy Project wrote. “It has always been about maintaining capitalist hierarchies. As students, we have the privilege of time, organizing capacity. and energy to make real changes.”