HELP US END MASS INCARCERATION The Prison Policy Initiative uses research, advocacy, and organizing to dismantle mass incarceration. We’ve been in this movement for 22 years, thanks to individual donors like you.

Can you help us sustain this work?

Thank you,
Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate

Board of Directors and Advisory Board

Board of Directors*

  • Andrew Adams, Clerk
    Chief of Staff + Head of Strategic Communications, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (bio) Andrew Adams is Chief of Staff + Head of Strategic Communications at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country operating 34 health centers in California and Nevada. Previously Andrew worked at Homebridge, a social service organization in San Francisco where he was responsible for communications, marketing, grant development and fundraising, legal affairs and compliance, policy development, administrative staff, and board relations. Andrew also worked at the New York Civil Liberties Union, Plan International’s Liaison Office to the United Nations, and represented immigrants and non-citizens in national security matters. Andrew holds a BA in Women and Gender Studies from Hunter College and JD from City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law. Andrew lives in Mexico City and is an avid cook, cyclist, hiker, and traveler.
  • Lucius Couloute, Treasurer
    Assistant Professor of Sociology, Trinity College (bio) From 2017-18, while working on his dissertation, Lucius Couloute worked with the Prison Policy Initiative as a Policy Analyst. He led our work examining reentry and the effects of criminalization, as well as our campaign to bring accountability to the video calling industry. Some of his groundbreaking analyses for the Prison Policy Initiative tackled homelessness, (un)employment, and educational attainment among formerly incarcerated people. His academic work has appeared in Victims & Offenders, Socius, Sociology Compass, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, and the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy. Lucius is currently leading research projects examining the exploitation of criminalized people, the experiences of Black women with criminalized partners, identification-attainment among those leaving prisons, and guaranteed income among people with felony records. From 2019-2024 Lucius held an appointment at Suffolk University and is currently an assistant professor of sociology at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He joined the Prison Policy Initiative's Advisory Board in 2019 and currently serves on the Prison Policy Initiative's Board of Directors.
  • Laurie Jo Reynolds, President
    Policy advocate, researcher, and artist (bio) Laurie Jo Reynolds is a policy advocate, researcher, and artist who challenges the demonization, warehousing, and social exclusion of people in the criminal legal system. Reynolds was the organizer of Tamms Year Ten, the grassroots campaign to close the notorious Illinois state supermax prison, shuttered by Governor Pat Quinn in 2013. Along with Solitary Watch, she co-leads the ongoing participatory project Photo Requests from Solitary. Reynolds also coordinates the Chicago 400 Alliance, developed in collaboration with people with past convictions who have been forced into homelessness due to Illinois housing banishment laws. The alliance has demonstrated how registry laws mandate adversarial police contact and have expanded the policing, surveillance, and incarceration of poor people in Chicago. She serves on the board of Narrative Arts, the legislative team of Parole Illinois, and is the UIC faculty advisor to the YES APPLY ILLINOIS! campaign to remove invasive and humiliating questions about past convictions from the admissions process in public higher education. Reynolds is Associate Professor, Public Arts, Social Justice, and Culture, in the School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
  • Carrie Ann Shirota, Director
    Policy Director, ACLU of Hawai’i (bio) Carrie Ann Shirota is the Policy Director of the ACLU of Hawai’i, and an attorney with a long history of working to advance civil rights and transformative justice in Hawai’i. She previously served as Director for a reintegration program on Maui, providing holistic and comprehensive support services to returning community members exiting jail. Carrie Ann’s selection as a Soros Justice Fellow and work for the Hawai’i Civil Rights Commission, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of the Public Defender, and University of Hawai’i Maui College, reflects her commitment to equity, self-determination for Indigenous Peoples, and ultimately justice in our beloved communities.

*Organizations for identification purposes only.


Advisory Board*

  • Andrew Beveridge, Sociology, Queens College
  • Alec Ewald, Political Science, University of Vermont
  • Nora V. Demleitner, President, St. John’s College, Annapolis
  • Amy Fettig, Deputy Director, Fair and Just Prosecution
  • Alex Friedmann
  • Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Earth and Environmental Sciences, City University of New York
  • Barbara Graves-Poller, City of Kingston, New York
  • Ruth Greenwood, Professor and Director of the Election Law Clinic, Harvard Law School
  • Daniel Jenkins, democracy activist, plaintiff, Longway v. Jefferson
  • Eric Lotke, attorney, researcher and author
  • Stephen Raher, attorney and researcher
  • Bruce Reilly, Formerly Incarcerated, Convicted People and Families Movement
  • Brigette Sarabi, Founder, Partnership for Safety and Justice
  • Jason Stanley, Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
  • Heather Ann Thompson, Professor of History, University of Michigan
  • Janice Thompson, Midwest Democracy Network
  • Angela Wessels
  • Brenda Wright, NAACP Legal Defense Fund
  • Rebecca Young, Attorney

In memory

*Organizations for identification purposes only.



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