Pursuing Justice

Kali Silverman is Senior Project Manager of Mural Arts. She visits the men's maximum prison once a month coordinating the Mural Arts program with the full support of the Department of Corrections. Kali's beliefs stem from "tikkun olam" based on the Jewish philosophy meaning to  repair the world. Growing up near Philadelphia, she always felt public art could give people agency. "It's accessible to everyone."

Mark Strandquist (he/him) has spent over a decade using art to amplify, celebrate, and power social justice movements. 
The immersive exhibitions, interactive photo-based public art, and multimedia projects he directs have helped advocates close a youth prison, pass laws, train police officers, and connect the dreams and demands of communities impacted by the criminal justice system with tens of thousands of people.
His work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and universities, as well as through parades, church-basement legal clinics, and illegal wheatpaste installations. 
He has received multiple awards, fellowships, national residencies, and reached wide audiences through the NY Times, BBC, the Guardian, NPR, the Washington Post, PBS, VICE, and many others. 
He founded, and currently co-directs the Performing Statistics project, and, through fellowships from A Blade of Grass and Open Societies, co-directs the People’s Paper Co-op and Reentry Think Tank with his partner Courtney Bowles.
In response to the Covid19 public health crisis, he founded Fill the Walls With Hope, Rage, Resources and Dreams, which installed thousands of posters on boarded up buildings across Philadelphia, and co-directed the People's Paper Co-op's campaign to use art to bail out and free Black mothers and caregivers (raising over $2250,000 in art sales).


View some of Mark's work:
And a little more about Mural Arts' work at SCI Graterford/Phoenix:
https://www.muralarts.org/blog/through-my-i-art-from-sci-phoenix/

No Kids In Prison web experience: 
https://www.nokidsinprison.org/experience/

USA TODAY Names Philadelphia “Best City for Street Art”
https://www.visitphilly.com/media-center/press-releases/usa-today-names-philadelphia-best-city-for-street-art/#:~:text=With%20thousands%20of%20public%20art,1%20spot.


To learn more about Mural Arts, visit muralarts.org

This podcast is proudly sponsored by the Innocence Project of Florida. Visit www.floridainnocence.org for more information.

What is Pursuing Justice?

What if you or someone you loved were arrested, convicted and incarcerated for a crime --a crime for which you or that person was innocent?
What if the lawyer you hired was incompetent and you were out of funds and out of options?
What if years and decades had gone by and you or your loved one were still behind bars?
Where would you find help?

Wrongful conviction in the United States occurs more often than you might think. In 2022, the National Registry of Exonerations recorded 417 people who were proven innocent.

They have tracked cases of innocence since 1989. Since 1973, 200 people were taken off Death Row and freed from prison.

The total number of men and women exonerated since 1989 is 3,460. That is just the tip of the iceberg as it is estimated that 4%-6% of the 2 million people doing time are innocent.

The desperate help these people need is coming from innocence organizations in most every state in addition to groups like Conviction Integrity Units around the nation. They work pro bono for each client.

This podcast will explore causes of wrongful conviction in addition to many other topics related to our criminal justice system. We will continue to interview exonerees, share memoirs they have published, speak to Professors of Law who are also authors of books about false confessions and junk science. We will interview directors of Innocence Projects around the nation in addition to organizations like "Puppies Behind Bars".

Host Harriet Hendel served on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project of Florida from 2013~2019, having been active with IPF since 2009. The project is the sponsor of the podcast.

Harriet has been teaching classes on topics related to our justice system since 2012 in Florida and New Jersey. Her goal is to shine a light on the miscarriage of justice going on all over our nation with the hope that one day wrongful conviction will be eliminated for good.