AH&A “Our House” Ep.11: John Proctor

A determined teacher at Rikers Island

John Proctor is a teacher at Manhattanville College who started a volunteer creative arts program on Rikers Island. Here’s his story of why he started the program, the myriad challenges to getting it off the ground, and how you can get involved with criminal justice reform and supporting the incarcerated population.

Update from John since our interview:

The workshop has now expanded into a program called Creativity Fridays in partnership with staff from the Fortune Society, the Petey Greene Program, and American Prison Data Systems (APDS), offering writing training, art therapy, and advocacy, and producing a periodic newsletter distributed on the tablets provided to inmates on the island.

Creativity Fridays recently got the attention of Zephyr Teachout, who asked the men in the workshop to write questions she then asked candidates at the first Queens County District Attorney debate, which generated considerable response on social media in the week after the debate. Notably, candidate Tiffany Cabán, the only candidate with a history as a public defender, was the only candidate to answer every one of their questions. This debate marked a significant step in her campaign for Queens County DA.

Learn more about the New York court system through Court Watch NYC at https://www.courtwatchnyc.org/

Follow John Proctor:
On his mailing list: https://us17.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=6d8a55bc809f2fe0a32081cc4&id=4c248a8e19
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnproc
Or check out his website: http://notthatjohnproctor.com/

Find Art, Humanity & Action on Twitter (twitter.com/arthumanityact), Instagram (instagram.com/arthumanityaction), and www.arthumanityaction.com

OUR HOUSE Credits:
Production and editing by Jeff Rose.
Music by Audioblocks.
Hosted by Nicole Ferraro.
PR by PKPR.