Keeping Awareness Alive

Since the summer (and our work for spreading awareness) is coming to an end, Rebels 4 Justice want to give everyone the chance to spread and educate the tragedy and the problems with wrongful convictions and injustice in the United States. We are going to share the workshop we used so that others may use it as well. Using the documentary "After Innocence" directed by Jessica Sanders will be the main ingredient of the workshop.

Introduction
Objective: To get everyone interested in justice and get and starting idea of what justice means to them pre-film.
Everyone goes around saying their name and what justice means to them in one word. Once everyone has shared, start by explaining what exonerations and exonerees are and introduce the film. You will be splitting the film into three clips with an activity in between clips.

Movie- First break will be at the end of chapter 5 which is about 23 minutes

Needs Assessment Activity
Objective: To get people engaged in the statistics of the necessities of an exoneree
You will need 10 volunteers and 10 sheets of paper based on a survey of 60 exonerees done by the Life After Exoneration Program. Each paper will have one of the 10 problems: without health insurance, basic social service needs, lost custody of children during prison, earning less than pre-prison, separated/divorced during prison, unemployment, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety disorder, inadequate housing. The idea is for the volunteers to put themselves in order from most problematic to deal with to least problematic to deal with. Make sure they keep in mind that they are thinking in terms of what an exoneree needs. The people who are not volunteering will create a fish bowl around the volunteers and they write down what necessity caused the most problem to put into place. Also they give a suggestion of where that necessity should go. After 5 minutes of sorting, the volunteers get in order and share why that necessity is placed in that order. After they share, ask the audience if there is anything they disagree with and why. Once everyone has discussed, take out a chart paper with the actual order of the necessities. They are as followed:

1. Basic Social Service Needs- 55%
2. Without health Insurance- 54%
3. Inadequate Housing- 44%
4. Earning less than Pre-Prison- 43%
5. Depression- 40%
6. Separated/Divorced during prison- 39%
7. Anxiety Disorder- 38%
8. Lost custody of children during prison- 30%
9. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder- 28%
9. Unemployment- 28%

More likely than not, students will be shocked at the results. Then ask everyone what was the most shocking and why. Once the discussion comes to a close, gather everyone back in their seats for the second portion of the film.

Movie- Up to chapter 11 which ends at about 53 minutes total and 30 minutes from the first cut.

Apology/Forgiveness exercise
Objective: To make an emotional connection between exonerees and those in the outside world.
You will have questions and statements written on a chart paper. Everyone is asked to answer the question as if they were an exoneree. The first statement is "An apology is necessary to be able to forgive the system/government/prosecutor. Those who agree will stand those who disagree will sit. Pick some volunteers to explain why they are standing/ sitting. The second is a question: "What would you need in order to forgive?" Allow people to discuss among themselves.

Movie- This is the last clip so allow it to finish. It will take about 40 minutes.

Reflection- Have some people share back their opinions on the film. Then, split up the group in 2 groups. The first group will be asked "After watching the documentary, do you believe justice is colorblind (in other words... does race affect justice)?" The second group can have a choice of the 2 questions: "Is it an artist's duty to advocate/ spread the word about injustice? How? and/or What elements contribute to wrongful convictions?

We guarantee that neither you or the participants will ever look at the United States justice system the same.