Andrea James was an advocate for prison reform. But one day she found that the roles had been reversed, when she herself wound up behind bars.

James is the founder and Executive Director of Families for Justice As Healing, which aims to create alternatives to incarceration. You can read more about her over at Boston Magazine.

“After 22 years [of working in criminal justice], I didn’t think there was anybody that could tell me anything more about how broken the criminal system is…until I left my five-month old baby boy in the parking lot of the prison and my 12-year-old daughter and my older children who all brought me to drop me off at the prison. Because I was a lawyer, and we’re treated differently. I got to self-surrender.”
— Andrea James