- Deadline
- Passed
Open Society-U.S.’s Soros Justice Fellowships fund outstanding individuals to undertake projects that advance reform, spur debate, and catalyze change on a range of issues facing the U.S. criminal legal system.
We are taking a moment to pause and analyze the future of our three U.S. based fellowship programs. This means we will not be issuing a call for proposals for 2025 fellows, as we would have done this fall.
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Year
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Alice Kim
2016Alice Kim and Joey Mogul are writing a book about the four-decade long struggle for justice for survivors of racially motivated police torture in Chicago. -
Danny Murillo
2016Danny Murillo will work to empower formerly incarcerated students by creating a network of people throughout California who have successfully made the transition from incarceration to higher education. -
Ebony Underwood
2016Ebony Underwood will form a national coalition and create an online digital hub to advocate for and raise awareness of policies that support children of incarcerated parents. -
Eliza Hersh
2016Eliza Hersh will work to reform California’s broken sex offense registration system, and train legal advocates to bring relief to the people, families, and communities harmed by current laws. -
Issac J. Bailey
2016Issac J. Bailey will explore the issues of crime, race, punishment, and the effect of incarceration on families across generations. -
Joey Mogul
2016Alice Kim and Joey Mogul are writing a book about the four-decade long struggle for justice for survivors of racially motivated police torture in Chicago. -
Kristina Shull
2016Kristina Shull will work to dismantle the immigration detention system from the “inside” by challenging censorship practices, exposing abuses, and lifting up migrant voices in popular media and public discourse. -
Lisa Sangoi
2016Lisa Sangoi will research and write an advocacy report on the child welfare system, with a focus on how the system responds to allegations of drug use by parents. -
Mariame Kaba
2016Mariame Kaba will partner with organizations to support and advocate for women (trans and nontrans) who are survivors of sexual and physical violence but who also live under threat of arrest and incarceration. -
Nick August-Perna
2016Thomas Lennon and Nick August-Perna will complete a documentary film examining the human dimension of life after prison and the healing power of good food. -
Reyna Montoya
2016Reyna Montoya will organize people directly affected by the immigration detention system. -
Ryan Lo
2016Ryan Lo will use digital media storytelling as a way to change the narrative about people returning from prison and to help support efforts to reform the criminal justice system. -
Steven Czifra
2016Steven Czifra will help formerly incarcerated community college students reach their full academic and professional potential by creating a pathway for admission to the University of California, Berkeley. -
Teresa Hodge
2016Teresa Hodge will launch a campaign to promote tech education and opportunities for people returning from prison and to close the digital divide compounded by incarceration. -
Thomas Lennon
2016Thomas Lennon and Nick August-Perna will complete a documentary film examining the human dimension of life after prison and the healing power of good food. -
Alexander Lee
2003Alexander Lee will alleviate the abuse of transgender and gender variant prisoners in California by providing alternative sentencing and mitigation services to those detained in the San Francisco Bay Area. -
Andrea Keilen
2003Andrea Keilen will research and expose prosecutorial misconduct in the Texas criminal justice system and produce a comprehensive evaluation of statistical and anecdotal evidence of deliberate attempts by prosecutors to circumvent the law. -
Andrea Marsh
2003Andrea Marsh will protect indigent defense in Texas by monitoring the state's Fair Defense Act (FDA), which requires judges to meet certain minimum standards when appointing qualified counsel. Through outreach and public education, Marsh will work... -
Arwen Bird
2003Arwen Bird, paralyzed in a car crash caused by a drunk driver, will mobilize crime survivors in Washington state and Nevada to break down the dichotomy between victims and offenders and work towards safer communities and a more humane, effective... -
Cheryl Graves
2003Cheryl Graves will work with community and juvenile court leaders to organize, train, educate, and advocate for juvenile justice reform in two high-crime urban areas in Chicago. -
Clive Stafford-Smith
2003Clive Stafford-Smith will organize a coalition to promote enforcement of constitutional and human rights in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (home of a U.S. military base and prison); to produce a best-practices manual for litigating the cases before military... -
David Dent
2003David Dent will write a book about his elementary school classmate who is serving a life sentence in a New York state prison. -
David Feige
2003David Feige will host a program on National Public Radio and to complete a book about indigent defense drawing on the voices of public defenders and low-income defendants. -
Emily Bazelon
2003Emily Bazelon will write articles about the shifting balance of power among judges, juries, and prosecutors in sentencing defendants to make federal sentences more punitive. -
Ernest Drucker
2003Ernest Drucker will develop a public health model for understanding the deleterious impact and social consequences of mass incarceration, particularly on urban communities throughout the United States.
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Year
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Brandon Brown
2024Brandon Brown and Catherine Besteman will educate, coordinate, and interrupt the flow of people into prisons through building a robust, reparative, healing alternative to incarceration in the wake of harm. -
Catherine Besteman
2024Catherine Besteman and Brandon Brown will educate, coordinate, and interrupt the flow of people into prisons through building a robust, reparative, healing alternative to incarceration in the wake of harm. -
Claudia Muñoz-Castellano
2024Claudia Muñoz-Castellano will educate and create a Texas statewide legal empowerment program to combat the alarming rise in criminalizing policies and practices that target immigrants. -
Deborah Small
2024Deborah Small will study the impact of local efforts to “reimagine public safety,” focusing on the effectiveness of the initiatives, enhancing trust between law enforcement and the community, and addressing systemic issues. -
Elizabeth Kennedy
2024Elizabeth Kennedy will research deportees to El Salvador and Honduras, focusing on youth, Indigenous and Garifuna communities, the LGBTQI+ population, and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. -
George Morton
2024George Morton will establish an initiative that elevates the vast expanse of Black narratives and fosters the transformation of Black people as artists and art subjects. -
Gina Jackson
2024Gina Jackson and Lea Wetzel will build a national model of peer support and best practices for missing and murdered Indigenous Womxn (MMIW/G). -
Kelly Davis
2024Kelly Davis will research the needs and experiences of pregnant people who have been incarcerated, to inform and advance a broader policy agenda based on gender-based violence, reproductive justice, and criminal justice reform. -
Lauren Faraino
2024Lauren Faraino will engage in legal and storytelling advocacy to investigate, and expose, and halt the unlawful practice of harvesting organs of people who die while incarcerated without family permission. -
Laverne Thompson
2024Laverne Thompson will craft a dynamic community archive of the groundbreaking efforts of Louisiana’s advocates and visionaries who paved the way for criminal justice reform in Louisiana. -
Lea Wetzel
2024Lea Wetzel and Gina Jacksin will build a national model of peer support and best practices for missing and murdered Indigenous Womxn (MMIW/G). -
Nia Lee
2024Lee will spearhead a national series for justice-impacted Black and Brown queer women, femmes, trans, and gender-expansive individuals to create a platform for dialogue, community building, and transformative justice spaces. -
Temi Mwale
2024Temi Mwale will examine how technology produces state violence and harm through the criminalization of Black communities, with a unique focus on the parallels between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. -
Tijanna Eaton
2024Tijanna Eaton will support authors who have served time in United States prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers, with wraparound coaching and services to develop books sharing their vital stories.