The Narrative Change Lab
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Collaborative prison journalism and narrative transformation.
The Narrative Change Lab
One of the most powerful but underestimated pillars holding up the structure of mass incarceration is mainstream media. From slavery to our current-day carceral state, media has stoked fear of crime and legitimized the criminal-punishment system as beneficial to public safety. Mass incarceration simply could not exist without the narratives that hold it up. These narratives went into overdrive following widespread protests in 2020 to abolish our policing and imprisonment systems. Today, they are perpetuated by many of the most powerful people, politicians and entities in society.
We are a collective of currently-incarcerated, formerly-incarcerated and outside activist media-makers who have spent the past five years building the groundwork to fight back. We’ve taken significant risk against prison administration; spent countless hours recruiting journalists, editors and publishers to work with us; developed numerous educational resources; and most importantly, have published from inside prisons across the United States — showcasing writing everywhere from local papers to the New York Times.
The Narrative Change Lab is a formal effort to coordinate, organize and scale these efforts for even more impact. It will be guided by the inside-outside leadership team of incarcerated journalist-organizer and L2J co-founder Christopher Blackwell and outside journalist-organizer Emily Nonko.
The collective, who bring years of experience to this project, will focus on five impact areas:
- JOURNALISM: We bring incarcerated journalists into partnership with outside writers, journalists and editors to produce hard-hitting and investigative journalism from inside prisons across the U.S.
- RECLAIMING PERSONAL NARRATIVES: Many incarcerated people have had their stories told by police, prosecutors, judges and media. We support incarcerated writers to reclaim, develop and share their own narratives about their lives and incarceration.
- INSIDE-LED MENTORSHIP: Chris successfully leads the Writers Development Program, an inside-led mentorship group that trains new writers at his Washington prison. We expanded the initiative with incarcerated writer Kwaneta Harris and a group of women at her Texas prison.
- BOOKS: Chris and lawyer Deborah Zalesne co-wrote Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement and will launch a public education and book tour in fall 2025. We will use this experience to understand possibilities with books and touring that center incarcerated authors and push for change.
- BUILDING POLITICAL POWER: Look2Justice has successfully supported and harnessed the narratives of incarcerated people to advocate for legislative change, write bills and op-eds, and build relationships with politicians in Washington State. We will use this model to support other incarcerated writers building their own political power across the United States.
GOAL: We have been at the forefront of producing journalism and storytelling from prison and deeply understand the hard work, trust building, commitment and collective effort it takes to do it in an ethical fashion. Our hope is that the Narrative Change Lab can channel this work, and our most successful past initiatives, into a formal and sustainable program that will serve as a model to other organizers in the space.
We also believe it is time to get better organized, funded and supported to wage a strategic fight against the powerful narrative forces upholding mass incarceration. We also believe it is time to get better organized, funded and supported to wage a strategic fight against the powerful narrative forces upholding mass incarceration. Under President Trump, we have seen how quickly narratives have been wielded to justify oppression — and nothing in the United States is more oppressive than its prison system. It is time for us to take this threat seriously, create strong organizational structures to resist, and continue establishing norms and standards around inside-led leadership, storytelling and social change.. It is time for us to take this threat seriously, create strong organizational structures to resist, and continue establishing norms and standards around inside-led leadership, storytelling and social change.
GET INVOLVED: Before our January 2026 launch, we want to hear from writers, editors, publishers, activists and any other folks who’d like to get involved and/or follow our future work.
