WHO WE ARE
Who we are reflects
what we stand for.
The J4EM brings together scholars, practitioners, and community leaders committed to reimagining public safety through education, research, and lived experience. Our team works across disciplines and communities to build institutions worthy of the people they serve.
FOUNDING DIRECTOR
Elizabeth Hinton
Elizabeth Hinton is one of the nation’s leading experts on the roots of mass incarceration and enduring inequality in the United States. The Class of 1954 Professor of History, Black Studies, and Law at Yale University, Hinton serves as the founding director of the Justice for Everybody Movement J4EM, a university-based center focused on promoting public safety through education, research, and coalition-building. At Harvard, she is the founding co-director (with Brandon M. Terry) of the Hutchins Center’s Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety.
Hinton’s groundbreaking books—From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime and America on Fire—were each named New York Times Notable Books and have become essential texts in policy and social justice circles. A sought-after public intellectual, Hinton’s commentary appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Times and beyond. Her research has been supported by the Carnegie Corporation and the Guggenheim, Mellon, and Ford Foundations. Hinton served on the National Academies of Sciences Committee on Reducing Racial Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System and in 2022 was elected to the American Philosophical Society as one of the youngest members in its history. At J4EM, Hinton is building the infrastructure for a more just and robust democracy—where education is not a privilege, but a cornerstone of public safety.
Yaseen Eldik
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Yaseen Eldik is the Executive Director of the Justice for Everybody Movement. An educator, strategist, and community builder, he leads initiatives that advance democratic resilience through education, justice reform, and public policy. At Yale Law School, he has held several leadership roles focused on equity in education. He served as Director of the Legal Academic Pipeline Program, an initiative he launched, and co-led the Dean’s Initiative on Democracy and Dialogue, a special project designed to foster pluralism and civic engagement.
Eldik graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Stony Brook University and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School. A Truman Scholar and finalist for the Yale Law School Staff Excellence Award, his career includes legal practice at Skadden, Arps and advisory roles for senior leaders in higher education, philanthropy, and the private sector. He was a founding member and inaugural chair of the Gucci Changemakers Council and is a current member of the Gucci Changemakers Collective. Eldik writes on issues of justice, religion, and American civic life, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, including its video op-ed series, as well as other publications.
Viola Clune
PROJECT COORDINATOR
Viola Clune is the Justice for Everybody Movement ’s Program Coordinator. She collaborates with J4EM's team members, partners, and the broader community in order to manage daily operations and to aid the progression and development of J4EM's long-term goals.
She graduated from Yale in 2025 with a degree in History.
Maurice “Trix”
BlackwelL
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Maurice Blackwell is an advocate for education, mental health, and criminal justice reform, shaped by his lived experience as a college student while incarcerated. After serving 24 years in prison, he earned his AA through the Yale Prison Education Initiative and now oversees J4EM’s community-based projects. He is a College-to-Career Fellow with YPEI and is pursuing a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of New Haven.
Maurice founded Youth Readers, a literacy initiative for children of incarcerated parents, and oversees Liberation Live!, managing creative submissions, newsletters, the Book Garden book club, and community partnerships. His work focuses on expanding pathways for incarcerated people to contribute to their communities and advancing fairer sentencing—toward a future where young adults are treated more justly by the courts.
SYDNEY
BROWN
LEAD RESEARCH & ADVOCACY FELLOW
Sydney Minetta Brown is a student at Yale Law School supporting the Justice for Everybody Movement through research on criminal justice reform, juvenile justice, and legislative policy. She has worked with the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office in both the Juvenile Department and Adult Felonies.
Sydney is a Teaching Assistant for Inside Out: Criminal Law, taught by Professor James Forman at FCI Danbury with incarcerated and Yale Law students, and for Professor Tracey Meares’ Justice and Society at Yale College. She also serves as a Research Assistant to Professor Doug NeJaime, focusing on family law. Prior to law school, she was Special Assistant to U.S. Senator Cory Booker in Washington, D.C. A San Francisco native, Sydney graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
ADRIAN
PEELER
COMMUNITY OUTREACH FELLOW
Adrian is a communications and coordination organizer with J4EM, working currently to advance juvenile sentencing reform in Connecticut. "In collaboration with the Coalition on Communal Healing Through Justice Reform” (CCHJR), Adrian leads community outreach, coordinating predominantly with justice-impacted people, their loved ones, and community allies—in order to amplify the voices of incarcerated men and women and their loved ones. Through relationship-building and direct engagement, Adrian has collected over 100 testimonies that center lived experience in the movement for fair and evidence-based sentencing policy.
Luv (Bryan Jordan) is a justice-impacted scholar and advocate whose work centers on education, equity, and reentry. He is the co-founder of Guided By Purpose Initiative, Inc., supporting individuals returning home from incarceration. Bryan is currently pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven and plans to attend Yale Law School to advance systemic reform.
He is the lead researcher with Yale Law School’s Challenging Discrimination in the Law Project at the Justice for Everybody Movement , where he examines how race has shaped mass incarceration and how education transforms lives, and is also at the forefront of J4EM’s advocacy initiatives. Bryan also works with the Second Chance Educational Alliance and leads conflict resolution and anti-violence programs for youth in underserved communities. His work is grounded in a deep belief in second chances and the power of education to drive change.
BRYAN “LUV”
JORDAN
LEAD RESEARCH FELLOW
INSIDE KNOWLEDGE TEAM
LUNARSOL STUDIOS
PARTNER
Lunarsol is a full-service art and culture studio working at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and social impact. We believe art and culture are infrastructure—and that collective care, creativity, and shared imagination are essential to a future rooted in dignity, abundance, and belonging.
DOMINIQUE PORTER
PRODUCER
Dominick is an incarcerated journalist, podcaster, and filmmaker. In 2025, he directed My Teachable Moment at Valley State Prison as part of the Inside Knowledge/Carceral Studies Journalism Guild symposium—a first-of-its-kind documentary short led entirely by incarcerated producers and directors. After entering prison functionally illiterate, he taught himself to read, earned his GED, joined the Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor Society, and began publishing in outlets including Words Uncaged, 180°, and The Bulletin. Today, he co-hosts the Inside Knowledge podcast, publishes with Witness and All Of Us Or None, and helps expand the Carceral Studies Journalism Guild.
GHOSTWRITE MIKE
INSIDE KNOWLEDGE QUARTERLY EDITOR
Ghostwrite Mike is an incarcerated journalist, scholar, and literacy activist focused on carceral storytelling and education. Named by Editor & Publisher as “the most prolific carceral journalist in the country,” he founded the Carceral Studies Journalism Guild and serves as Managing Editor of Witness, an uncensored platform for first-person prison testimony. A Vanguard Journalism Fellow and board member of Radical Reversal, he co-developed CSJG’s journalism curriculum and created Barz Behind Bars, a poetry-based literacy program used nationwide. His work appears in Slate, San Quentin News, Editor & Publisher, the Journal of Prison Education Research, and the American Prison Writing Archive anthology Harm and Punishment (Haymarket, 2026), and he co-hosts the Inside Knowledge podcast.
KRISTINE GUILLAUME
INSIDE KNOWLEDGE QUARTERLY MANAGING EDITOR
Kristine Guillaume is a PhD candidate in Black Studies and English at Yale. Her dissertation, Below the Fold: Black Print Culture and the Carceral State, studies prison print culture, including prison newspapers and anthologies, during the Black Arts Movement. She is the producer of the Inside Knowledge Podcast and the managing editor of the forthcoming Inside Knowledge Quarterly.
CHALLENGING DISCRIMINATION & THE LAW PROJECT TEAM
ELIZABETH ROSS
DIRECTOR
Elizabeth Ross is the Director of the Challenging Discrimination in the Law Project at the Justice for Everybody Movement at Yale. She is also a PhD candidate in History at Harvard University. Her dissertation examines domestic social policy in the United States at the turn of the twenty-first century with a focus on the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. She considers how the Clinton administration’s embrace of a tough-on-crime approach ushered in a new age of mass criminalization that primarily impacted BIPOC communities, setting the stage for today’s heightened police and surveillance state and concretizing mass incarceration.
Elizabeth holds a JD from Harvard Law School, a BA in African American Studies from Columbia University, and an AS in Speech Communication from Northeast State Community College. She has received generous support from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
Sydney Brown, Hannah Charak, Conor Hodges, Mary Elizabeth Marquardt, Chelsea Wang, Grace Watkins.
COALITION FOR COMMUNAL HEALING THROUGH JUSTICE REFORM
The Coalition for Communal Healing Through Justice Reform is a member-led alliance of justice-impacted leaders, Yale-based researchers from the Justice for Everybody Movement, and community advocacy organizations working to end mass criminalization. Grounded in policy reform, community education, and healing-centered approaches, CCHJR builds grassroots power across Connecticut—advancing a vision of public safety rooted in restoration, opportunity, and accountability, not punishment.
AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS & PARTNERS
James Jeter — Full Citizens Coalition (FCC):
The Full Citizens Coalition is a Connecticut-based action group working to undo the harms of felony disenfranchisement and ensure all people are recognized and respected as full citizens.
Shelby Henderson-Griffiths — Policy Analyst:
Shelby brings over eight years of experience in policy analysis focused on challenging mass incarceration and advancing preventive juvenile justice reform.