Board of Directors

Kathy Boudin has led a life of social commitments beginning in the 1960’s with participation in the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War movements. In 1981, Ms. Boudin began serving 22 years in prison, primarily at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a New York maximum-security prison for women. While incarcerated, Ms. Boudin worked with other inmates on shared personal and social issues, building community through programs that addressed the HIV/AIDS epidemic, parenting from prison, the need for higher education, and personal transformation, including responsibility for their crimes. While in prison Ms. Boudin received her master’s degree in adult literacy. During prison, her son, now 27, was both a source of strength and inspiration for her work.

Writing in prison was a way of discovering self and of overcoming the isolation of prison, sharing knowledge and insights with those beyond the prison fences. Ms. Boudin wrote in academic journals such as The Harvard Education Review and Women and Therapy; in corrections publications of the American Correctional Association on parenting and adult literacy; memoir writings contributing to the Eve Ensler production, “What I want my Words to Do To You;” and she is a poet who participated in classes with Hetti Jones; Ms. Boudin won the First Prize for the PEN Prison Writing Poetry Award.

Released from prison in 2003, Ms. Boudin maintains a commitment to people in prison and their families. As an extension of her work around HIV/AIDS while incarcerated, Ms. Boudin is employed by the Center for Comprehensive Care, St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital, generating programs related to health care for people who are HIV Positive. She remains dedicated to drawing on the strengths of people as reflected in a peer program of patients who become peer counselors and educators in the hospital. She is committed to those facing the challenge of being HIV positive and returning from prison and is building The Coming Home program to meet their needs.

Ms. Boudin continues work begun in prison with adolescents whose parents are incarcerated, developing a program to support their positive development and their future aspirations. And, she maintains a commitment to longtermers in prison by participating in a series of projects supporting those who have little chance of seeing a parole board or of being granted parole at the expected release date in spite of personal transformation. A core piece of the work is developing a restorative justice approach.

Ms Boudin completed her doctoral degree in education at Columbia University Teachers College in May of 2007. Her doctoral thesis examined the challenges faced by adolescents with mothers in prison, the complexity and centrality of maintaining a relationship with their mothers, the significance of peer support among them, and the possibilities for the positive development of adolescents when policies support these relationships.

Anthony Lucky Youth Career Specialist and Domestic Violence Facilitator for Family Services, Inc. in Poughkeepsie, NY. He has a Master of Arts degree in Theology from the New York Theological Seminary, a Master of Arts in Sociology from SUNY, New Paltz and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from SUNY, New Paltz. His work has focused on delinquency prevention. In addition to working as a chaplain’s assistant, he has written curricula for courses in Religious Community, Church History and “How to Study the Bible”. He leads a regular Bible study group at his church.

Patrisia Macias Rojas, since 2007 has been an assistant professor of sociology at Sarah Lawrence College, NY, teaching seminars on international migration and border controls; the sociology of punishment; and comparative systems of racial domination. Before Sarah Lawrence College taught sociology at the San Quentin Penitentiary through Patten University’s Associate Degree Program.

In 2006, received a PhD in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley where she investigated the growing intersections between immigration and crime control through a study of immigration law enforcement practices at the U.S.-Mexico border. During the course of her fieldwork (2002-2005) she worked directly with border rights organizations at the Arizona/Sonora and El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border regions. At the Arizona/Sonora border region, she worked with the Border Action Network (BAN) on organizing campaigns related to racial profiling in AZ border communities; prosecuting border vigilantes, and documenting human and civil rights abuses along the border. In El Paso/Juarez, she worked with the Annunciation House, a faith based organization and shelter for migrants in transit and residents economically displaced by globalization and the North American Free Trade Agreements (NAFTA). In El Paso, she also worked with Las Americas, another faith based organization providing legal services to detained, unaccompanied minors.

Prior to embarking on her doctoral work, she served on the editorial staff of ColorLines magazine since its founding in 1998 through 2000 and worked as a free-lance researcher for the Applied Research Center (ARC) in Oakland, CA. Before ColorLines, she was based at the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) as the Chattaqua coordinator for a coalition of racial justice organizations. I received my training as a community organizer through the CTWO’s Movement Apprenticeship Program (MAP) and Californians for Justice during its founding “No on 209” campaign.

She was born and raised in Pilsen, a working class Mexican community in the south side of Chicago, and in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Alan Rosenthal is a criminal defense and civil rights attorney with over 30 years of experience. A graduate of Syracuse University College of Law, he has litigated cases involving police misconduct and violations of civil rights in both jails and prisons. He is currently the Co-Director of Justice Strategies, the research, training and policy initiative of the Center for Community Alternatives. As the Director of Justice Strategies he has supervised and provided mitigation services in capital cases for the past five years. He has drafted legislation on “Racial Profiling and Data Collection,” and “Citizen Review Boards.” As the Director of Justice Strategies, Alan undertook a study of race and the local criminal justice system for the local branch of the NAACP and the Alliance Network. He authored the CCA publication Sentencing for Dollars, a tool for criminal defense lawyers to use when reviewing the financial consequences of a criminal conviction, and a working paper, Unlocking the Potential of Reentry and Reintegration. He has presented training for lawyers for both the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Legal Aid & Defender Association, National Alliance of Sentencing and Mitigation Specialists, The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and New York State Defenders Association on sentencing, sentencing advocacy, mitigation, the collateral consequences of criminal convictions, Rockefeller Drug Law Reform, and ethics.

Willie Thomas actively assists ICARE with outreach to communities of faithis a Volunteer Outreach consultant to ICARE. In this capacity, he trains volunteersis participates in training for the “Circles of Care” ministry program and encourages congregations to endorse the coalition’soutreach for “Restoration of Rights” platform. Willie received a Bachelor of Science degree in business management from Skidmore College and a Master’s in Professional Studies from New York Theological Seminary’s Sing Sing Program. For twenty-nine years, Willie worked tirelessly to bring cultural, educational and self-help programs to various New York State Correctional Facilities. During that time he was cited by the Glen Falls N.A.A.C.P. Chapter, New York State Jaycees, Hispanics United for Progress, and the African American Organization for his leadership and organizational abilities. He has also been noted for his involvement with Transitional Services Centers, Youth Assistance Programs (YAP), HIV and AIDS counseling, and Otisville’s Lifers self-help group.

A.J. Williams-Myers holds the doctorate in History with a concentration in African History from the University of California at Los Angeles. He is full professor in the Black Studies Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz, having held the department's chair during his tenure, and for three years in the late 1980s/early 1990s was Executive Director of the New York African American Institute, a research/think tank within the SUNY system. Dr. Williams-Myers is a former volunteer in the United States Peace Corps having served in Malawi, Central Africa, 1966-1968. He has traveled widely in Africa, Caribbean, Europe and Asia, is the author of several books, and has published extensively in both national and international journals.

Judith Brink witnessed a young prisoner die in prison and committed her remaining years to the struggle to transform the criminal justice system and its role in American society, both to reduce our dependence on incarceration as a means of "solving" social problems and to improve the quality of life for those who are, or have been, incarcerated.

She has worked as a social entrepreneur in the criminal justice arena, with police, prosecutors, the courts, prison and parole officials, and legislators (without whom transformative systemic reform is not possible). But the most meaningful and fruitful work has been with people often marginalized by the criminal justice system, including crime victims, offenders, and their families and neighbors.

She has come to understand that meaningful systemic reform requires involving families and neighborhoods in both the development of alternatives to the adversarial criminal justice system for resolving conflicts and the productive reintegration of offenders into the community.

After working devotedly with Albany's Restorative Community Justice initiative (which indirectly lead to the ouster of Albany's entrenched "Law and Order" District Attorney by a progressive community prosecutor who works with the community rather than against it), in April of 2003, with five colleagues from Prison Families of New York, she helped create an organization we named Prison Action Network to vigorously advocate for systemic changes in the criminal justice and prison systems, which she now runs. She was also the founding chairperson of the Justice Committee of the Social Responsibility Council of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany.

The major projects Prison Action Network is involved with are producing Family Empowerment Day events (last year's spanned 3 NY cities on 3 separate dates, the largest of which attracted 300 people at NYC's Columbia University Law School on October 20). These events focused on educating families in the use of tools of democracy: the vote, the law, and grassroots organizing. She also publishes Building Bridges, a monthly 10-page newsletter that reaches readers on both sides of the prison walls, as a way of getting everyone affected on the same page, so to speak. Building Bridges has gone from a circulation of 40 in 2003 to 708 at present. It's also publicly available at www.prisonaction.blogspot.com.

Fred Bunnell attended Yale College, B.A. 1955; US Army (volunteer draft), 1955-1957; Yale M.A.T 1957-1958; Social Studies teacher at East Haven High School, 1958-1960; Cornell University, Ph.D. in Government (International Politics and Southeast Asian Studies) 1969; Vassar College, Department of Political Science, 1967 - 1998 (Instructor thru ranks to Professor). His primary research interests over the years were US-Indonesian relations and the role of NGOs in political development in Indonesia. In terms of community involvement, he served for nearly a decade on the DC Ryan White HIV/AIDS Planning Council. That experience allowed him to learn about not only the AIDS community but the non-profit and governmental spheres, especially in the City of Poughkeepsie.

Since retirement he have been involved in local politics as an officer in the Democratic Party, Democratic candidate for Dutchess County Executive in 2003, and served as a member of the DC county legislature from 20005-2007. During his time in the legislature he became involved with the DC Criminal Justice Council. This long established and highly respected multi-agency Council introduced him to the key actors in the criminal justice system including an unusually "progressive" jail administrator. He served mainly on the CJC committees on Community Involvement and Task Force on Alternatives to Incarceration. In those roles he first became involved with reentry issues. That led to a productive bipartisan collaboration in the County Legislature to advocate for ATI funding locally and from NYS. Perhaps most important he also had a first major encounter with the powerful forces of NIMBY that blocked the establishment of a newly funded ATI residence. It is also at this time that he had the honor of assisting in introducing ICARE both to the CJC community and interfaith circles.

Since losing reelection to the Legislature last fall, he has continued to work on local reentry. Most notably he has joined the effort of Christ Episcopal Church -- led by his wife-- to establish volunteer support groups (ICARE Re-entry) for women newly released from county jail. He has also volunteered to serve on the Criminal Justice Council task force on reentry about to be established under the newly secured NY State grant on reentry. He continues modest involvement in the local Democratic Party -- as well as the Obama campaign-- and is supporting the local chapter of Citizen Action on health and governance issues. Overall reentry remains one of his highest commitments to promoting social justice in his community through politics, advocacy, and personal support for individuals committed to navigate their "second chance".

Faith E. Fish holds a United States Trustee Appointment as a Patient Care Ombudsman
March 24, 2008 – Current. She monitors the care of patients in longterm care facilities (Adult and Nursing Homes) that are in bankruptcy

Her former professional responsibilities include:
New York State Office for the Aging
Long Term Care Ombudsman
November 1992 – May, 2002 (Retired)
State Long Term Care Ombudsman created under the Federal Older Americans Act to protect and support residents in long term care facilities (nursing homes and adult homes) in the 62 counties of New York.

New York State Office for the Aging
Program Analyst III (Program Manager)
September 30, 1988 - November 1992
Responsibilities:
Develop, coordinate and manage special projects in the areas of Special Needs Housing, a joint Home Sharing Project with
The Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities; Congregate Care Initiative, and Governor’s Task Force to Consolidate a Senior Application Form;

New York State Office for the Aging
February 26, 1981 – September 30, 1988
Long Term Care Advocacy Specialist
Responsibility
Regional Coordinator for the State Long Term Care Ombudsman Program in Western New York under the Federal Older Americans Act to protect and support residents in long term care facilities (nursing and adult homes).

Erie County Department of Social Services
August 16, 1965 – February 27, 1981 Assistant Unit Supervisor of a unit of eight social workers in the area of child care, family counseling and various services to children and adults.
Assistant to the Director of General Services which involved working with approximately 50 staff clerical and professional) in the areas of children and adult problems.
Special Projects for the Assistant Deputy Commissioner with the major responsibility focusing on being liaison with the media, organizing community meetings to explain agency policy, community liaison in dealing with problems in reference to adult home and representing the agency at various functions.

Supervisor for Erie County Task Force on the Federal Conversion Project which involved the supervision of 30-35 staff members to convert public benefits for aged, blind and disabled to the Social Security Administration under SSI.

Coordinator of the Adult Foster Home Program. Responsibilities included developing and coordinating housing alternatives to institutionalized for the elderly; coalition building between agencies involved with housing for the elderly, blind ad mentally/physically disabled.

Organizations she works with include, the Working Families Party, Citizen Action - Capital Region, Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy (SCAA) – Advisory Board for Adult Homes, Community Accountability Board – Office of the Albany County District Attorney – Juvenile and Adult, and Senior Advisory Council to the Office of the Albany County District Attorney.

Her awards include NYS Association of Local Ombudsman Distinguished Service Award
Paul Vanas Award Award of Excellence Working with Residents of Long Term Care Facilities; Town of Amherst, New York: Distinguished Service Award for Long Term Care Ombudsman Program; Erie County Legislature Outstanding Service Award; Adult Residential Care Advocates Outstanding Service Award

Her education includes study at the State University of New York at Buffalo with a BA in Liberal Arts with a Major in Sociology1961-1965; State University of New York at Buffalo Graduate Courses and State University of New York at Albany
Public Administration.

Sandra R. Powell has been a manager, trainer, program administrator, and innovator largely in the areas of: training and organization, work force planning and development, grants management and budget administration, building cohesive work teams, process improvement, communication skills, diversity management, and executive level management development. Competent in: organizational development, stimulating collaboration, grants development and management, budget administration, developing training systems, managing long-range planned change programs in both the public and private sectors. Experienced in managing programs, creating and managing competency-based training and development systems, managing training budgets and contracts, partnering with customers to develop service systems, and conference planning. Frequently sought as a trainer and speaker.

Holds a Master's degree in Education and BA degree in Psychology/Sociology from Bowling Green State University, Ohio. Completed the Fellowship in Organizational Development, Johns Hopkins University, School of Applied Behavioral Sciences (1980). Completed, Managing New York State, Level I, (1989). Certified as a practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (1992). Holds numerous other training certifications.

Rima Vesely-Flad is a doctoral student in Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, and holds master's degrees from Union and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Her research and publications have explored the connections between Calvinist theology and criminal law, the Slave Codes and Black Codes of the nineteenth century, and the continuing expansion of the prison-industrial complex.

The founder of the Interfaith Coalition of Advocates for Reentry and Employment (ICARE), a grassroots advocacy organization focused on changing systemic barriers encountered by people with criminal convictions, Rima continues to participate in ICARE’s statewide committee of policy advocates, meet with state representatives to propose progressive legislation, and serve as an ex oficio member of ICARE’s board. She taught religion courses at Sing Sing Prison from 2004 to 2006, and also spent several years working with direct service organizations, alternative-to-incarceration programs, and political campaigns. In 2007, she was awarded an Episcopal Church Foundation Fellowship and a Union Square Award.

Rima has traveled throughout Africa and Latin America, and lived for two extended periods of time in Cape Town, South Africa, working as a Fulbright Scholar, journalist, and teacher.