Laurie Jo Reynolds

Laurie Jo Reynolds is a policy advocate and artist who challenges the demonization, warehousing, and social exclusion of people in the criminal legal system, often long-term efforts at the margins of political viability. Focusing on the retributive extremes of solitary confinement and public conviction registries, Reynolds collaborates with justice advocates, state officials, cultural workers, and people directly affected by violence and incarceration to encourage policies that truly prevent victimization and restore and rehabilitate, rather than damage, people in the justice system.

Her recent work has focused on conviction registries, housing banishment laws, and public exclusion zones, which destabilize families and lead to unemployment, incarceration, and homelessness, through the Chicago 400 alliance. Reynolds was the organizer of the campaign to close Tamms Correctional Center, the notorious Illinois state supermax prison designed for sensory deprivation. She co-leads the ongoing project Photo Requests from Solitary (www.photorequestsfromsolitary.org) and serves on the boards of Working Narratives, Illinois Voices, and the National Alliance for the Empowerment of the Formerly Incarcerated.

She teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she serves as faculty advisor to the YES APPLY ILLINOIS! campaign to remove invasive and humiliating questions about past convictions from the admissions process in public higher education.