ADVOCACY

FEATURED WORK

NARRATIVE CHANGE
Unlocked Voices: A Future Beyond Mass Incarceration

| Catholic Mobilizing Network | Multifaith EMI }

Phillips & Marek was selected to create, promote and deliver a unique “narrative change” training experience across the country called Unlocked Voices. This initiative focused on advancing the narrative about mass incarceration through faith-based communities and advocacy organizations.

Based on focus group research of 7,060 people representative of the U.S. population, with an oversampling of Black Americans, the training centered around four key messages: faith, equality, safety and imagine. The training helped attendees:

Tap into their personal feelings and biases about mass incarceration

Learn how the dominate narrative about mass incarceration leads to a never-ending cycle of carceral punishment and state violence

Understand the needs of justice-impacted people and victims

Discover how restorative justice can help facilitate the healing process

Harness their personal power and influence to affect local change in their communities

Identify local changemakers and ways to enlist their support

Walk away with an action plan to help create a future beyond mass incarceration

Our work included:

Development of a day-long, interactive national training program based on focus group research
Creation of the Unlocked Voices visual and editorial brand identity
Design of program assets like training materials, promotional pieces and social media posts
Testing of core messages and exercises at the annual M-EMI conference
Management of logistics in Atlanta, Dallas and Compton
Collaboration with local hosts and partners to promote the trainings
Facilitation of on-site event sessions with our faith-based trainer
Development of online toolkits for post-training use
Evaluation of program success

Unlocked Voices is a program of the Multifaith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration.

James Woodall facilitating an Unlocked Voices training session in Atlanta

Toolkit, handout, social media graphic and retractable banner

A Brief Overview of the Visual Branding

Unlocked Voices Stained Glass Digital Art

The Circles

The six inner circles mimic those of the Multifaith EMI logo and represent our proposed training cities throughout the country.

The larger circles are symbolic of our collective voices being amplified throughout our communities and beyond.

The Lead Came and Color Imagery

The “lead came”, which are the dark bars used to hold the glass together, represent the far-reaching impacts of incarceration throughout America, infiltrating our communities and even surrounding those who have never been incarcerated. As it permeates through our society, incarceration creates a feeling of darkness, confinement and impenetrability.

But when golden rays of sunlight, like the goodness of God, shine through the glass between those bars, they illuminate our faith in and the beauty of the world:

the blue of our heavenly skies serving as a testament of His wisdom
the green pastures of earth symbolic of our ability to grow
and white light representing love and peace within our communities.

If we measured those impacted by incarceration by only seeing the hardness and confinement of the lead came that held them, we would fail to see the beauty and fragility within.

But when we choose to see the light, it is there that we find wisdom, growth, and love.