Gina Clayton was a first-year Harvard Law School student when someone close to her was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She was secretive with classmates about what was going on at home and felt very alone. Such secrecy is common among people trying to deal with the stigma of incarceration, Vogue reported. Clayton went to work in a public defender’s office in Harlem, representing women in housing court whose family members who were trapped in the criminal justice system. She founded Essie Justice Group, a network of women with incarcerated loved ones — about a third of them, formerly incarcerated. Essie is a support system and advocacy lobby that has campaigned to end the money bail system in California. The bigger goal, Clayton said, is to “help others understand the full impact that American addiction to incarceration has had.”
