In the summer of 2015, three CUNY Law students made a nonprofit, dreamed up in a second-year seminar, a reality.
(l-r) Jeffrey Strutynski (’16), Seth York (’16), and Alexandra Roche (’16)
Justice Behind Bars is a newly incorporated organization, founded by Jeffrey Strutynski (’16), Alexandra Roche (’16), and Seth York (’16), that provides individually tailored legal lesson plans to inmates who feel their rights were violated while they were incarcerated.
“In our classes, we were learning about grave injustices happening in prisons, and we felt like we wanted to do something to help empower incarcerated individuals to advocate for themselves. That’s how Justice Behind Bars was born,” said Strutynski. The trio hopes an influx of meaningful claims brought by inmates against prison officials will incentivize prison executives to implement fairer policies for the inmates.