Description
A Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist for Social Justice.In a Whole New Way is a photographic self-portrait by New Yorkers who are serving a term of probation. The book also lifts the veil on this "second-chance" justice intervention that has spread from its origins in 1841 Boston to most of the world today.
If all Americans serving a term of probation were gathered in one locale, they would constitute the third-largest city in the country. Yet few of us understand what the sanction involves. Nor do many Americans realize that the originally rehabilitative practice became punitive following the 1972-92 crime wave. In many jurisdictions, it still is. Probation unfortunately has become a staging area for incarceration rather than its alternative.
In a Whole New Way shows how hundreds of determined city residents on probation, along with neighborhood allies, undertook to change this. Equipped with cameras and new artistic sensibilities provided by the editors' nonprofit Seeing for Ourselves, they set off in a whole new way to reform the sanction of probation, returning it to the rehabilitative and positive program it was originally intended to be. In the process, they found themselves transformed.
The result of their journey is this unique collection of stunning photographs, accentuated by deeply personal captions and lengthier testimonies, that reveal the reality of life in probation. The stories of these participants powerfully undercut their own-and probation's--derogatory popular image. The true goal of this book is to reform the entire justice system toward decarceration.
In a Whole New Way is both the sequel to the editors'
Project Lives (2015), the globally acclaimed volume resulting from a similar effort with New Yorkers living in public housing--a work catapulting
Seeing for Ourselves to the front tier of
"participatory photography" practitioners worldwide--and the source of today's award-winning eponymous documentary film, airing on select public television stations in 2023.
About the Author
A Bronx native, George Carranofounded the non-profit Seeing for Ourselves, which brought the Developing Lives photography program to New York's housing authority in 2010. He has also curated exhibits of war photojournalism and participatory photography thatThe New York Timestermed "poignant" and "not to be missed." Previously, Carrano raised the bar for public transit at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, inventing passenger displays that became the industry standard; leading the agency to just-in-time logistics; and implementing MetroCard-this last a $2 billion subway token replacement whose success awed New York and has remained one of the largest public works projects in U.S. transportation history, universally judged a city milestone. A born Brooklynite with family roots in New York public housing, photographer and teacherChelsea Davishelped create and directed the Developing Lives photography program at the New York City Housing Authority. She had earlier created a participatory art class for the city's Association for Metro-Area Autistic Children (2004). Building on its success, Chelsea established the Project Picasso program three years later in the pediatric oncology ward of St. Louis Children's Hospital, providing art therapy to young children struggling with cancer. The program continues to operate. Born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx and Queens, Jonathan Fisheradministered the Developing Lives photography program at the New York City Housing Authority, managing its extension into award-winning video. Trained in transportation science, hemade his mark at the city's transit agency by producing products likewise award-winning that delighted millions of passengers. Fisher also handled technology communications within Madison Avenue's Ogilvy & Mather, communicating best practices to 10,000 advertising practitioners in 104 countries. Meanwhile, he has produced highly regarded web, video, and collateral for Agent Orange relief.
Jonathan Fisher was raised in the Bronx. He was one of those obnoxious brats pushing everyone out of the way on the subway trains so that he could look out the front window. After earning a master's degree in transportation, Fisher pursued a childhood dream by working for the subway system for twenty-six years. He joined Seeing for Ourselves in 2013 as its storyteller. ProjectLives was his first book. Writing and directing In a Whole New Way allowed him to cross another item off his bucket list.
Reviews
In a Whole New Way contains so much--it's an engaging history of community corrections and a glimpse of how probation is practiced in New York City. It's a series of memorable and moving vignettes about people whose lives have been touched by crime and the justice system. But what will stick with me is the pictures. Throughout the book, we see the faces of those who are participating in this unique and special program. They are smiling and engaged, clearly relishing the opportunity to see and be seen as so much more than the criminal convictions that brought them to probation in the first place. The light in their eyes--their positivity and evident optimism about their futures--is an overwhelming argument for the importance of meaningful second chances as a core component of our justice system.--Megan Quattlebaum, Director, The Council of State Governments Justice Center
"As I observed almost four years ago about Project Lives--the book of photographic self-portrayals by New York public housing residents, with imagery intertwining revelatory text--it is always inspiring to see the scorned and disenfranchised take control of their lives. Now comes the book and documentary about cameras turned over to the city's probationers, the latest effort by the non-profit Seeing for Ourselves. Once again, we recognize how connected we all remain. Once again, the photographs open our eyes and warm our hearts. Once again, our concerns for social justice broaden and deepen."--Noam Chomsky
"Sometimes solutions are in front of us, but we do not see and do not ask. Turning New Yorkers on probation into photographers documenting their own stories has led to an amazing cultural change. Seeing for Ourselves documents it beautifully in their film and book In a Whole New Way.--Linda Connelly, President/CEO, Successful Reentry
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