WORDS ARE FREEDOM

Words Uncaged facilitates art, narrative therapy and new media workshops throughout the state correctional system in California. We work collaboratively with artists that are in captivity to shift the narratives that surround mass incarceration.

We believe that story is the catalyst for all change in the world. We believe that when we share our stories with each other all walls come down, and our common humanity is all that remains.

Since 2015, Words Uncaged has had meaningful and sustained positive impact on the culture of each prison yard where programming has been offered. Through the simple application of hope, community and a platform to tell - and amplify - authentic stories, we have witnessed violence drop significantly. Our members graduate college, have received commutations and live lives filled with dignity and new found hope. To date, not a single Words Uncaged community member has returned to prison since their release.

"When I first visited California State Prison, Lancaster what I saw there were not prisoners, but cages filled of hundreds of lights —lights of knowledge, wisdom, compassion, love, insight and remorse.

​It was as if hundreds of candles had been locked in a distant closet, or that the stars had been hidden behind the blanket of the desert night, denying us the light that they had to shine upon the world."

This website is our attempt to uncage these lights.

• Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy