Q&A with Represent Justice's Daniel Forkkio

Represent Justice turns stories into action to change the criminal justice system in the United States. We believe system-impacted authorship is critical to transform harmful narratives around the system, and to build power for those most harmed by the system. Our Original Storytelling Program equips system-impacted advocates and artists (Represent Justice Ambassadors) with the skills and resources to tell their own stories. Our Films & Series Program builds impact campaigns that include grassroots & grasstops film screenings, panel discussions, educational materials, and digital advocacy tools that drive film audiences to concrete action at the community and national level. These two programs work together to bring the general public more proximate to the system and alternative solutions for justice.

Telling your story is a form of leadership. It requires a supportive ecosystem where the storyteller can thrive, and the story can achieve maximum impact. Storytelling requires healing, intentionality, measurement, understanding of audience and impact, COMPENSATION, and opportunity. Too often, narrative change is treated as a function of reach and platform – but if we are truly to change how the culture of the system forms, we have to fully invest in the storytelling ecosystem around those who are leading the efforts to transform it. That’s narrative power, and this is what we invest in at Represent Justice. Our Ambassador Program invests in the ability of our Ambassadors to more effectively produce, share, and organize, using their stories to further their advocacy and leadership, while disrupting harmful narratives in their local communities. This is the greatest form of leadership capacity-building we can provide. By enabling a growing community of storytellers to share positive, power-based narratives about changing the justice system, we create greater opportunities to shift our culture.

And what else have we learned? Storytelling works! In January, we conducted a national poll about narratives of the youth justice system. Respondents were shown a short film, co-created by Represent Justice Ambassador April Grayson. In the film April tells her story, in her voice, of the trauma she endured as a young girl in the foster care system, and the straight line from that experience to her incarceration. April’s video contributed to as large as 18-20% shifts in positive sentiment regarding the overall treatment of kids in the system and the need to prioritize rehabilitation over punishment.

Findings like these have urgent implications for the moment we’re in. Narratives will continue to form, with or without us. And we don’t just need to shift those narratives, we need to interrupt them.

In the future, I see a blending of the Original Storytelling Program and Films & Series Program, allowing us to increase the number and depth of storytelling opportunities for Ambassadors. We have 20 Ambassadors total, including a new cohort of seven brand new Ambassadors with incredible stories and expertise in the justice space. In addition to the storytelling training and opportunities they currently receive, I would like every film-based impact campaign we lead to be in direct partnership with our Ambassadors. 

I would also like to see us develop Original Storytelling projects with every Ambassador, which will require us to scale. We are currently co-producing, message testing, and distributing short film content with three Ambassadors, based in New York and California (Los Angeles County and Sacramento/Bay Area). Each of the pieces have local advocacy goals organized around gender-inclusive justice and youth justice, respectively. Using message testing data, we’re targeting distribution to key audiences who are best positioned to influence decision-makers at the community level, as well as journalists and media influencers.

Narratives are ever-forming, and omnipresent, in every aspect of social justice advocacy. And yet, narrative change is still overwhelmingly under-invested in and narrowly defined. So often, at the state level it’s equated with strategic communications work and measured solely through its support and passage of legislation. We want to invite funders to understand narrative and cultural change as a pillar of systemic change. This would look like deeper, multi-year unrestricted investments in the organizations working to replace the fear-based narratives of our prison system with more affirmative solutions and humanizing stories, from the leaders who have been directly impacted.