While living in Brooklyn, New York, for the summer of 2025, I worked as a copy editor for the non-profit Witness to Mass Incarceration. This position required careful framing of formerly incarcerated individuals’ stories in order to help them receive grant funding. I had to be aware of any judgments I may unconsciously have regarding those who had experience in the criminal justice system, and shift my idea of right and wrong beyond what the law had decided. Unfortunately, generational trauma and incrimination are not just. Even I, despite reading Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1975), who describe power that forces individuals to self-surveil and regulate their behavior, still struggle not to believe or enforce social stigmas. I had read Bryan Stevenson’s book before my internship in a Lutheran church group, emphasizing the radicalness of Jesus’s forgiveness over the criminal justice system. Foucault, I read this semester, post-internship. He put words on something I had experienced and attempted to undermine, the attribution of behaviors to a type of person who breaks the law.
Writing profiles about people, incorporating their own interviews and how they rebuilt their lives after incarceration, required me to think carefully about representation, tone, and responsibility, and to be a merciful reader and writer. I became much more aware of how easily narratives about incarceration can reduce people to a single part of their identity, rather than recognizing the often heartbreaking complexity of their experiences and circumstances.
One project that especially impacted me was writing about Dan Klehm and his business, Convict Coffee. Because my own parents own a coffee shop, the article forced me to think critically about the relationship between entrepreneurship, identity, and public perception. If I could represent my own father’s small business through anecdote and as an employee, I could represent Dan’s through my writing. As a small business owner, it is necessary to have a loyal customer base and thus to be a public part of the community. With a criminal record, that forced Dan to be outspoken about his experiences in prison. His identity would be on display with his business.
At first, I had approached the position mainly as an opportunity to strengthen my writing and gain nonprofit experience. Over time, I realized that the stories I was telling existed within larger conversations about criminal justice, reintegration, and labor. I realized I want to go into labor law. I believe in vocation and that everyone can be redeemed and welcomed into society. This connects to the GEM learning goal of intercultural understanding because it pushed me to engage more deeply with experiences and systems outside my own background and to think critically about how social narratives shape the way communities are perceived.
Below is an artifact from a Gordon Career Center Website Spotlight for the 2025 Summer Grant:
Name: Lillian HoefflinMajor(s): Art Studio and College of Letters
Minor Global Engagement MinorWhat was the name of the organization you worked for over the summer?
Witness to Mass IncarcerationWhat was your role and what did you work on?
As an intern, I wrote articles highlighting formerly incarcerated individuals who launched small businesses, aiming to expand their opportunities and challenge stigma around incarceration.
What was a highlight of your experience?
I’m especially proud of an article I wrote about Dan Klehm and his business, Convict Coffee.
How did your summer experience impact you?
This experience showed me how my academic work translates into real-world impact, and it connected me to a meaningful community through nonprofit work.
