SPEAR members educate, advocate, and agitate against our carceral system through legislative campaigns, campus activism, direct service, and community education. Our projects address many of the consequences of the carceral state, including the disenfranchisement of formerly incarcerated people, juvenile justice, prison conditions and oversight, pervasive post-incarceration barriers to re-entry, solitary confinement, and more. SPEAR meets every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m. in Campus Club, where you can start working on any of these projects!

Project Solidarity is low commitment and incredibly important as you will correspond with individuals in solitary confinement who hear about and request to participate in this project. Please consider joining and tell your friends to join as well!

In order to join Project Solidarity, you must attend an orientation where we will hand out specific guidelines, sample letters, and a contract concerning expectations, commitments, and issues of privacy. The orientation takes roughly 30 minutes; you will begin to independently correspond once your signed contract is received.

Orientations are held at the beginning of each semester, and information regarding these sessions is sent via the residential college listservs and SPEAR newsletters. If it is later in the semester, and you want to participate in the project, please reach out through our email, psprinceton@gmail.com. We will find a time that works with you to set up an orientation session.

If you need to reprint the documents from the P.S. orientation: the writing guidelines can be found at this link, the participant contract at this link, and the introduction letter to correspondents at this link. For those working on writing the first letter, we also have a sample letter designed as a loose suggestion, accessible here. 

After sending your first letter, you can pick up and drop off subsequent letters in the designated boxes in the Pace Center Lounge - the lounge has the same general hours as Frist, so you can drop off letters any time of the day. You will be notified via email when a Project Solidarity letter addressed to you is received.

To learn how to address the envelope for a Project Solidarity letter, check out this PDF.

If you have any further questions, please send them to psprinceton@gmail.com or directly to Kennedy Mattes, P.S. project leader, at kmattes@princeton.edu.

Want to become part of Project Solidarity? Sign up below!

The Admissions Opportunity campaign (Ban the box) advocates for the removal of the box from Princeton’s application that asks about conviction history.

Learn more about our ban the box campaigns here.

In 2017, SPEAR entered a coalition called Princeton Private Prison Divest (PPPD), alongside almost ten other student groups in a campaign to urge Princeton to divest from private prison and detention corporations. Princeton has a Resource Committee, which makes a recommendation to the Board of Trustee's on the responsible usage of the University's endowment. The Resource Committee's three criteria for divestment are campus consensus, sustained student engagement with the issue, and a demonstrated conflict with core university values. PPPD has met with the Resource Committee several times, and compiled and continues to revise the following proposal for divestment. In addition, on February 6th, 2017, PPPD hosted a panel with speakers Christopher Petrella of Bates College, Judy Greene of Justice Strategies, and Carl Takei of the ACLU to discuss the impact of privatization on prisons and immigrant detention centers.

PCPD builds upon the work of PPPD. During the summer of 2020, we publicized a petition against the University’s compliance with the PIC (see below). Currently, we are investigating with which corporations the University is involved. We are also also utilizing infographics and social media to further education about the PIC and amplifying the stories of people directly impacted by the carceral system.

Add your name to join a community of people who value human lives over punishment and profit.

PCPD logo created by Cammy Nguyen ‘23.

SPEAR students have supported the work of solitary survivors and activists across the state to end the use of solitary confinement in the state of new Jersey. We hold the annual 7x9 performance protest to raise awareness about the continued use of isolation as torture in the U.S.

Find more information here.

In collaboration with community partners in Newark and Trenton, this team seeks to engage local youth in education about the carceral state and the imagination of alternatives to prisons, with the goal of eventually developing a legislative proposal to divert funds appropriated for the construction of new youth detention facilities towards generative projects that invest in the communities affected by mass incarceration and in line with community needs. 

FISAP works with the University administration and the Prison Teaching Initiative to produce a college application workshop series within New Jersey Department of Corrections facilities to guide incarcerated students through the process of applying to New Jersey colleges and universities.

The education committee organizes events that educate Princeton students and beyond about the criminal (in)justice system through speakers, written pieces, and collaboration with established community organizers. In 2019, the education team focus on the continued incarceration of political prisoners in New Jersey and continuing our work against solitary confinement.

the prison oversight team researched and drafted legislation in conjunction with local activists and movement lawyers to establish robust, community-based oversight of new Jersey prisons.

“Who Do Will Kill?” is a student-run protest against the use of the death penalty in the United States.

Find more information here.