OUR MEMBERS

HRC MEMBERS.

We are a community-based organization without paid staff. We are committed and dedicated, but we are not lawyers nor do we have the resources that would allow us to employ lawyers. Our members and allies—both inside and outside the prison walls—share a common conviction in our hearts to fight injustice, and have no ulterior motivation of personal profit to do so.

HRC MEMBERS

SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS

Kerry Shakaboona Marshall

Executive Director

Besides being a Co-Founder of HRC and current Executive Director, Shakaboona also contributes commentary to Prison Radio and writings to several publications. He is the former Editor of the Movement Magazine. He was incarcerated for over 33 years from the age of 17, and spent 13 years in Solitary Confinement. He came home in May 2022.

Russell "Maroon" Shoatz

Rest in Power

Beloved mentor, abolitionist thinker and political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz was incarcerated for nearly 50 years and spent 30 years in Solitary Confinement. A member of the Black Panther Party and co-founder of the Black Unity Council, he co-founded HRC and served as a mentor to several HRC members.

HRC MEMBERS

Robert 'Saleem' Holbrook

As an HRC Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Abolitionist Law Center, Saleem has long been at the forefront of campaigns against solitary confinement, incarceration of political prisoners, police violence, and death by incarceration. He was released from prison in 2018 after serving 27 years for an offense he was convicted of as a child.

Patricia Vickers

Patricia Vickers is one of the original HRC members and Co-Editor of The Movement Magazine. She leads HRC's Emergency Response Network and serves as the glue holding HRC together. She is the mother of Shakaboona Marshall and fights for the rights of all incarcerated people.

Theresa Shoatz

Theresa Shoatz is one of the original HRC Members and the daughter of Russell Maroon Shoatz. She has been organizing about issues of prisoners’ rights since a young age.

Jerome Hoagie Coffey

Jerome Hoagie Coffey is an HRC Co-Founder and activist known for his creativeness, communication, and organizing talents. He is serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit and spent 12 years in Solitary Confinement.

Karen Ali

Karen Ali is an Activist, Long Standing member of the HRC team, and wife of the late Omar Askia Sistrunk Ali who was innocent, yet convicted to a sentence of LIFE in prison.

Jackson Kusiak

Jackson is an HRC Member, Resilient Activist, and Organizer.

Andy Switzer

Andy Switzer is a Courageous and Committed Advocate for the humanity of men and women behind bars. HRC Member, active since 2004.

Salena Coca

Salena is an organizer with HRC and the Abolitionist Law Center and a paralegal for the Federal Public Defenders office.

As someone who has been personally impacted by the prison industrial complex and as an openly trans Latina woman, she helps incarcerated minorities and LGBTQ+ folks navigate the prison system and re-entry process and ensure that their rights are being protected.