Beyond the Letters: Finding Humanity Through Advocacy

Nicole Tora is a public policy major in the Class of 2027. Nicole is one of our 2026 Human Rights Summer Research Grant winners and a featured guest blogger. Grant winners will be sharing an inside look into their experiences on the Duke Human Rights Blog this summer and fall as part of our Student Stories: Summer Research Series. 

Bryan Stevenson says that a person is better than the worst thing they've done. I have been reminded of those words throughout my summer interning at the Pennsylvania Prison Society (PPS). Throughout my internship, I have been investigating how PPS responds to concerns about prisoner rights. More importantly, I have been working to understand what this reveals about the possibilities and limitations of prison advocacy as a mechanism of accountability.

There is something powerful about being in a position to make someone's circumstances slightly better. As a helpline intern, I help receive countless letters from incarcerated individuals documenting concerns, and we connect people with resources and support whenever possible. The most common concerns involve health care and problems with staff. Too many incarcerated people describe inadequate medical care and the toll it takes on both their physical and mental health.  We also receive complaints about the abuse of power within the prison, specifically from the staff. They explain how they experience both psychological and physical torment, and their privileges are threatened to be revoked when they attempt to speak up. Reading about people's day-to-day experiences has brought me closer to this work than I have ever been before. Too often, the realities of incarceration remain hidden because it is easier than confronting the need to change the systems that created them.

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Before this summer, incarceration felt somewhat distant to me. Although I had engaged with incarceration through both professional and academic experiences, it still felt somewhat abstract.  Reading these letters has erased that distance.  Each letter offers a firsthand account of someone's daily reality, making the consequences of incarceration feel personal. Recently, I read a letter from someone who had written to us several times over a few months. In earlier messages, they expressed frustration with the barriers to accessing programming they needed while incarcerated. This time, they wrote to thank us and let us know that they had finally been enrolled after months of waiting. Although the victory may have seemed small in retrospect, reading the thank-you note reminded me again how the letters we send aren't isolated assignments. Rather, they are pieces of people's lives that continue beyond the moment I read them. I realized that I had become genuinely invested in someone I had never met. This surprised me, because it is not something I have experienced in an academic setting. Scholarship teaches us to recognize patterns and systems. But there is something about knowing that your response may influence someone's next step, however modestly, that makes you unable to remain detached. The question then shifts from “What does this tell me?” to "What can I do with what I know now?” I believe it is this shift, one from understanding to responsibility, that direct engagement looks like.

Many of the letters I come across describe patterns that no single response can solve: delayed medical care, confusing parole requirements, or even uncertainty about reentry. I know I cannot fix these issues, but I can help someone understand a policy, connect them with an advocacy organization, explain the grievance process, or simply acknowledge that their concerns deserve to be heard. These actions do not dismantle unjust systems, but they can make an individual's experience within those systems a little more manageable. What has surprised me most is how much hope exists alongside frustration.  I expected many accounts to focus solely on hardship, and many do. But they also include humor, faith, determination, and concern for others. People write asking not only for themselves but also for friends, family members, and others they have met while incarcerated. Those moments remind me that incarceration does not erase a person's capacity for generosity, compassion, or community.

While proximity has not given me all of the answers or erased the challenges people face, it has made it impossible to think about those challenges impersonally. The people behind the policies are no longer hypothetical to me. They are people who deserve basic rights, dignity, and the opportunity to change. 

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