ALL RISE is a social justice publication based in Portland, OR, developed, written, and curated by currently and formerly imprisoned people. Our mission is to help transform how those with lived experience of imprisonment are perceived and treated by providing a platform for creative expression, political advocacy, and connection-building between imprisoned people and the broader community. 

Through our digital platform and the publication of an annual print magazine, we hope to support imprisoned people to keep writing, creating, and raising their voice to an outside world that is ready to listen and take action.

ALL RISE, because every human has the right to be heard.

THE NEED

The U.S. prison system is one of the largest, yet least visible human rights and racial justice abuses in modern history. With less than 5% of the world’s population, America holds almost 25% of the world’s total prison population. It imprisons its own people at a higher rate than any other country in the world.

There are currently more than 2 million adults and children behind bars in prisons and jails throughout the U.S., and people of color—Black people in particular—are disproportionately affected on an epic scale. Black people account for just 12% of the nation's total population, but this group makes up 33% of the imprisoned population.

Mainstream representations of imprisoned people are distorted and fetishized, and lived experience and perspectives are missing from policy discussions.

By touching on universal themes that connect us—fear, pain, love, hope and humor—ALL RISE takes back the narrative around what it means to be imprisoned in the US and lifts the voice of those systematically dehumanized and locked out of our society.

WHO WE ARE

ALL RISE started off as a physical magazine, the result of two years of collaborative work between prisoners and members of Portland’s creative community. ALL RISE began as a program inside Columbia River Correctional Institution, with the formation of an editorial committee made up of men imprisoned there. The founding editors of ALL RISE are Ben Hall, David Olson, Ivan Jaramillo, Joshua Wright, Matt Burda, and J Zimmerli.

The aim of the program was to build a magazine from the ground up, from the mission statement, content, tone of voice, visual design, layout, typeface, color scheme and editorial principles.

Every other Thursday for 18 months, the editorial committee met inside Columbia River Correctional Institution, inviting local writers, editors, graphic designers, illustrators and photographers to run workshops that focused on creating all the elements required for a professional publication. Along the way, the support network for ALL RISE extended to other prisons in Oregon, then other states in the U.S. and even overseas.  We could not have done this without the guidance and generosity of so many amazing people, as we play a role in the larger movement for urgent, meaningful change in social and racial justice.

The founding editors, most of whom are thankfully now released from prison, remain heavily involved in shaping the future of the publication. ALL RISE will continue to work with people on the inside for all issues, in order to carry the words and art that tell these stories far beyond the prison walls.

We’re incredibly proud to launch and share the passion that drives this organization with the world. 

As we geared up to launch our first issue, COVID-19 changed the landscape of the world. We decided to quickly pivot and launch digitally. While the medium has changed, the goal remains the same. This new focus will allow us to be more timely as an organization and play an active role in advocacy.

NON-PROFIT BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Vicki Reitenauer serves on the faculty of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Portland State University, facilitates the Inside-Out course "Writing as Activism" at Columbia River Correctional Institution, and co-edits the open-access journal Amplfy: A Journal of Writing as Activism, launching in June 2021.

Joshua Wright spent 50 months imprisoned. During that time, they were able to accomplish such things as co-found Liberation Literacy; name and co-create ALL RISE Magazine, and start the first Gender and Sexuality class in the Oregon Department of Corrections. They currently live in Portland and continue to engage in community organizing, education, and activism, with a main focus of social justice and prison abolition.

Nicole Lindahl-Ruiz has worked to dismantle mass incarceration for the past 20 years, and currently serves as senior research associate at the Transformative Justice Initiative at Willamette University. Her research and advocacy focus on conditions of confinement under mass incarceration, the life trajectories and possibilities of people who commit violent crimes, and transformative alternatives to current criminal legal practice.

Israel Bayer is the director of the International Network of Street Papers North America, a bureau representing street papers in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Israel is the former director of Street Roots, an award-winning street paper in Portland, Oregon.

Carlos Andrés Arias has been living in Portland since 2016, by way of Anchorage, Alaska. In 2017, Carlos was a co-founder of the ALL RISE volunteer program at Columbia River Correctional Institution, working with other co-founders and founding editors to develop the magazine. Carlos works as an Associate Strategy Director at the creative agency AKQA. He is finalizing a Master in Public Policy at Portland State University. 

Dan Jones is a UK-native based in Portland, OR, having moved here in 2013. Soon after arriving Dan began volunteering for Street Roots, an award-winning street paper in Portland, helping launch the paper’s first zines and eventually serving on its Board of Directors. In 2017, Dan helped found the ALL RISE volunteer program at Columbia River Correctional Institution, collaborating with the founding editors to create the magazine from scratch. He current works at the creative agency AKQA.

Letter From The Editors

Incarcerated people remain nearly invisible to the general public. In a very real sense the fences and walls are more so designed to keep the public out. The prison is the state’s ultimate symbol of its power to punish, serving to remind us of what Foucault described of an earlier period, “The principle that in criminal matters the establishment of truth was the absolute right and exclusive power of the sovereign and his judges” (Discipline and Punish, P.35).

Back then, the verdict was rendered in secret and the punishment public. Today, the trial is public and the punishment in secret, removed from society’s view. You can learn more about ‘How Mass Incarceration Happened’, by reading Reiko Hillyer’s piece.

We live in a country with millions of human beings locked up, stripped of citizenship and for all intents and purposes permanently locked out from many forms of civic engagement, and various fields of employment; a country where Black Americans, drug addiction, and class are criminalized. We live in a world where the prison has become a permanent fixture, yet its processes, practices and inner operations are removed from the public. It is our desire to deconstruct the walls that have attempted to hide our stories, and erase us from society.

We acknowledge that we are not at the goal of our mission statement, particularly the space we wish to provide for racial justice. Our home base is Oregon, which due to its incredibly racist history has a majority white population. We are actively working to provide a larger platform for people of color and other disenfranchised. 

The following voices and narratives are those who daily Rise above. Rise to, and Rise up often unseen, unheard, and discounted. ALL RISE, if only not to cheat yourself of hearing a context, a narrative of humanity that should cause us all to Rise — Rise up within our communities, and do better. The term "all rise" is triggering for those that have suffered through the courts of our so-called justice system. They precede the judge entering the courtroom to irrevocably alter the lives within. Most often, with those that have been labelled felon by our government and imprisoned following an always biased and unfair trial or plea agreement, these words are the precursor of a nightmare.

The language that says you are about to be forcefully removed from your community and those you love by a massive, immovable force. And you cannot refuse to go... “all rise” before the honorable executioner of our former lives. We named ALL RISE magazine to take back that phrase, and use it as our force for change.

We often look only for those things which divide us, using them as excuses not to connect with one another. Martin Luther King frequently spoke of the “Beloved Community”: although unseen, we are members of that fabric and this magazine represents just a few threads of our narratives.

— ALL RISE Editorial Committee.