Spotlight on Echoes of Incarceration

Spotlight on the Organizations in NYC Quaker Spaces

This is the first in a series of articles about the groups that meet in NYC Quaker spaces at Fifteenth Street Meeting and Brooklyn Meeting.

Echoes of Incarceration

Youth turning the lens on the criminal justice system

Echoes of Incarceration, an award-winning documentary initiative produced by youth who are directly impacted by the criminal justice system, has been holding after-school and summer programs at Fifteenth Street Meeting’s 15 Rutherford Place building for over a decade. Echoes teaches documentary filmmaking, video production, and advocacy skills to youth ages 16-23. 

Echoes of Incarceration began its residency at 15 Rutherford Place in 2015, when program director Jeremy Robins met Lewis Webb, Jr. At the time, Lewis was serving as the healing justice coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee. Jeremy says, “Very quickly we realized we were each planning two sides of a perfectly matched summer camp: he was creating a curriculum designed to understand criminal justice and immigration systems, but needed more hands-on activities. I had tons of curriculum for teaching video production but needed more of the advocacy training.” 

Together, Lewis and Jeremy produced the first Liberation Summer Camp, a program that continues to be held each summer at 15 Rutherford. Lewis would run role plays of encounters with the criminal justice system, take the campers to witness arraignments at criminal court, and bring in activists to talk about their work. Jeremy would teach students how to use a camera to take portraits and videos, then have them break into teams and create short films based on an issue they’d discussed with Lewis. 

Graduates of the Echoes training workshops or summer camp can join the Echoes documentary production crew. Many of the crew's films have been used in training criminal justice stakeholders: helping corrections officers and social workers understand the experience of kids with incarcerated parents, for example, or training police how to conduct arrests when children are present. Currently, Jeremy says, “we're working with the Independent Rikers Commission on a series about the need to close Rikers. A number of our crew have experienced incarceration on Rikers. That lived experience helps a lot in finding the tone and approach to the films.”  

On February 11, 2026, Echoes celebrated the end of a five-week unit on interviewing, part of the Intro to Filmmaking and Restorative Journalism workshop. During the unit participants explore the psychological challenges underlying the interview process as well as the technical challenges of using cameras, lights, and microphones. A special guest is usually invited in for an interview. This time they were joined by “a circle keeper who facilitates the restorative justice process between victims and perpetrators after vehicular homicides,” Jeremy says. “It was a very powerful interview!”

Echoes students hold a portfolio day at the end of each unit to share clips of their work. NYC Quakers are warmly invited to attend these celebrations. Charlene Ray, from Morningside Meeting, is one of the Friends who regularly attends. Charlene raves, “The program format is brilliant; the kids are so earnest, as if this is the first time anyone cared that they have something to say, and then they say truly profound things.” She adds, “Every time I get to attend one I am so inspired.”

Friends can sign up for the Echoes of Incarceration mailing list here: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/LQn3d5H

To join their portfolio days or to volunteer, use this web form: https://forms.gle/f14xswuWSy8HYz7Q7

Images above are from Echoes' Instagram account and website.

— Sarah Way

PS - Echoes youth took portraits of the New York Quarterly Meeting staff last year; you can see them on the Our Team page.