Communities Not Cages – Second Look Symposium
90 Claremont Ave
New York, NY 10027
USA
Date/Time: March 27, 2025, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Location: James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary
Please enter at the 90 Claremont Avenue entrance.
Please join us on March 27 from 6-8pm at Union Theological Seminary for an in depth discussion about pending Second Look Act legislation. The discussion will feature a report by researchers at the Center for Justice at Columbia University along with the insight of key legislators, partners and system impacted individuals. Over the past 50 years, New York’s laws have resulted in increasingly harsh sentences — with no opportunity for sentencing judges to review and reconsider individual cases. Second look legislation will allow incarcerated people to petition a judge for a sentence reduction based on evidence of rehabilitation and the interests of justice. It would grant New Yorkers the opportunity to return to their families and rebuild their lives and their communities.
RSVP to join us to learn about this legislation, ask questions, and get involved.
Our Speakers:
Mujahideen Muhammad is a research assistant at The Center For Justice at Columbia University and the Founder of a nonprofit organization named The Pillars of Promise. He returned to society in April 2024 after spending 25 years in prison. While incarcerated Mujahideen earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Hudson Link/Mercy University and a master’s degree in professional studies of Urban Ministry from Union Theological Seminary.
Wilfredo Laracuente is a staunch advocate for criminal justice reform, drawing on his lived experience to champion legislative change and second-chance opportunities. As a member of DANY’s Reentry Advisory Board and a Workshop Readiness Instructor for Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, Wilfredo empowers individuals impacted by the criminal justice system to rebuild their lives and engage meaningfully with their communities.
Wilfredo’s personal transformation—culminating in earning a bachelor’s degree from Mercy College in 2019 while incarcerated—informs his passionate support for the Second Look Act, which seeks to create fairer sentencing practices and recognize personal growth. His work underscores the belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to demonstrate their rehabilitation and contribute to society.
Post-incarceration, Wilfredo has facilitated Reentry Transitional Workshops for Fedcap IMPACT and mentored youth through the Justice Ambassadors Youth Council and the New Settlement Community Center. His efforts focus on addressing systemic barriers, advocating for vulnerable populations, and ending cycles of violence.
As a Teaching Assistant for Columbia University’s Prison Education Program, Wilfredo has seen firsthand how education transforms lives, a belief he carries into his fellowship with Columbia’s Beyond the Bars program. There, he examines the unique challenges facing women—the fastest-growing prison population—and advocates for trauma-informed approaches to reentry and rehabilitation.
Through his advocacy, mentorship, and educational work, Wilfredo exemplifies the principles of the Second Look Act, promoting a justice system rooted in fairness, humanity, and the capacity for change. His commitment to systemic reform aligns with the mission of creating a society that values redemption and equity.
Brian Fischer spent over forty-four years in the field of corrections, becoming the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections in 2007, and retiring in 2013. Prior to his retirement, he consolidated the Division of State Parole and the Department of Corrections into the now existing Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and coordinated the downsizing of the agency by closing prison farms, annexes, camps and several medium security prisons.
Mr. Fischer has been an ajunct professor at both John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Pace University. He was a member of the Standards Committee of the American Correctional Association, and the New York Sentencing Commission.
He earned the Warden of the Year Award from the North American Association of Wardens and Superintendents in 2006 and was honored by the New York State Bar Association with their Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Corrections award in 2012. He was also given the Thomas Mott Osborne Medal by the Osborne Association and an honorary Degree of Laws from Bard College, both in 2013.
While in corrections he was the Superintendent of Sing Sing Correctional Facility for seven (7) years and helped implement many programs to provide needed services for the mentally ill, including an innovative reentry and early release programs, and institutied short-term Parole Violator Treatment Centers. He was instrumental in advancing non-trditional rehabiliation programs operated by the Osborne Association and Rehabilitation Through the Arts.
During his tenure as Commmissioner, Mr. Fischer implemented the Sex Offender Management Treatment Act passed into law by former Governor Spitzer and the settlement of a class action lawsuit filed by Disabilities Advocates, Inc., a state sponsored agency authorized to protect incarcerated individuals with mental and developmental disorders. The settlement involed the development of treatment programs for all those mentally and developmentally challenged, and special programs for such inmates placed in disciplinary segreation units for violations of prison rules.
Mr. Fischer has been a frequent lecturer on criminal justice. Some of his lectures include the keynote speech at Fordham University on “Conditions of Confinement” which was published in the Fordham Law Journal, vol. XXXVI, No. 1, and at the University of Buffalo Law School with a speech called, “New York’s State Prisons 40 Years After Attica: What Has Cahanged and What Changes Lie Ahead.” He also spoke in 2012 at the Albany Law School on the subject of the “Aging Prison Population”, and at the New York Bar Association on Civil Rights at their conference on “The Increased Use of Solitary Confinement in New York State Prisons: Violation of Human Rights or Necessary Prison Management Tool?” He was also a panelist at the Benjamin Cardozo Law School symposium on entitled, “Life in the Box: Youth in Solitary Confinement”, and a panelist at The Justice Initiative at Columbia Universary on entitled, Reducing Incarcertion, Endless Punishment, Long-Term Sentences and Aging in Prison – Or Release & Reentry.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, a Master’s Degree in Guidance and Counseling and a Master’s Degree in Professional Studies.
Noah Remnick is an organizer and lecturer at the Columbia University Center for Justice, where he teaches college courses in history at a variety of correctional facilities across New York.
We would like to thank our partners for this event: