Judith Clark is the Director of the Survivors Justice Project, which fights for the decarceration of criminalized domestic violence survivors through the vigorous implementation and expansion of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. Previously, she was the Community Justice Advocate for Hour Children, fighting for parole justice, sentencing reform, and the needs of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and families. She serves as a senior advisor for the Women and Justice Project, and on the Community Action Board of Elmhurst Hospital’s Growing Hope Doula Program and was a founding member of Women Building Up and serves on their Community Advisory Committee. A lifelong organizer and activist, she brings to her work a fierce commitment to building grass roots community and uplifting the leadership and voices of system-impacted people, particularly women of color.

During her 38 years in prison, she worked to build community and create peer organizations to address the challenges they faced and their desire to grow, take responsibility for harm and repair relationships with their families and communities. She was a founder of ACE (AIDS Counseling and Education) and led the effort to rebuild a college program after public funding was eliminated. As a mother, working in the Children’s Center, she developed programs for mothers to sustain bonds with their children and mentored new mothers living in the prison nursery. She earned a BA and MA, and doula and chaplaincy certifications.

Judith is a visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center, works with the Brooklyn Law School’s Criminal Defense and Advocacy Clinic, and lectures at Columbia Law School, Union Theological Seminary and elsewhere. She has written extensively about her work, the experiences of incarcerated mothers, the spiritual work of remorse and the efforts of women inside to build community.