(NEW YORK)— In response to an article in Prism Reports raising concern around Prison and Justice Writing contest winners not receiving award money, PEN America issued the following statement:

We remain committed to the writers we serve, who live and work from prisons across the United States and are the heart of our program. While our work in the carceral space has been ongoing since the 1970s, we are continuing to improve our internal processes to best support these communities of writers given often obfuscatory policies and regulations in prisons.

The Prison and Justice Writing team reached out directly to six writers who came to our attention as not having received checks in the 2020 to 2022 period, and in all but one case, reconciled payment of the contest prize money to them (we are still waiting to hear back from one). To acknowledge the impact of the delayed payment, we were also able to offer the writers an additional monetary award, beyond the cash prize.

As a long-term course correction, PJW has already created an internal audit system to double check to ensure all payments that go out each month are received by the loved ones of the incarcerated writers (since many prisons do not allow incarcerated individuals to be paid directly) or the writers themselves. Lastly, we are actively working with community partners and foundations who are also grappling with similar structural and systemic challenges around compensating incarcerated artists to brainstorm and possibly co-create a path forward to pay artists inside prison walls in an equitable, timely manner.

There are long-standing structural and systemic challenges we face. Many prison systems, including the federal Bureau of Prisons, prohibit incarcerated people from receiving compensation for their writing directly. Paying friends and family members is something our program has done for a long time, but it’s not without risk. Sometimes, people have disagreements and the payment doesn’t make it back to the hands of the writer. Sometimes a check is cashed and no one is sure who cashed it. In other instances, prison systems have tried to requisition payments for writing claiming that if incarcerated people are able to, they should be required to pay for the conditions of their confinement. In other cases, a W-9 form is required to pay incarcerated writers from our program, and sometimes incarcerated individuals do not have a social security number or other information to be able to fill out the form. Because of these impediments, issuing payments often take a very long time and there are frequently issues in paying writers.

PJW is committed to making sure every incarcerated contest winner received the cash awards they deserve in a timely manner. 

About PEN America

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.

Contact: Suzanne Trimel, [email protected], (201) 247-5057