In the United States, there are more than 80,000 inmates forced to live in a seven feet by 10 inch cell, smaller than your average parking space, with little to no natural light and no human contact, according to a 2011 paper by the Vera Institute of Justice.

The University of Oregon’s Criminal Justice Network is a new student organization focused on social justice and criminal justice. Created in fall 2013, the new student group focuses on shedding light on the issues that occur in the criminal justice system such as unfair treatment depending on your race, wrongful sentencing and the inability to practice their fourth Amendment right. Many of these issues are mainly targeted towards the poor and minority groups.

On May 21, the Criminal Justice Network will be hosting Voices from Solitary in the EMU amphitheater. This event is intended to create a voice and space for individuals living in solitary confinement. From noon to 5 p.m. the Network will be taking turns presenting poetry, art, letters and creative writing pieces that have been collected from individuals who are incarcerated.

The Network will also be having a large solitary confinement cell on display throughout the event. With this cell, the Network will be displaying the feeling of what it is like to live in the small confined space from having audio play to having a visual representation of thoughts that will be displayed all over the walls.

The Network hopes that the confinement cell will be transferrable from campus to campus.

Jackie Sumell, an activist and artist will be speaking at Voices from Solitary. She has worked with Herman Wallace, a Black Panther member and one of the Angelo Three. Sumell will also give a lecture later in the night in Columbia 150 at 6 p.m. She will be speaking on the power of creativity whether through art or imagination and how it helps you create your own sense of self. Sumell will be talking about this topic in the context of Wallace’s experience while also touching on her own experiences as an activist and an artist.

Junior Emory Babb, senior Althea Seloover and alumni Jordan Wilkie are the co-founders of this organization. Their shared passion for the criminal justice system allowed the creation of this group to be easy and merely coincidental.

Babb hopes that students will get a better appreciation of the criminal justice system and the array of problems that exist with it.

“Students will gain a better understanding of our criminal justice system and the problems with it today,” Babb said.

Babb, Wilkie and Seloover all participated in the Inside-Out program here at UO.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is a program where students from college campuses go into juvenile corrections centers and together participate in class. Within the class students take part in an intellectual discussion about readings that were assigned. About half of the students are from university campuses, whereas the other half are from the prison campus.

The UO is known to be one of the strongest campuses that sustain the Inside-Out program.

Though they participated in the Inside-Out program, the UO Criminal Justice Network pulls in different ideas. The Network is more politically focused, whereas the Inside-Out program focuses on social justice issues.

“This is a very political and politically active group,” Wilkie said.

“We (the UO Criminal Justice Network) are looking both to hold meaningful events on campus, but also to do significant outreach to a very diverse array of communities, from the many student groups on campus to communities most affected by the criminal justice system,” Wilkie said. “This is a lofty goal, and we are just beginning.”

Seloover is highly passionate about the Network. Even though she came into the group with a different background it was their shared passions for the justice system and it’s fairness that led to the creation of the group.

“Jordan, Emory and I all came to the table with our own interests and our shared passion for justice and fairness – which really doesn’t exist in the criminal justice system,” Seloover said.

The ability for Seloover to experience Oregon’s correctional facilities inspired her to question, “What is it that does not work and what are we going to do to change things?”

Babb, Wilkie and Seloover were able to answer this with the creation of the Network.