Global Alliance of Civil Society on Prison Reform

David Fathi is Director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, which brings legal challenges to conditions of confinement in U.S. prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers, and works to end the policies that have given the United States the highest imprisonment rate in the world, with egregious racial disparities.

From 2012 to 2015 Fathi represented the ACLU in negotiations leading to adoption of the Nelson Mandela Rules. From 2007 to 2010 he was Director of the US Program at Human Rights Watch. He served ten years on the Membership Council and Board of Penal Reform International, including several years as Chair.

Debbie Kilroy OAM is an internationally recognised abolition feminist, lawyer, social worker, author, and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sisters Inside, an organisation she established in 1992 to advocate alongside criminalised women and girls. Also, the founder of the National Network of incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls and her Law Firm, Kilroy & Callaghan Lawyers.

Drawing on her lived experience of criminalisation and imprisonment, Debbie has spent more than three decades challenging systems of punishment and advancing the human rights of criminalised and imprisoned women and girls.

Her work has influenced legal advocacy, public policy, and international human rights debates on imprisonment, gendered violence, racism, and systemic inequality.

Debbie developed the Practicing Freedom framework, applying abolition feminism to transform relationships, organisations, and institutions by replacing punishment and control with connection, shared power, and collective liberation.

A respected international speaker and strategist, she has advised governments, contributed to law reform, and inspired movements across the world to imagine and build communities where safety is created through justice, dignity, accountability, and freedom rather than prisons.

Ernesto Cortés is the brother of an imprisoned person, who was imprisoned for more than 4 years. He is a social anthropologist, with a master’s degree in criminology and another master’s degree in mental health.

He is the Executive Director of the Costa Rican Association on Drug the Studies and Interventions (ACEID), member of the Association United Penitentiary Families (FPU), part of the secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of People Who Use Drugs (LANPUD), and chair of the board of International Network on People Who Use Drugs (INPUD).

Ibrahim Osman Arbab is the Executive Director of Sails of Hope Organization in Sudan and a humanitarian leader specialising in legal aid, access to justice, and prison reform. He has led programmes that protect the rights of people deprived of liberty, strengthen prison services, expand legal assistance, and promote rehabilitation and social reintegration through rights-based approaches. With extensive experience managing projects in conflict-affected and humanitarian settings, he works with government institutions, prison authorities, civil society, and international partners to advance sustainable, evidence-informed justice reform.

Ibrahim is committed to promoting humane, accountable, and inclusive prison systems through global collaboration and shared learning.

Joke Aladesanmi is a Nigerian criminal defence lawyer, justice reform advocate, and social entrepreneur with over 12 years of experience advancing equitable justice systems across Africa. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Legal Support and Inmate Rehabilitation (CELSIR), a nonprofit pioneering holistic intervention that span legal aid, education, rehabilitation, and community reintegration for justice-impacted individuals.

She established Ruby House, Nigeria’s first halfway house for formerly imprisoned women, and has led innovative reforms that have expanded access to justice and second-chance opportunities for thousands.

Joke is an internationally recognised justice reform leader, she has represented Nigeria and West Africa on global platforms advancing criminal justice reform, rehabilitation, and reintegration.

Maïssa Hubert is a feminist, lawyer, and sociologist. She currently serves as Deputy Executive Director at EQUIS Justicia para las Mujeres, a Mexican feminist organisation working to advance access to justice for diverse women while transforming the power structures that produce oppression and exclusion.

Previously, she coordinated the Prison System and Social Reintegration Program at Documenta, where she worked on issues related to the human rights of imprisoned people and their families, the implementation of Mexico’s penal enforcement system, and the design of post-release public policies.

For more than a decade, she has collaborated with civil society organisations, international agencies, and public institutions across Mexico and Latin America, promoting feminist and anti-carceral approaches aimed at advancing decarceration strategies and examining the links between punishment, violence, discrimination, and the imprisonment of women.

Monica Dhawan is Director at India Vision Foundation and a social sector leader with 19 years of experience in prison reform, rehabilitation, reintegration, child protection, and community-based justice. She has also been a member of the Punjab Prison Development Board and has contributed to expanding reform programmes across prisons in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Delhi.

At India Vision Foundation, Monica has helped lead initiatives focused on education, psychosocial wellbeing, dignity-led rehabilitation, prevention of recidivism, family support, and reintegration. She has initiated reform projects such as Dhun, Sabrang, and online counselling for people in prison during COVID-19. Under her leadership, India Vision Foundation has also promoted lived-experience inclusion by employing people who have experienced imprisonment, as well as young people from families affected by parental imprisonment.

She has represented prison reform and reintegration work at national and international forums. Monica brings strong experience in programme strategy, fundraising, donor relations, partnerships, advocacy, and field-based implementation. With a master’s degree in social work, she offers a practitioner perspective rooted in dignity, lived-experience inclusion, family resilience, reintegration, and second chances.

Susanna Marietti, PhD, is the Director of Antigone, the leading NGO for rights of people in prison in Italy and coordinator of the European Prison Observatory. With extensive experience in prison monitoring, penal reform, and international advocacy, she has conducted hundreds of prison inspections worldwide.

Susanna is a General Assembly member of both OMCT and OMCT-Europe, and a board member of the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights. A leading public voice on criminal justice in Italy, she hosts a weekly radio programme and is a regular contributor to one of the country’s major national news outlet.