Convocation: Patrice Gaines

Patrice Gaines is an award winning journalist and former Washington Post reporter who has proven that you cannot judge a book by its cover. She grew up a self-hating young woman, entering one abusive relationship after another. She became a heroin user, went to prison for possession of the drug and was raped and beaten before she began her long contemplative journey to change. She later began her journalism career at the Miami News, and worked for sixteen years as a reporter with the Washington Post, where she carved a niche for herself focusing on human-interest stories that reflected current issues. During this time she spent six years researching a notorious Washington, D.C. murder for which eight young men remain incarcerated. Her work on the story raised serious doubts about the guilt of the youths and showed readers the absolute power wielded by police and prosecutors. This story plus her own experience with the judicial and penal systems sparked her to begin speaking on the states of those systems today, including the high rate of incarceration among minorities and the poor, questionable police practices, prosecutors with too much power, and the weeding out of bad lawyers. She also offers an engaging look at the power of the press, told from an insider point of view. The title of her presentation was "How We Can All Be Free: Prison Reform in the 21st Century."