Breaking free from the shackles of trauma
VOTE’s Ronald Marshall explains the relationship between mental health and incarceration, and why he’s fighting for better care for incarcerated people.
Behind This Story
This article is part of "Get Ya Mind Right," a multimedia content series and event exploring mental wellness and mental health care access in New Orleans. The series was produced by the Fall 2022 Lede New Orleans Community Reporting Fellows who spent 16 weeks researching, completing interviews and documenting local stories around mental health and mental wellness. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
By Aretha McKinney
In November, I met with Voice of the Experienced Policy Analyst Ronald Marshall and Communications Director Anisha Shetty to talk about the relationship between incarceration and mental health and the organization’s efforts to improve mental health care for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in Louisiana.
Voice of the Experienced is a New Orleans-based grassroots organization with offices off Washington Avenue across from Xavier University of Louisiana. VOTE focuses on improving the overall quality of life for formerly incarcerated individuals.
Marshall, who was formerly incarcerated himself, explained how a large share of people who are incarcerated experience childhood trauma that affects their overall wellbeing. These experiences are known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (or ACEs) to health care providers and they have a huge impact on how likely people are to be affected by the prison-industrial complex.
Click here to listen to our full conversation.
Aretha McKinney is a Fall 2022 Community Reporting Fellow. She is a photographer based in New Orleans and a student at Dillard University. McKinney, 21, was born and raised in St. Louis, Mo. She is photo editor for The Courtbouillon, Dillard’s newspaper.
Carolina Murriel provided production support on this audio story.
This piece is available to republish under a Creative Commons license. Read Lede New Orleans’ publishing guidelines here.
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