MediaStorm is proud to present our new feature-film, Fight Hate with Love, a story about prison-survivor and activist, Michael Ta’Bon.

Michael spent fifteen years in prison, where he promised himself that one day he would start a movement to prevent young people from repeating his mistakes. But the impacts of addiction and the traumas of prison have left invisible wounds that may cost him his family.

Fight Hate with Love premiered at the Camerimage Film Festival and had its USA premiere at the Cleveland International Film Festival. It has since shown at the Philadelphia Film Festival and most recently had its New York City premiere at the Made in New York Media Center.

To set some of Michael’s story in context, we have created a playlist of interviews with two experts on the criminal justice system and its impact on society and the individual.

Glenn E. Martin is the President and Founder of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), an organization dedicated to cutting the U.S. correctional population in half by 2030. His goal is to amplify the voices of the people most impacted, and to position them as reform leaders. Mr. Martin speaks from personal experience having spent six years incarcerated in a New York State prison in the early 1990s. In this series of Q&A, Mr. Martin explains why our criminal justice system is broken and how it impacts our communities.

James Gilligan, MD, psychiatrist and author, is a staunch critic of the criminal justice system, calling it “an extremely expensive way to warehouse somebody, and accomplish nothing.” He has studied mental health issues in prisons for four decades and lends his expertise in a series of videos on a new vision for criminal justice; as well his thoughts on Michael Ta’Bon’s situation.

Dr. Gilligan has worked on issues of violence and violence prevention since 1966. He was a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and the Director of Harvard’s Institute of Law and Psychiatry. During that time he also served as the Medical Director of the Massachusetts prison mental hospital at Bridgewater, and he was the Clinical Director of the Prison Mental Health Service.