Open City Advocates is Growing Again!
Open City Advocates is delighted to welcome Joshua Miller as our Research & Advocacy Director! Joshua will be instrumental in cultivating the voices of our clients and their family members so that they can engage directly in our systemic reform efforts and provide feedback regarding our services. He will focus on organizational outreach and partnerships, will provide much needed support on development, and will also draft and implement our first-ever strategic communications plan.
Joshua brings a wealth of personal and professional experiences uplifting the voices of those who have been marginalized and a demonstrable dedication to education, antipoverty, and decarceration initiatives. “Joshua will be critical to launching Open City Advocates’ next phase of growth,” said Open City Advocates’ CEO, Penelope Spain. “With Joshua on board, we’ve increased our capacity to realize our vision of a city that is open, fair, and compassionate towards children and youth, particularly Black and Latino youth. At a time when the District government is scapegoating our children for the failures of our institutions with outdated strategies and rhetoric, we’re ready to advocate for an open and accessible city for all young people, and to replicate our work on post-sentencing representation nationally.”
“I’m excited to work with this amazing team!” said Joshua. “They’ve been doing impressive work with young people for twenty years, they’re national leaders in post-sentencing representation and reentry, and I’m looking forward to fighting the criminalization of kids and helping them tell their story!”
Joshua holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University, and has 12 years of experience launching and executing higher education programs both within jails and prisons and upon reentry. He joins Open City Advocates from Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative, where he served as Managing Director of the Pivot Program, Director of Education, and teaching professor of Philosophy. He received his BA from Bard College.