editorial board
Joan Parkin
Editor in Chief
Joan Parkin is Professor Emerita at Feather River College and the author of Perspectives from the Cell House, An Anthology of Prisoner Writings and The Prisoners and The Podium. She received her bachelor’s degree with a major in English and minors in French and Philosophy from Boston University and PhD in Comparative Literature from The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. Her dissertation was a comparative Marxist analysis of Richard Wright’s Native Son and Albert Camus’ L’Étranger. She is the former Director and co-founder of Feather River College’s Incarcerated Student Program and has taught college students inside the prisons for over a decade. As an organizer for the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in Chicago, Joan was a leading abolitionist who helped free five wrongfully convicted death row inmates. Today she teaches English to incarcerated students for Boston University’s Prison Education Program and continues to do anti-racist and social justice work.
Mia Bella Rodgers
Production Manager
Mia is a third-year Criminology student at the University of California, Irvine on the pre-law track. She began her work with the Davis Vanguard as a Court Watch Intern, later leading outreach efforts to bridge the Court Watch program with UCI, and transitioning into her role as one of the Production Managers for the Vanguard Incarcerated Press. She has previously worked as an Immigration Legal Services Volunteer/Intern, and is currently serving as a Title IX Research Assistant at UCI. Mia aims to use her career and lived experience with systemic harm to understand and reimagine the institutions Americans function within. She has goals of expanding rehabilitative program access within prisons, centering her career around human and animal rights, and advancing a humanized policy approach.
Maxine Pollock
Production Manager
Maxine is a junior in the Sciences Po Paris and UC Berkeley Dual Degree Program pursuing two bachelor’s degrees in Politics and Government and Legal Studies on the pre-law track. She started working for the Davis Vanguard as a Court Watch Intern before launching a long-term journalistic research project with the Vanguard focused on a wrongful conviction case out of Warren County, Ohio. She joined the Vanguard Incarcerated Press as a Production Manager alongside Mia where she is focused on editing, distribution, and outreach.
Jamel Walker
Incarcerated since the age of 21, Jamel Walker is serving his 40th year of a life without parole sentence. He has earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in Communication Studies from CSU-Sacramento, and is a graduate student at CSU-Dominguez Hills, working on a Master’s of Arts degree in the Humanities, with an emphasis on abolition and liberation. He is a certified literacy mentor, a social and racial justice advocate, penal abolitionist, journalist, writer, inside editor and columnist for the VIP.
D. Razor Babb
Razor Babb is the founding editor of the Corcoran Sun and Mule Creek Post. He is a PEN Writing Awards winner, author of several novels and informationals, including, “Icicle Bill”, “Goodbye Natalie”, “Last Lockdown”, the “American Prisoner” series, and others. As a prisoner journalist and writer, he is devoted to helping prisoner writers get published and kicking open the doors that will allow incarcerated writers access to the publishing world, tapping into the infinite potential that we all are a part of. Razor’s recently released book, “Voices from the Shadows: Writing and Reporting from Inside” includes essays from individuals impacted by mass incarceration, and examines the history and social ills of the carceral beast, including the difficulties of reporting from inside prison walls.