On Wednesday December 5th my group conducted an interview with Elizabeth Webster. Liz works in the communications department at The Innocence Project. The Innocence Project was the organization that I had decided to take charge of for our projects. Towards the beginning of the year I started doing research on the Innocence Project. My first contact was Karen Wagner, a parent at LREI, after Hurricane Sandy she gave me Liz’s contact information. I got into contact with Liz and finally got an interview set up.

I had many questions for Liz and she was very helpful in answering all of them. My first couple questions were about Liz’s job in communications. Liz moved to New York after she finished graduate school. She had studied English but decided that writing was not entirely what she wanted to do. Liz then found work helping head of communications at The Innocence Project. She writes the annual reports, and publication. Liz also helps set up visits to schools by former prisoners. This was very important information to me. I think it would be so interesting to have someone who has experienced that come to our school and talk to my grade or the whole middle school.

“The work we do is the kind of thing the government should do.” These were very important words to me, those words tied it all together. The government spends money on facilities instead of prevention then doesn’t give all their efforts in making sure innocent people do not have to be imprisoned or put on death row. Most Americans assume that’s what the government does, like in the PROMISE act. The next piece of shocking information was that 1/3 of incarcerated people in the U.S. are under 22 and 32/300 are under 18. That is insane.

Towards the end of the interview Liz suggested the documentary Central Park Five by Ken Burns. We are now planning on seeing it either at the IFC Center or we’ll watch it on demand. I’m really glad I asked about documentaries because Liz said that some of the Central Park Five are speakers for the Innocence Project. I’m going to continue talking to Liz and we are going to try to schedule a visit and I am so glad I got this opportunity!