About Us
In 1994, Mark Jordan was convicted on federal bank and firearm charges. As an 18-year-old first-time offender in the midst of a national tough-on-crime movement, he was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison, where he was later WRONGFULLY CONVICTED of a prison homicide.
Not to be defined by his imprisonment, Mark focused on education, attained literacy, earned his GED and enrolled in college. Mark studied criminal justice as he tutored fellow disadvantaged prisoners, teaching GED and Adult Continuing Education courses. During his incarceration, Mark has amassed more than 60 degrees and certifications representing thousands of hours of course study and program attendance in diversified subject areas.
As the Offender Reentry Affairs Coordinator Clerk at the US Penitentiary in Atwater, California, and encouraged by warden Andre Matevousian, Mark implemented and instructed Earning Freedom, a cognitive-based personal growth and reentry program, assisting prisoners as they prepared for release back into the community.
After obtaining certification in paralegal studies, Mark took up civil and human rights in the judiciary, prevailing in a series of litigation projects against the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Prisons, including establishing the First Amendment rights of federal prisoners to publish under a byline in the news media and to access internet-generated information through the mail, as well as preventing the Bureau of Prisons from proceeding with environmentally hazardous prison construction on a former coal mine and mountain-top removal site in Kentucky.
Mark has served as both a testifying and non-testifying expert in the subject areas of prison life and culture and prison-related litigation, particularly in cases involving the Bureau of Prisons. He has also consulted on numerous criminal matters, including several federal death penalty cases.
Having emerged as one of the nation’s foremost incarcerated experts on federal justice reform, Mark continues attending to numerous litigation projects, offers expert consultations free to indigent prisoners, and serves as Policy Advisor for the Center for Federal Justice Reform, a non-partisan not-for-profit collective focused on federal-level justice reforms toward abolition. Mark remains incarcerated at the US Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, and is currently slated for release from prison in 2047. Read about Mark’s WRONGFUL CONVICTION, lend your voice in support of his COMMUTATION PETITION, and discover other ways that you can TAKE ACTION today!