Witness To Mass Incarceration

From the Devs

2026 Webby People’s Voice Winner — Games: Social Impact & Public Service

How do you capture the inhumanity of prison? 

The night before I left for prison, my mother told me prison would be harder for me than the concentration camp had been for her. WITNESS to Mass Incarceration: Chapter 1 is the true story of my first day inside federal prison, where within hours I realized I am no longer in the free world, and that my survival depended on learning the rules, both spoken and unspoken.

How do you translate that inhumanity into game design?

The computer game team decided to use a 2D narrative-driven journey, pixel art and point-and-click exploration to tell my story. We were committed to telling this story authentically and to build an immersive narrative to show the gamer the reality of the harsh life all prisoners face. 

Gaming techniques like dragging and sliding objects were used in furtherance of the story. Each interaction reveals another layer of prison’s reality, immersing you in the fear, uncertainty, and emotional strain that define life behind bars.

This first chapter is one in a series which tells the story of my arrest, conviction, incarceration and release. We are creating this game for you to know and feel what it is like to face incarceration. It is our hope that this game brings awareness of the issue of mass incarceration.