#AnswerTheirCall Campaign for REFORM Alliance (2019)

REFORM Alliance exists to make the criminal justice system better. Their mission is to dramatically reduce the number of people who are unjustly under the control of the criminal justice system—starting with probation and parole. Why? Because parole and probation are revolving doors to the prison system, keeping people trapped in the system over minor violations such as missing an appointment or filing imperfect paperwork.

But when COVID-19 became a pressing issue for all prisoners, not just those serving time for technical violations, REFORM had to shift gears out of urgency for the safety of everyone impacted by the virus within the prison system.

With shut-downs occurring across the nation, everyone was on their phone, spending more time on social channels than before, and people who are incarcerated have only one way of connecting and telling their story: through their designated phone calls.

The objective behind the #AnswerTheirCall campaign was to generate empathy toward the 2.3 million humans who are incarcerated and make people aware that COVID-19 was threatening to turn a prison sentence into a death sentence for the entire prison population.

We began by crafting a campaign to live in the social space. People behind bars have one way of communicating with the outside world: a phone call. So we decided to use these calls to take over people’s social channels, asking them to answer the phone call themselves, connecting them directly with a prisoner’s story to make these calls louder.

We launched the campaign with a tweet from rapper Meek Mill that included a phone number that, when called, allowed you to listen to actual phone calls with someone who is incarcerated.

We then prompted people to share each call to make the voices of people in prison and jail louder, forwarding and redirecting the series of powerful firsthand audio messages, asking us to #AnswerTheirCall.Hearing those voices directly gave an often unheard and invisible portion of America’s population a megaphone and allowed the public to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences and fears.

Our influential partners, including celebrities such as Madonna, Kim Kardashian and Common, as well as political figures, such as Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, drove a significant share of potential impressions, supporting us through advocacy in their social feeds—and ultimately sparking a curiosity about REFORM with a millennial audience.