5 Highlights from Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project

The Justice Project premiered on Oxygen Sunday, offering a unique look into all that Kim Kardashian has done in the past two years to address the criminal reform crisis.

By working with #cut50—a national bipartisan initiative that aims to reduce the number of people in prisons, jails and crime across the United States—the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star has tried her hand at everything from actual policy work to going out and consulting different inmates, lawyers and judges. 

“People think because I fight for this means that I don’t believe in punishment. There are a lot of people—sick people—that deserve to be behind bars. But there are some amazing people spending their lives rotting inside prison,” Kim said in the documentary. “They don’t deserve to have their lives just be thrown away because you have no idea what circumstances they really have been facing or living with that led them to make those decisions.”

Nathan Congleton – NBC News/TODAY

This was certainly the case for Alice Marie Johnson, a great-grandmother who was serving a life-plus-25-year sentence as a first-time nonviolent offender. Johnson’s unfair situation inspired Kim’s foray into criminal justice reform, and she eventually helped the White House grant clemency to the 64-year-old. 

Kim explained that Johnson Alice “put a face to a major problem that we have in our country.”

“I realized quickly that there were so many other people in a similar situation to Alice that I just truly was unaware of,” she added.

Johnson is featured in The Justice Project, as are a number of other people whose often unrealized and unfortunate circumstances contributed to them winding up in jail. Keep reading to learn their stories and discover what else you might’ve missed from the Oxygen documentary.

2. Dawn Jackson’s Story

Jackson was among the many inmates who wrote letters to Kim about their situation. In these letters and the research Kim conducts, it’s revealed that Jackson was sexually abused by multiple people over the course of a 20-year period. This included her step-grandfather, whom she killed when she got older. 

However, when it came time for Jackson’s trial, the abuse she endured was never brought up or used as mitigating evidence.

“I truly believe that had her attorney gotten up and talked about the fact that Dawn was raped at five years old, and that she continued to be raped and molested for years by people who were supposed to be caring for her, by her step-grandfather, that she would not have gotten the sentence she did,” Kim said. 

Jackson’s situation wasn’t just a lesson in the importance of mitigating evidence for Kim, but one that made her open to working on so-called “violent” cases.

“I started off being extremely judgmental and thought I will never be involved or help a situation where there has been violence—but after I read Dawn’s story, I cried,” Kim explained, adding that from there on, her heart had opened up. 

4. Free After 25+ Years

With the help of a friend, George Trudel—who had already gotten his own prison sentence commuted—along with assistance from Kim and her team, David Sheppard was able to walk free after 27 years in jail. He had been charged in a shooting death and received a life sentence, despite not being the shooter. 

“I understand that someone that is involved in something should get time, but that you could not take someone’s life and get more time than the person that actually took the person’s life,” Kim explained, referencing Sheppard’s case. “That’s what I want to wake people up to. This just isn’t fair.”

Kim got involved after Trudel wrote her asking for her help, and the two were able to meet and work with Pennsylvania’s Lt. Governor John Fetterman to secure Sheppard’s release.

Read

Here’s How Kim Kardashian Is Preparing to Become a Lawyer

5. Kim Has Contributed to the Release of 7,000 People

Toward the conclusion of The Justice Project, #cut50 co-founder and senior counsel Jessica Jackson praised Kim’s advocacy efforts and revealed an awe-inspiring statistic. 

“A lot of the work that Kim’s doing with #cut50 is the humanization work, but another part of the work that she’s doing is helping us with the policy work; actually changing those laws,” Jackson said. “So when Kim decided she wanted to get involved in the First Step Act, Kim had been working on individual cases. And suddenly, when she joined onto this federal bill, because of her efforts, there, there’s now 7,000 people who are home with their families.”

Learn about the First Step Act from Kim herself in the clip above.

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