Reuben Jones (he/him)
Reuben Jones is a social justice advocate and community organizer who serves as the
Philadelphia Campaign and Policy Lead for Dignity and Power Now (DPN). Reuben is a
formerly incarcerated person who served 15 years in prison for a 1986 robbery in Philadelphia.
Since his release in 2002, he has transformed his life and became a leader in the community as an advocate for criminal justice reform. Reuben earned his Master’s Degree from Lincoln University in 2009 and has served as Executive Director of Frontline Dads Inc. since 2015, where he has worked diligently on ending cash bail, risk assessment opposition, electronic monitoring, parole eligibility for lifers, “ban the box”, jail closures, probation reform, prison gerrymandering, and community re-investment.
As the Campaign Coordinator for JustLeadership USA (JLUSA), he led the “Close The Creek” campaign, which successfully lobbied for the closure of the House of Corrections in 2018, the nation’s oldest, actively used jail (at the time). Prior to that, Reuben served as the Social Services Director of the Focused Deterrence Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) where Philadelphia reduced gun-related homicides by more than 50%. He also served on Mayor Jim Kenney's Transition Team (Public Safety Committee), and on the Universal Pre-K Commission, which helped expand Pre-K across the city of Philadelphia.
He currently serves on the Truth, Justice & Reconciliation Advisory Committee,
addressing police corruption and abuse and prosecutorial misconduct in Philadelphia.
Reuben is a co-founder of the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund and
a member of the Philadelphia Re-Entry Coalition, The Coalition for a Just District Attorney, the Philadelphia Anti-Violence Coalition, and the NO215Jails Coalition.
In 2016, Reuben won the Presidential Service Award from President Barack Obama
for his commitment to social justice advocacy, volunteerism, and community organizing.
Martha Williams (she/hers)
Martha Williams was born and raised in Philadelphia and has worked as a union
carpenter for 25+ years. As a young woman, she studied to be a carpenter and went through 4
years of joint apprenticeship training in Northeast Philadelphia. For over 20 years, Martha has
worked as a public servant for the Philadelphia Housing Authority, at times, serving her
neighbors in her neighborhood of North Philadelphia. She is a member of the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters and Sisters in the Brotherhood of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.
Martha has raised 2 children of her own and has been a foster parent to a few additional
children, all of whom are now young adults. Her son Damir was sentenced to Life Without
Parole for a 2nd-degree conviction in 2019. An appeal is pending. Martha is known on her block to be a big sister and is highly respected. She helps her neighbors resolve domestic disputes and potentially violent interactions by providing peer support and mediation. She was nominated by her neighbors to become Block Captain because of her strengths in
communication, her strong relationships with the children and families on the block, her
knowledge of resources that she brings to her neighbors, and for her caring and commitment to the health of all her neighbors. Throughout her own distress, Martha has remained committed to continuing her community work in what she calls “neighboring.”
Martha is a leader in several organizations working on criminal justice reform, including
co-facilitator of the NPH, a trainer for the National Participatory Defense Network, and a leader in the coordinating committee and statewide legislative committee of the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration. She is also an active member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
George Van Norton(he/him)
George was present at the founding of the North Philly Hub in September 2019. He heard about the hub from a friend who worked for the Public Defenders. He met Reuben Jones during an outside meeting at the church. George has been the administrator at Zion Baptist Church for 24 years. He saw that Zion Baptist Church and The North Philly Hub have similar missions, empowering people rather than judging them, as well as a shared focus on supporting families and community development.
In his role as chief administrator at Zion Baptist Church, he provides pastoral care, organizes and supports congregational activities, supervises the staff, interfaces with the community, and gets the bills paid.​
George has a bachelor’s degree in social work from Eastern University. Prior to coming to Zion Baptist Church, he worked for 18 years at Center in the Park, a community center in Germantown.
George is a core member of the NPH. George handles our finances and hosts our in-person meetings at Zion Baptist Church. He has two wonderful grown sons.
Martha Copithorne (she/her)
Martha has been active with the North Philly Hub since October of 2019. She first became aware of the racism in the criminal justice system in the early 60’s. Her late husband, as an intern with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, went to Alabama to research in county courthouses the sentences imposed in rape cases. The findings were that only blacks were sentenced to the death penalty in rape cases. Ultimately a court case was brought that ended the use of the death penalty in all rape cases. Martha retired in 2006 from a career as a lawyer and judge in family law in NH.
When she moved from New Hampshire to Philadelphia in 2011, she became involved with issues related to mass incarceration. She values the opportunity the Hub provides with its flat structure to work on these issues in a direct, person-to-person way that empowers individuals. The hub also offers the opportunity, in working with other hub members, to respond to the structures of injustice in our city, state and country.
Martha is a member of the Live Free team of POWER and the Decarceration Team of First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. She organized Know Your Systems training for the congregation and community in March 2019.
Martha and her husband split their time between Philadelphia and NH.
Together they have 5 sons and 6 grandchildren.
Rich Kinney (he/him)
Rich joined the North Philly Hub in spring of 2023. He first became involved in bringing attention to issues regarding the inequities within the American criminal justice system in 1974 as an intern in the United States Senate. During his internship, Rich worked to develop a resource file for senate speech writing staff, which included a section on criminal justice reform.
In the mid 70s Rich was a volunteer with the Philadelphia Prisoners’ Rights Council, an organization that worked closely with the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. His volunteer work there included
meetings with prisoners at state facilities, mostly having to do with conditions of confinement.
Rich worked as a program administrator in the early to mid-80s at both the Attica and Wyoming Correctional Facilities in New York State, where he served as the Temporary Release and Pre-Release Coordinator. The Temporary
Release program identified prisoners qualified to enter work release facilities closer to their homes and families. The Pre-Release program worked with prisoners to prepare for their approaching parole board hearings. This
included preparing written statements of accomplishments to present to the board, as well as assisting prisoners in their efforts to secure employment and adequate housing upon release. After 38 years in the field of criminal justice,
Rich retired in 2017 as the Director of Operations for the New York State Commission of Correction. A relatively small agency that became an indepedent in the years following the 1971 Attica prison riot, their primary purpose is to assess the compliance of all New York State prisons, county jails and lockups with facility Minimum Standards as codified in New York Correction Law. Another primary responsibility of the COC is to investigate all prisoner in-custody deaths. Rich has been a Prison Rape Elimination
Act (PREA) auditor as certified by the US Department of Justice.
Rich graduated from the State University of New York and did graduate study at the Rockefeller School of Public Policy – University of Albany. After retirement, he split his time between Saratoga County in upstate New York and
Philadelphia for three years, before moving back to Philadelphia full-time in 2021. He is a member of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia and is active in their Social Justice Committee.
DeVonté Douglass (he/him)
advisor emeritus
DeVonté Douglass was born and raised in North Philadelphia. He is a high school graduate of Thomas FitzSimons High and an alum of Peirce College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with his Associate of Science Degree in Criminal Justice and Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. He is currently studying to go to Law School.
DeVonté advocates for those incarcerated and fights for equal justice for Innocent or Guilty individuals. He is passionate about those wrongfully imprisoned and those who deserve a second chance at being free. He has been a Core Member of the North Philly Participatory Defense Hub, a Facilitator for the Best Outcomes Hub, a National Trainer for the National Participatory Defense Network, and an Official Visitor of the Pennsylvania Prison Society,
DeVonté has expertise in the Criminal Justice System that comes from real-life experiences within his family, whom he watched be wrongfully convicted by the Criminal Justice System. He is a former intern of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Zachary C. Shaffer. He is a former intern for the Criminal Defense Firm Montoya Shaffer, LLC. He is a former Peer Crisis Responder and Youth Aid Panel Member for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office under the leadership of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. He is a former intern for prominent criminal defense and appeal attorney Norris E. Gelman. He is currently employed as a Judicial Secretary in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.
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DeVonte currently serves the North Philly Hub in an advisory role and is an emeritus member of the Core team. He currently serves as a National Trainer for Participatory Defense (excluding Pennsylvania)
DeVonté believes in second chances and that a person can be reformed if the criminal justice system provides the proper resources. He is an individual who knows that the power of Participatory Defense has provided just outcomes and captured the attention of all key players in the Courtroom. DeVonté has family members serving life sentences and knows the struggle to get just outcomes.
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