Leo Hylton, MS (https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-hylton-ms-1a8540224/) is a PhD student at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.  His education and work are based in trauma-informed, healing-centered Restorative Justice practices, and are focused on Social Justice Advocacy and Activism, with a vision toward an abolitionist future.  

Toward that end, Leo is working as a Visiting Instructor at Colby College, co-teaching AY346 – Carcerality and Abolition. He is a lead facilitator of Maine State Prison’s Restorative Practices Steering Committee, serves on Colby College’s Restorative Practices Team, and provides consultation to RJ practitioners in the US and abroad.

Leo is a core organizer of the Carter School Working Group on Forgiveness and Reconciliation, creating spaces of co-learning, growth, and trauma healing in the context of forgiveness and reconciliation. With the same focus, he also serves as a Freedom & Captivity facilitator of the abolitionist community-building course "Journeys of Trauma, Healing, and Forgiveness" (https://www.freedomandcaptivity.org/category/action/#Freedom%20&%20Captivity%20Curriculum%20Project).

Leo recently began working as one of the first ever Alliance Fellows for the National Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, seeking to open education and employment opportunities for incarcerated people across the US (https://www.higheredinprison.org/staff/leo-hylton-ms). He is also a columnist for the publication The Bollard (formerly Mainer), where he writes a monthly column to raise public consciousness around the existence and power of humanity in carceral spaces (https://mainernews.com/author/leo-hylton/). 

Leo's education, work, and research are informed by his experience as a currently incarcerated citizen in Maine State Prison, where he lives and serves his local and surrounding communities through as many avenues as God opens for him. For more, please read, “Trauma, Spirituality, and Healing: A Journey through the Lens of an Incarcerated Person”.