Reginald Dwayne Betts

At-a-Glance

Awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in September 2021.
Founder of Freedom Reads, an organization that gives incarcerated people access to books.
Served on President Barack Obama’s Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Graduated from Yale Law School with a Juris Doctor degree in 2016.
Earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College.
National spokesman for the Campaign for Youth Justice.

Biography

Reginald Dwayne Betts is an American poet, legal scholar, educator, and prison reform advocate. Born in Maryland, he was an honors student in high school. At age 16, he was prosecuted as an adult for an armed carjacking and sentenced to nine years in prison, where he began reading and writing poetry. During his incarceration, he completed high school and decided to become a poet after encountering works by Robert Hayden, Sonia Sanchez, and Lucille Clifton.