Our Criminal Justice Priorities
Our Criminal Justice Priorities
Abolish all police and prisons by 2035. Center people and communities who have been most harmed by policing and the prison industry in relief efforts.
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Immediately end the incarceration of youth 18 and under. Close all youth prison and jail facilities and implement a robust re-entry program.
- Immediately ban the existence of private and for-profit prisons and detention centers and divest federal funds from policing and prisons, including ICE officers and institutions.
- Focus funds on the other side of prison walls by funding effective reentry programs and opportunities. We shouldn’t direct funds to jails and prisons as we work to close them.
- Reentry programs should be gender inclusive, culturally appropriate, and not include continued monitoring or contact with police or any other officers of the state.
- Repeal and reconcile for laws and policies that have caused considerable trauma and fueled racism such as stop and frisk, no-knock warrants, the COPS program, the death penalty, truth-in-sentencing, qualified immunity, cash bail, or civil asset forfeiture.
- Employ accountability measures on police and prisons with community-based oversight.
- Immediately end the Department of Defense 1033 and 1122 programs, which contribute to the militarization of local police and overinflated police budgets across the country.
Reconcile for the War on Drugs and immediately legalize marijuana at the federal level and use the legalization to fuel economic equity.
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Immediately release people incarcerated for drug-related offenses, fund their re-entry, and expunge the records of all marijuana-related convictions, including expungement from records considered in the process of obtaining citizenship or legal stay in the U.S.
- Prioritize independent ownership by Black people and the formerly incarcerated in the cannabis industry once legalized.
- End mandatory minimums and zero-tolerance policies. Revisit sentences of the people who are affected by these policies.
Invest in the prevention of violence and its consequences. Funds and policy should focus on ending and treating poverty, conducting research, and investing in the wellness of communities.
End punitive practices and abolish systems of control- including prisons, detention facilities, psychiatric prisons, military prisons, camps for prisoner/penal labor, and the Federal Prison Industry (UNICOR) as well as all state, local, and private prison industries.
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The abolition of police and prisons should not be replaced by other methods of control and punishment through institutionalization and incarceration.
- Invest in rehabilitation and healing practices that actually equip people who are incarcerated to reconcile for harm they’ve caused and change that behavior.
Treat crime as the symptom that it is by stopping the causes that drive people to crime, principally poverty.
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Establish a plan to defund from policing and invest in effective crime-prevention. End the policing of people of color, juveniles, people with mental illnesses, and the houseless.
- End the justice system’s focus on punishment. Refocus to root causes, alternatives to incarceration, economic and educational opportunity, healing, and transformative justice.
- Invest in prevention not punishment. With all the money that we spend incarcerating people, we should instead fund responses that prevent the cyclical nature of crime in our communities. This includes education, job creation, fair housing, and public health care.
- Social and economic welfare programs should not police participants as a stipulation of receiving benefits such as SNAP or health care. Drug testing, consideration of criminal records, and many of the changes enacted by the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 and similar policies are examples of stipulations that police participants.
Decriminalize survival by ending “quality of life” policing which disproportionately police and punish communities of color, women, and trans/GNC people for just existing.
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Decriminalize sex work and empower workers to lead in determining or limiting standards and regulations in the industry.
- Secure affordable housing, food, universal healthcare, and education for all.
Abolish all police and prisons by 2035. Center people and communities who have been most harmed by policing and the prison industry in relief efforts.
-
Immediately end the incarceration of youth 18 and under. Close all youth prison and jail facilities and implement a robust re-entry program.
- Immediately ban the existence of private and for-profit prisons and detention centers and divest federal funds from policing and prisons, including ICE officers and institutions.
- Focus funds on the other side of prison walls by funding effective reentry programs and opportunities. We shouldn’t direct funds to jails and prisons as we work to close them.
- Reentry programs should be gender inclusive, culturally appropriate, and not include continued monitoring or contact with police or any other officers of the state.
- Repeal and reconcile for laws and policies that have caused considerable trauma and fueled racism such as stop and frisk, no-knock warrants, the COPS program, the death penalty, truth-in-sentencing, qualified immunity, cash bail, or civil asset forfeiture.
- Employ accountability measures on police and prisons with community-based oversight.
- Immediately end the Department of Defense 1033 and 1122 programs, which contribute to the militarization of local police and overinflated police budgets across the country.
Reconcile for the War on Drugs and immediately legalize marijuana at the federal level and use the legalization to fuel economic equity.
-
Immediately release people incarcerated for drug-related offenses, fund their re-entry, and expunge the records of all marijuana-related convictions, including expungement from records considered in the process of obtaining citizenship or legal stay in the U.S.
- Prioritize independent ownership by Black people and the formerly incarcerated in the cannabis industry once legalized.
- End mandatory minimums and zero-tolerance policies. Revisit sentences of the people who are affected by these policies.
Invest in the prevention of violence and its consequences. Funds and policy should focus on ending and treating poverty, conducting research, and investing in the wellness of communities.
End punitive practices and abolish systems of control- including prisons, detention facilities, psychiatric prisons, military prisons, camps for prisoner/penal labor, and the Federal Prison Industry (UNICOR) as well as all state, local, and private prison industries.
-
The abolition of police and prisons should not be replaced by other methods of control and punishment through institutionalization and incarceration.
- Invest in rehabilitation and healing practices that actually equip people who are incarcerated to reconcile for harm they’ve caused and change that behavior.
Treat crime as the symptom that it is by stopping the causes that drive people to crime, principally poverty.
-
Establish a plan to defund from policing and invest in effective crime-prevention. End the policing of people of color, juveniles, people with mental illnesses, and the houseless.
- End the justice system’s focus on punishment. Refocus to root causes, alternatives to incarceration, economic and educational opportunity, healing, and transformative justice.
- Invest in prevention not punishment. With all the money that we spend incarcerating people, we should instead fund responses that prevent the cyclical nature of crime in our communities. This includes education, job creation, fair housing, and public health care.
- Social and economic welfare programs should not police participants as a stipulation of receiving benefits such as SNAP or health care. Drug testing, consideration of criminal records, and many of the changes enacted by the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 and similar policies are examples of stipulations that police participants.
Decriminalize survival by ending “quality of life” policing which disproportionately police and punish communities of color, women, and trans/GNC people for just existing.
-
Decriminalize sex work and empower workers to lead in determining or limiting standards and regulations in the industry.
- Secure affordable housing, food, universal healthcare, and education for all.
