The California Healing Justice program asks: Where police resources are being used, which communities are targeted, and which communities are siphoned into our prisons? Where jails and prisons fill to overflowing, which communities are primarily kept in them and how are decisions made about the length of sentences, use of segregation and the death penalty? When prison populations go down, why do police and carceral budgets continue to increase? How can public resources be re-directed to address community needs for safety and reparations?
In this quarter’s newsletter, we give highlights of some of the ways we grapple with these questions at city, county, and state levels in California. If you have questions or thoughts about our program work, please reach out! You can reply to this email, or email us at CAHealingJustice@afsc.org.
In this issue:
- County budget wins for Care First and preventative services
- Upcoming Restorative Justice webinar series in September
- Legislative effort continues for Racial Justice Act For All
- Demilitarizing Police Across California
County budget wins for Care First and preventative services
In our previous newsletter, we shared an upcoming Alameda County Budget Training 101 offered by the Care First Coalition. The Coalition organizes and advocates for county policy and budget that prioritize mental health services and housing, instead of jail, especially for Black and Brown communities in the County. John provides leadership to the Coalition, alongside Restore Oakland’s Tash Nguyen.
In 2021, the County formally adopted a “Care First Jails Last” policy, but resources to support the policy did not follow. Thanks to the June budget training, direct Coalition advocacy with Supervisors, and mobilization for public comment, we were able to advocate for expanding mental health and substance use services and won $50 million across the county’s continuum of care. This is a small but significant win in our work with the Care First Coalition to reduce incarceration in Alameda County.
Upcoming Restorative Justice webinar series in September
In our January newsletter, we shared about a new Community Safety Beyond Policing workshop series supported by John and Jennifer, to build community alternatives to police response. Several dozen attendees joined the series across seven two-hour Saturday sessions, which covered material including de-escalation, mental health crisis response, and creating “asset maps” for participants’ communities (to identify personal, neighborhood, social network, and local government resources for responding to diverse situations without calling police).
In September, Fatimeh and Jennifer will support a new Community Safety Beyond Policing webinar series covering Restorative Justice. The webinar series will be followed by a Restorative Justice training, led by Fatimeh. We hope you will join us Tuesdays in September.
Register for the Restorative Justice webinar series
Legislative effort continues for Racial Justice Act For All
Last year, we successfully passed the Racial Justice Act to combat discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or national origin in criminal sentences and convictions – but only for sentences and convictions in the future. What about all those who were given longer sentences, or given convictions, because of past discrimination in the courtroom?
Fatimeh has been working with fellow #RJA4All cosponsors to extend the Racial Justice Act protections to those who have already been harmed by unjust convictions and sentences. This work includes negotiation with the Judicial Council, lobbying directly in Sacramento, and several public engagement campaigns.
We must ensure all Black & Brown people have a path to challenge racist convictions and sentences, whether those occur in the future or in the past. If you’d like to get involved in continuing this work, please reply to this email. You can also follow the latest on Twitter #RJA4All.
Demilitarizing Police Across California
The increased militarization of policing — through training for combat, weaponized equipment, and policies that justify the use of lethal force — locks law enforcement into practices that increase harm. These harms fall disproportionately on communities of color, especially our Black and Brown neighbors.
John and Jennifer continue their work to use new California law AB481 to demilitarize police across California. We were invited and gave presentations to community groups in San Jose, Santa Clara County, and Santa Cruz. We organized and transmitted a letter addressed to every member of every city council, county supervisors, city attorney, and county counsel in California, signed by more than 70 organizations, urging full implementation of AB 481 for transparency and demilitarization. We’ve worked with progressive local lawmakers in several cities as they grapple with law enforcement’s militarized or non-transparent policy or process.
At this point, we are in the final two months of initial implementation, supporting places like Oakland where city councils have called for using the maximum time allowed by law to fully consider these new policies. These initial policies set the baseline from which next year’s demilitarization efforts can begin.
Want to get some behind-the-scenes stories from our police demilitarization research? Watch our July Community Safety Beyond Policing webinar, Getting Eyes on the Armed State.