From
the DataCenter's Criminal Justice
Program,
Winter 2002:
New
DataCenter Report!
Moving
Stronger:
Needs of the Criminal Justice
Reform Movement
By Grace Chang, September 2001
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Moving
Stronger: Needs of the Criminal Justice Reform Movement
presents the struggles, victories, strengths and challenges
of grassroots groups organizing for criminal justice reform
across the country. Drawn from a national survey and in-depth
interviews with members and clients of these groups, the
report offers the insights and analyses of long-time organizers
and emerging leaders, in their own words.
The
project aimed to assess the state of grassroots organizing
around a broad spectrum of criminal justice reform issues,
with the goal of bringing critical information to funders
and grassroots groups about the diverse needs, organizing
approaches and campaigns of groups around the country. The
report will be distributed and used among grassroots groups
to support networking, information and resource sharing,
collaborative work and coalition building.
METHODOLOGY:
We gathered initial data through a preliminary survey, sent
to 226 organizations across the country, with a 24% response
rate. We conducted comprehensive follow-up interviews with
organizers and members by telephone and in person. The initial
contacts were selected from the Resource Directory for Educators
and Activists on the Crisis in Prisons (Prison Activist
Resource Center, Oakland, Winter 2000), from among the DataCenter's
network, and from referrals by criminal justice reform organizers
inside and outside prisons.
KEY
FINDINGS: Respondents identified key issues and
concerns when asked, "What do you see as the movement's
collective strengths, challenges and needs at this time?"
Need
for a Survey of this Type
in order to identify and develop connections between groups
doing similar work. Respondents'
Recommendation: Do follow-up
to this survey to provide ways to continue sharing expertise
and resources, including coordination and support for
a resource directory, conferences and coalition-building.
Ways
to Address Divisions and Gaps
along race, class, gender and sexuality lines, conflicts
between offender categories, and the need for more participation
by youth and former prisoners in the movement. Strategies
currently utilized to address this issue include recruiting
from within clientele, e.g. former prisoners who have
received trainings and services as clients, or service
providers.
Ways
to Negotiate Client Needs and Funding Demands
such that groups do not have to cater to funders' tastes,
can address client needs as first priority, and collaborate
rather than compete with other groups for funding.Respondents'
Recommendation: Include
clients in decision-making about funding sources and uses.
Fund coalitions formed around specific issues instead
of individual organizations. Fund existing collaboratives
rather than forcing new ones.
Need
to Deliver Effective Messages
to counter dominant media messages and to keep pressure
on legislators. Respondents'
Recommendation: Use
research of organizations already doing this work. Present
available research in accessible language, through mainstream
media, popular education and public education.
Need
for Leadership Development
to sustain the movement across generations, allow leaders
to do "visionary" work beyond struggling to
survive, and develop leadership among youth and people
of color. Respondents'
Recommendation: Provide
trainings for leadership development, funding for paid
organizers to expand beyond volunteer basis, and support
work of past activists to act as advisors and mentors.
Provide political education to train youth of color in
histories and current issues in organizing.
Ways
to Counter Hostile Environment and Repressive Mentalities
present in the public and at play among some funders as
well, and ways to contend with counter-organizing by conservative
forces, including police and prison surveillance of activists
and conservative nature of some funding sources. Respondents'
Recommendation:
Organizers have suggested seizing this as an "opportune"
moment to find unlikely allies, such as legislators motivated
to consider reforms simply as ways to cut costs.
-
Need
for Legal Resources and Expanding the Focus beyond the
US in order to counter the
multi-million dollar, multinational prison industry. Respondents'
Recommendation: Develop
links with legal clinics, law schools and law firms and
build relationships with organizations who have experience
and capacity to work internationally.
-
Need
for Full-time Organizers, especially in rural areas
where operating or empty prisons are located and public
sentiment is that prisons will bring economic recovery.
Respondents' Recommendations: Provide funding
for paid, full-time organizers to share work, cover more
ground, and offer each other support. In addition, dedicate
more resources to developing organizing tools, such as the
videos, A Prison in the Field and Tracy Huling's
Yes in My Backyard, both critical resources in campaigns
against rural siting.
Need
for Campaign Models that
are replicable, give people concrete things to mobilize
around, and could provide a "school in organizing"
on issues including building coalitions, different tactics,
and working through conflicts around race, class, gender,
sexuality, and generation. Respondents'
Recommendations: Find
and document effective campaigns addressing criminal justice
reform to identify frameworks and strategies that may
serve as reproducible models.
Several
campaigns around the country were selected for in-depth
interviews with organizers, members and impacted individuals
to provide such models. Part II of the report, Profiles,
documents these struggles around transitional facilities,
restorative justice, rural siting of prisons, juvenile
facilities and inmate organizations. The profiles present
the reflections of these movement leaders and builders
in their own voices.
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