AND WATER BRINGS TOMORROW

Empathy from Experience We empower and build the leadership skills of formerly incarcerated people; we hire formerly incarcerated people; and we provide cutting-edge organizational leadership that promotes resources for disenfranchised people living in communities that have been marginalized.

https://anewwayoflife.org

All of Us or None is a grassroots civil and human rights organization fighting for the rights of formerly- and currently- incarcerated people and our families.  We are fighting against the discrimination that people face every day because of arrest or conviction history.  The goal of All of Us or None is to strengthen the voices of people most affected by mass incarceration and the growth of the prison-industrial complex. Through our grassroots organizing, we are building a powerful political movement to win full restoration of our human and civil rights.

https://prisonerswithchildren.org/all-of-us-or-none/

Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the prison industrial complex (PIC) by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. We believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, our work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness. The success of the movement requires that it reflect communities most affected by the PIC. Because we seek to abolish the PIC, we cannot support any work that extends its life or scope.

https://criticalresistance.org

CCWP is a grassroots abolitionist organization—with members inside and outside prison—that challenges the institutional violence imposed on women, transgender people, and communities of color by the prison industrial complex (PIC). We see the struggle for racial and gender justice as central to dismantling the PIC and we prioritize the leadership of the people, families, and communities most impacted in building this movement.

https://womenprisoners.org/about-us/

Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is a Black-led statewide coalition of more than 80 grassroots organizations. Our three point mission is to reduce the number of incarcerated people in California; reduce the number of prison and jails in our state; and shift wasteful spending away from incarceration and toward healthy community investments.

Founded in 2003, our coalition amplifies the work of community leaders on issues like sentencing reform, justice reinvestment and prison closure. Our invest/divest framework bridges movements for environmental, social, racial, and economic justice in California and across the nation.

https://curbprisonspending.org

The Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) is working to build a youth, family, and formerly and currently incarcerated people’s movement to challenge America’s addiction to incarceration and race, gender and class discrimination in Los Angeles County’s, California’s and the nation’s juvenile and criminal injustice systems.  The YJC’s goal is to dismantle policies and institutions that have ensured the massive lock-up of people of color, widespread law enforcement violence and corruption, consistent violation of youth and communities’ Constitutional and human rights, the construction of a vicious school-to-jail track, and the build-up of the world’s largest network of jails and prisons.

https://youthjusticela.org

https://youthjusticela.org/chucos-justice-center/

Concerned Letcher Countians, LLC, is a group of volunteers who care about our county and its future. ​We seek respect for every person and the land. Most of all, we are working to protect and provide a future for our youth. We believe that a prison will harm, not help our county.

https://concernedletchercountians.org/about.html

Decarcerate Sacramento was founded in 2019 by a group of Sacramento County residents who have been impacted personally by incarceration. We are also survivors of violence who know that punishment does not prevent harm in our communities. We formed in response to a jail expansion planned for the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center (RCCC), and we successfully stopped this project in November of 2019 through community organizing both inside and outside of Sacramento County jails.

https://www.decarceratesac.org/#about

Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.

https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/about

Mission Statement: The Ella Baker Center organizes to shift resources away from prisons and punishment towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong. Named after civil rights hero Ella Baker, we mobilize Black, Brown, and low-income people to build power and prosperity in our communities.

https://ellabakercenter.org/about-us/

For more than twenty years, the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity has been joining hands with people of faith to act on these core beliefs. We defend the humanity of the immigrant and fight for the rights of the incarcerated.

https://www.im4humanintegrity.org/who-we-are/

The ICIJ, is composed of over 35 organizations that serve the immigrant community in the Inland Empire. The IC4IJ currently focuses on advocacy, changing the narrative, and capacity building. Our coalition engages in policy advocacy, community organizing and education, and rapid response to ICE and border patrol operations. We are collectively changing the narrative of the one million immigrants who live, thrive, and are a foundational part of the fabric of the IE. We are building organizational capacity through leadership development, cooperation, support networks, and shared regional strategies. Lastly, the IC4IJ provides resources such as training, technical support, and grants to coalition partners to further support their efforts and mission in the region.

https://ic4ij.org

End the criminalization of immigrants in detention by shifting the narrative.

Advocate for the safety and release of all incarcerated immigrants by creating community-led models that center the needs of those impacted.

Stop any expansions of immigrant detention and fight for humane closure of the Adelanto Detention Center.

https://shutdownadelanto.org/about

In September 2023, the UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review supported the work of individuals and organizations committed to ending mass incar- ceration and immigration detention by sponsoring the Decarceral Visions Conference, a two-day symposium hosted at UCLA designed to confront important questions in the work of closing or preventing construction of jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers. The event was co-hosted by the American Civil Liberties Union, Detention Watch Network, the Sentencing Project, Vera Institute of Justice, UCLA Law’s Criminal Justice Program, and UCLA Law’s Prison Law and Policy Program.

https://escholarship.org/content/qt6cc0g612/qt6cc0g612_noSplash_8d103ea68c0859edcaf281d7a7248636.pdf?t=sl77fp

https://csw.ucla.edu/event/decarceral-visions-conference/