ProGov21 Policy Library

Ending the Criminalization of Failure-to-Appear: An Organizers’ Guide to Demanding Court Changes in the Time of COVID-19

Type Fact Sheet or Infographic

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights

Before COVID-19 became a global pandemic, missing a court date, a check-in with parole or probation, a day of community service, or a court-mandated treatment program could and frequently did result in people being jailed. However, during the early days of the pandemic, most states...

Preventing Sexual Assault and Supporting Survivors

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2018

Level County

State(s) All States

Source SiX Action

Policy Areas Housing, Public Safety, Health, Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Education, Children & Families

Sexual assault is an intensely personal, devastating crime with far-reaching impacts in our communities. It is common, destructive, and nobody should be traumatized by navigating their next steps for safety and healing. One in five women will experience sexual assault while in college,...

COVID-19 Response Guidance for Community Bail & Bond Funds

Type Fact Sheet or Infographic

Year 2020

Level City or Town, State

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Public Spaces, Public Safety, Health

People in prisons, jails, and immigration jails are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 outbreaks. Given the inherent high risk of all incarceration settings, this statement argues that the best protection for these individuals is release for everyone in the custody of federal prisons,...

Abolitionist Principles & Campaign Strategies for Prosecutor Organizing

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2019

Level City or Town, County, Other Boards and Agencies

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Housing, Public Safety

"The following is a framework that seeks to draw out what “prosecutor organizing” looks like with an abolitionist lens. The first section outlines principles to hold us accountable to each other, so that there is shared agreement about what abolition means in organizing around prosecutors....

Against Ecocide: Legal Protection for Earth

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2016

Level National

State(s) All States

Source Tellus Institute

Policy Areas Democracy & Governance, Environment & Natural Resources

As states and corporations continue to harm the planet, legal experts and citizens are calling for the codification of ecocide as a fifth crime against peace, joining genocide, crimes of agression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Initiatives to criminalize ecocide express...

Decarceration During COVID-19: A Messaging Toolkit for Campaigns for Mass Release

Type Fact Sheet or Infographic

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Health

Incarcerated people in the United States’ jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers are at an unacceptable risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. This document provides some guidance and tools for families, organizers, and advocates who are demanding their decarceration...

Policing + Transit

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2020

Level City or Town

State(s) All States

Source Transit Center

Policy Areas Public Safety, Transportation & Mobility

Many transit agencies apply an overly punitive approach to minor transgressions. For example, this report argues that current methods of fare enforcement are too harsh. Fare evasion should be decriminalized, and the penalties should be made proportional to the severity of offense....

An Organizer’s Guide to Confront Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools in Decarceration Campaigns

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2019

Level State

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights

Risk assessment tools (RATs) are decision-making rubrics that make predictions; they utilize a multitude of tools to make predictions about a defendant’s statistical likelihood, or “risk,” of not returning to court or being rearrested if released. Ultimately, RATs greatly influence...

No More Shackles: Ten Arguments Against Pretrial Electronic Monitoring

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County, State

State(s) All States

Source Media Justice

Policy Areas Data & Technology, Public Safety

This report outlines ten arguments against the use of pretrial electronic monitoring. It describes how monitoring restricts a person's ability to earn income; reduces access to legal resources and due process; limits participation in parenting and caregiving, increases the risk of...

A Social Media Toolkit: For Organizing and Advocacy to End Mass Criminalization and Incarceration

Type Fact Sheet or Infographic

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Public Safety

Storytelling on social media has become a powerful tool to shift public narratives in the movement to end mass criminalization. However, if misused, improper storytelling runs the risk of perpetuating narratives that reinforce, rather than work to dismantle, the criminal justice system....

COVID-19: Release People From Prisons and Jails Without Electronic Monitoring

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County, State

State(s) All States

Source Media Justice

Policy Areas Data & Technology, Public Safety

This brief outlines six arguments opposing electronic monitors for people released from prisons and jails during the pandemic. The use of electronic monitoring violates social distancing, increases costs, misdirects resources, impacts access to healthcare, increases barriers to movement,...

Proposed Public Health and Public Safety Pathways for Criminal Justice System Responses to COVID-19

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County

State(s) All States

Source Williams Institute

Policy Areas Public Spaces, Public Safety, Health

Incarceration puts both incarcerated people and corrections staff at risk of contracting COVID-19. A wide array of criminal justice stakeholders have come together to call for a public health-oriented approach to the COVID-19 crisis. The key recommendations include releasing incarcerated...

So You Want to Courtwatch?

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2018

Level City or Town, County

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights

For decades, advocates, activists, and organizations have deployed courtwatching as a tactic to achieve a wide variety of outcomes, such as ensuring a more transparent criminal legal system, reporting on judges or prosecutors, gathering information for a campaign, providing individual...

Transparency is Not Enough: A Framework for Building Campaign Strategy

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year -

Level City or Town

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Public Safety, Health

Activists, organizers, and reformers often demand transparency from the criminal legal system because of the harm the system inflicts behind closed doors—particularly upon Black and Brown, poor, LGBTQ, and immigrant communities. For organizers working to dismantle the criminal legal...

Guidelines for Respecting the Rights of Individuals on Electronic Monitors

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2019

Level City or Town, County, State

State(s) All States

Source Media Justice

Policy Areas Data & Technology, Public Safety

This brief establishes guidelines for the implementation of electronic monitoring. In order to respect the human rights of those being monitored, rules for electronic monitoring should be transparent and accommodate basic daily needs without imposing unnecessary restrictions; monitoring...

No More Shackles: Why We Must End the Use of Electronic Monitors for People on Parole

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2019

Level City or Town, County, State

State(s) All States

Source Media Justice

Policy Areas Data & Technology, Public Safety

This report calls for the elimination of the use of monitoring for individuals on parole. It argues that electronic monitoring is an extension of incarceration that is ineffective, expensive, and greatly limits the freedom and potential success of people on parole. Further, its expansion...

Youth Mandate for Education and Liberation: A Mandate to Guide Us from Crisis to Liberation

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2021

Level City or Town, State, National

State(s) All States

Source The Center for Popular Democracy

Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Education

This report articulates young people’s mandate to their government—local, state, and federal—to permanently end the school-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline and build a liberatory education system based on principles of inclusion, equity and racial justice. The key points of the...

Step-by-Step Guide to Drafting Your Own Community Safety Policy at the State Level

Type Fact Sheet or Infographic

Year 2022

Level State

State(s) All States

Source Civil Rights Corps

Policy Areas Community Development, Public Safety

A Community Safety Policy is a policy agenda that shifts the concept of “safety” from a primarily criminal-legal model to a new framework that roots safety in public health and makes investments in non-carceral solutions. This guide outlines four steps states can take to create their...

Community Voices: Barriers to Voting For California's Formerly Incarcerated

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2015

Level Other Boards and Agencies

State(s) California

Source The Greenlining Institute

Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Democracy & Governance

In addition to disenfranchising people through law and policy, felony disenfranchisement laws create additional barriers to voting. The complexity of these laws and a lack of awareness about them have caused confusion and misinformation among formerly incarcerated communities as well...

Community Bail Funds as an Organizing Tool: A Primer for Exploring the Tactic

Type Fact Sheet or Infographic

Year 2019

Level City or Town, County, State

State(s) All States

Source Community Justice Exchange

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Community Development

This document is intended for organizers, legal advocates, and organizations contemplating starting a bail fund as an intervention in the criminal legal and/or immigration detention systems. The first part of the document poses core exploratory questions to consider before starting...

Disparate and Punitive Impact of Exclusionary Practices on Students of Color, Students with Disabilities and LGBTQ Students in Pennsylvania Public Schools

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2021

Level City or Town, State, School District, National

State(s) Pennsylvania

Source Education Law Center

Policy Areas Education, Children & Families

Zero tolerance policies, expanded presence of police in schools, and other harsh discipline policies have a disproportionate impact on students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ youth. Using Pennsylvania schools as a case study, this report examines the negative effects...

Arrested Learning: A Survey of Youth Experiences of Police and Security at School

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2021

Level City or Town, County, School District

State(s) All States

Source The Center for Popular Democracy

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Education

There is evidence that placing law enforcement in schools increases referrals to the criminal legal system. The presence of law enforcement makes it more likely that students of color will be arrested for low-level offenses, and increases the formal processing of exclusionary disciplinary...

2011 Cook County Policy for Responding to ICE Detainers

Type Ordinance

Year 2011

Level County

State(s) Illinois

Source Cook County Board

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Public Safety

This ordinance requires the Sheriff of Cook County to decline ICE detainer requests unless there is written agreement stating that all costs incurred by Cook County in complying with the ICE detainer shall be reimbursed. It also prohibits ICE agents from accessing individuals or County...

Increase Public Safety and Advance Racial Justice by Repealing Juvenile Curfews

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County

State(s) All States

Source Local Progress

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Community Development, Public Safety

Roughly three-quarters of American cities have juvenile curfew laws that criminalize youth for being in public spaces during late night and school hours. These laws disproportionately punish black and brown youth and low-income families. This policy brief argues that juvenile curfew...

Youth Power Agenda in Milwaukee Public Schools, WI

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2021

Level City or Town, County, School Board, School District

State(s) Wisconsin

Source Local Progress

Policy Areas Children & Families, Democracy & Governance, Education, Public Safety

This case study analyzes how student and youth advocacy efforts have advanced alternative visions of safety within the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) district. As a result of this student-led campaign, MPS has terminated all of its contracts with the Milwaukee Police Department, terminated...

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