ProGov21 Policy Library

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....

Injustice at Every Turn: A Report on the National Transgender Discrimination Study

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2011

Level Other Boards and Agencies

State(s) All States

Source National Center for Transgender Equality

Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Democracy & Governance, Housing, Public Safety, Health, Education

This report investigates the discrimination transgender individuals face in education, employment, housing, public accommodations, health care, prisons, in the family, and when updating ID documents. By surveying 6,450 transgender and gender non-conforming study participants, the...

Cities Pave the Way: Promising Reentry Policies that Promote Local Hiring of People with Criminal Records

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2015

Level City or Town

State(s) All States

Source National League of Cities

Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Housing, Public Safety, Children & Families, Democracy & Governance

This report examines local policies that prevent hiring discrimination against individuals with criminal records, such as "ban the box" initiatives that remove criminal record questions from job applications and defer background checks to the final stages of the hiring process. It...

Incarceration Trends in Massachusetts: Long-Term Increases

Type Fact Sheet or Infographic

Year 2016

Level City or Town

State(s) Massachusetts

Source MassBudget

Policy Areas Civil Rights

The infographic examines the impacts of crime laws implemented in Massachusetts on prison populations and recent reforms that have decreased the number of inmates, especially drug offenders. The document highlights the cost savings from reducing incarceration and suggests reallocating...

Race, Sex, and Social Equality Roadmap

Type Roadmap

Year 2020

Level City or Town, County

State(s) All States

Source ProGov21

Policy Areas Children & Families, Civil Rights, Economic Justice

Centuries of political, legal, and economic discrimination against women and people of color have entrenched inequality in the United States. ProGov21's Race, Sex, and Social Equality Roadmap outlines steps local governments can take to address the root causes of racial and gender...

Selective Celling: Inmate Population in Ohio’s Private Prisons

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2001

Level City or Town, State

State(s) Ohio

Source Policy Matters Ohio

Policy Areas Civil Rights

This report discusses relevant research on prison privatization and presents concerns regarding the expansion of prison privatization across Ohio. The report also features three case studies which highlight some glaring issues with the implementation of private prisons in the state,...

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...

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...

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...

Students Under Siege: How the School-to-Prison Pipeline, Poverty, and Racism Endanger Our School Children

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2018

Level Other Boards and Agencies

State(s) All States

Source Institute for Policy Studies

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Children & Families, Education

The path to prison often begins in childhood and in schools segregated by race and class. Over the past 40 years, American schools with high Black and brown student populations in low-income and poor communities have come to resemble prisons more than places of learning. Behaviors...

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...

2015 Madison "Ban the Box" Ordinance Reforming Hiring Practices

Type Ordinance or Resolution

Year 2015

Level City or Town

State(s) Wisconsin

Source Madison City Council

Policy Areas Civil Rights

This ordinance requires certain city contractors to "Ban the Box" in their hiring practices, meaning that an employer will not ask any questions on a job application about an applicant's criminal or police record; the "box" to check for crimes or law violations is removed from application...

Alternatives to Arrest for Young People

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2017

Level City or Town

State(s) All States

Source National League of Cities

Policy Areas Public Safety

Evidence shows that young people achieve better life outcomes and are less likely to commit future crimes when kept out of juvenile court and detention facilities. This brief highlights case studies in which cities have diverted youth away from the juvenile justice system through...

Community Corrections in Ohio: Cost Savings and Program Effectiveness

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2012

Level City or Town

State(s) Ohio

Source Policy Matters Ohio

Policy Areas Finance & Procurement, Democracy & Governance, Housing, Public Safety

This report finds that community corrections programs and community-based treatments are significantly less costly than imprisonment and makes the case for their expansion. ...

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...

The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2015

Level Other Boards and Agencies

State(s) All States

Source Institute for Policy Studies

Policy Areas Civil Rights, Public Safety

Poor people, especially people of color, face a far greater risk of being fined, arrested, and even incarcerated for minor offenses than other Americans. A broken taillight, an unpaid parking ticket, a minor drug offense, sitting on a sidewalk, or sleeping in a park can all result...

2011 Cook County Policy for Responding to ICE Detainers

Type Ordinance or Resolution

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...

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....

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...

Meaningful Work: Transgender Experiences in the Sex Trade

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2015

Level State, National

State(s) All States

Source National Center for Transgender Equality

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

Transgender people overall experience high levels of discrimination in every area of life, as well as high levels of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, negative interactions with police, incarceration, and violent victimization. As a result, many transgender people participate in...

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...

Budget Bite: Rehabilitation and Corrections

Type Policy Brief or Report

Year 2019

Level City or Town

State(s) Ohio

Source Policy Matters Ohio

Policy Areas Housing, Public Safety

The state costs a large amount on keeping people in prison. The increasing budget reflects the needs of a better prison system and strategies. By increasing support on medical care and education, the criminal justice system can also be improved. The report lists the progroms that...

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...

ProGov21 Policy Library

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