February 2023 E-Newsletter

New Year, New Policy Platform, New Opportunity to Get Involved!

45 years later, LSPC has an over-$3 million budget, owns our own building, employs 27 people—mostly formerly incarcerated and system-impacted—and has had hundreds of interns, many of whom became lawyers and are doing amazing work at organizations such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Equal Justice Initiative, or writing books that impact our national consciousness, like The New Jim Crow. And our first legal intern, Pamela Price, was just elected as the first Black District Attorney for Alameda County. 
 
Over the past 45 years, LSPC founded or fiscally sponsored All of Us or None, California Coalition of Women Prisoners, and the first Critical Resistance conferences, groups that have produced fundamental change in both policy and culture. Not only is the majority our staff formerly incarcerated, but we also created the Elder Freeman Policy Fellowship to train our future leaders. 
 
I’m very proud that over the course of the COVID pandemic that we’ve been able to maintain and support all our staff. It wasn’t too long ago—less than a decade—that Administrative Director Hamdiya Cooks-Abdullah and I were taking serious pay cuts to keep as many staff as possible. Our current financial stability is a sign of the scope and quality of our legislative, litigation, and grassroots organizing work. 
 
We now have a great mix of people who will allow us to accomplish more than we’ve been able to before. We have a team of four attorneys who are committed to the work in a real, personal way. They are doing everything from training lawyers at other legal service organizations, to crafting legislative policy, to continuing our suit to end long-term solitary confinement, to responding to the hundreds of letters we receive each month requesting legal advice.

We look forward to continue our campaigns into 2023, especially our work to expand visiting rights for family members and to remove the exception clause from Article 1, Section 6 of the California Constitution that legalizes involuntary servitude and perpetuates the practice of prison slavery. And we look forward to welcoming you to our 45th Anniversary Gala later this year!

Our Welcome Home Dinner celebrates people who were released in 2022—after enduring the dehumanizing experience of incarceration, we are honored to be able to create and strengthen the personal connections that reaffirm their humanity and their rightful place our community. The event is also an opportunity for people recently released to support those still inside by replying to letters and start volunteering on a regular basis. At the very least, we want everyone to feel welcome and at home at the Freedom & Movement Center.

Click here for more photos of our 2022 Welcome Home Dinner!

This work and Movement is truly All of Us or None, so thank you, again, for all your support, and we look forward to continuing our march towards justice together in 2023.

2023 Policy Platform 

We are at the start of yet another legislative session, which means that we will begin introducing legislation that can take up to the next two years to get passed. We thank you all for your policy ideas, contributions, and feedback. We plan to introduce many bills this year, but here is a brief rundown of the policies we can definitively say we are introducing in this legislative session:  

• Assembly Constitutional Amendment Removing Exception to Slavery in CA Constitution
  —We ARE coming back and won’t rest until SLAVERY is removed from our state’s Constitution. We are excited to announce that we will be helping to get this Constitutional amendment re-introduced this legislative session via our Abolish Bondage Collectively (ABC) campaign. Please email together@abolishbondagecollectively.org to get involved!
  
  
• Restoring Visiting as a Right!  
  —Our Coalition for Family Unity (CFU) is leading the effort to make visiting a right for incarcerated peoples and their families. Currently, CDCR is able to suspend someone’s visitations at their discretion. Not only is that inhumane toward the incarcerated individuals, but also their families, children, and loved ones who should have every right to maintain physical contact with their families inside.   
  —For more information contact Ivana Gonzalez at ivana@prisonerswithchildren.org or Jesse Burleson at jesse@prisonerswithchildren.org
  
  
• Raise Minimum Wage for ALL 
  —This bill will increase the minimum wage statewide for ALL workers, INCLUDING incarcerated workers.  
  For far too long the state has continued to exploit the labor of our comrades that end up caught up in the system’s enslavement mechanism. Incarcerated or not, human beings deserve to be properly compensated for their labor as well as have access to all the rights, benefits, and protections outlined under CA labor code. 
  —To learn more contact: jeronimo@prisonerswithchildren.org
  
  
• Ban the Box 2  
  —After passing AB 1008 back in 2018, All of Us or None made a HUGE impact by effectively “banning the box” that asks “have you ever been convicted of a felony” for thousands of people across the state. We also inspired a nationwide movement that saw similar legislation spread all over the nation and even be discussed in the halls of the White House.  
  —Unfortunately, employers that are determined to continue to marginalize our people have found loopholes in the legislation or just flat out have refused to comply; and because of a lack of meaningful regulations, they have faced minimal consequences.  
  —Ban the Box 2 seeks to eliminate background checks altogether through a comprehensive framework while creating stronger regulations to ensure that violators are discouraged from discriminating against applicants with conviction history.  
  —To learn more contact jeronimo@prisonerswithchildren.org 
  
  
• Family Proximity for Incarcerated Parents 
  —This bill would mirror legislation passed in NY, which would help ensure incarcerated parents be housed in facilities within reasonable proximity to their children.

While you might not have seen much of me over the years (autistic and an introvert, I’m much more comfortable behind the camera than in front :), you’ve definitely seen my work: all the monthly E-Newsletters (including this one), the annual Justice Journals, many of our photos (i.e. covering our 2022 Quest for Democracy Advocacy Day), our videos (such as highlights from our Community Giveback and our Annual Block Party), and most of our social media posts on Facebook and Twitter for both LSPC and All of Us or None.

As someone who’s formerly incarcerated myself, I felt so fortunate to find an organization like LSPC back in 2014—one that recognized the humanity of each person impacted by the criminal injustice system, and that uplifted our voices and experiences to be front and center in the Movement to abolish the prison-industrial complex. From the bottom of my heart, I thank Dorsey Nunn and Hamdiya Cooks-Abdullah for giving me the opportunity to use my privilege to support our community, and their continual support of me both professionally and personally, including my family. 
 
I will miss working with my friends & comrades at LSPC & All of Us or None—over the years we’ve passed significant legislation to remove barriers to employment, housing, & education, restored voting rights, & eliminated $1000s of ineffectual, burdensome fines & fees, all while developing the grassroots organizing & policy advocacy leadership of people directly impacted by mass incarceration & the prison-industrial complex. I started with 11 colleagues in a rented office in San Francisco—I'm leaving a staff of 27 who work in our own office building—The Freedom & Movement Center. It has been an honor to be able to share all our amazing work with our community over the years. 
 
While leaving LSPC, I am not leaving the Movement. As a Grant Writer and Farm Steward at Planting Justice, I’ll be able to continue to support our system-impacted community while also having my hands in the soil, growing all things green, and following my passion for regenerative agriculture and developing sustainable communities. And as Planting Justice has been partnering recently with All of Us or None to build healthy communities through policy advocacy, I’ll see you all at AOUON’s 11th Annual Quest for Democracy in Sacramento in Spring! 
 
For any Communications issues or info, please contact LSPC Communications Associate TaSin Sabir (who takes AMAZING photos) at: tasin@prisonerswithchildren.org