A pastor, a warden, and an educator walk into a bar...
Actually, they walk into the #DesMoines Register and drop facts: if #Iowa is serious about strengthening safety, more punishment won't work. When a warden tells you that, you listen.
Better ideas here👇🏽, incl. limiting the harm of fines & fees.
Hope isn't a gift. It's a necessity.
#Clemency is a critical tool in the criminal legal system. It's an act of justice. Of redemption.
Of hope.
And the hell that unfolds when a governor chooses to ignore it?
John J. Lennon spells it out.
@themarshallproject.org👇🏽
We can't push justice policy into the future if we're making decisions about people rooted in the past.
That's a problem with #riskassessments that advocates have raised for years and that Robert Sampson's research sheds new light on. From @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social👇🏽. #criminaljustice #publicpolicy
Your body and your time belong to us.
That's the message NY prisons are sending to people who are trying to visit someone who's incarcerated—trying to do the most basic act of mercy the system allows.
#incarceration #families
@prismreports.org👇🏽
#Immigration detention, #jail, #prison all share a brutal truth: for so many people, release is part of the punishment.
Nearly everyone behind the walls is coming out at some point—often worse off. The system shows you how fragile your freedom is and fractures any life you want to build with it.
What you assume about your team speaks louder than what you say to your team. How do I know? Because of the blank-as-f*** stares I got when I told a team they need to do better. Of course they do. The worst part? They already knew it.
Welcome back to The Struggle and the Joy.
#advocacy #leadership
A driver's license isn't a plastic card. It's an existential tool for survival.
On the #FreeToDrive campaign, we fight debt-based license suspensions. Identity-based policies like this? Different basis, same cruelty.
#Kansas #TransRights
@19thnews.org👇🏽
Like many African American parents, my mom tried to prepare me for the possibility of police brutality through a generational ritual known as The Talk.
As ICE detentions and arrests expanded last year, I started wondering if immigrant mothers were having their own talk. From me, via @19thnews.org:
That said, wanna know what #advocacy actually looks like?
It's knowing a loss is coming (narrowing of #bail eligibility), pivoting, and building a different win with enhanced #DueProcess protections.
It's finding a way to fight when real people's lives are on the line. #Texas #bailreform
Why #evidence and #data are never enough on their own.
Cashless bail doesn't undermine #publicsafety. It does help protect #DueProcess.
Don't let policymakers fool you. This isn't about what works. This is about maximizing punishment—because they can.
@themarshallproject.org👇🏽
Freedom, with an asterisk. Because the system can't ever fully let anyone go.
Well, it could. But it chooses not to.
Leonard Peltier is a voice for freedom and redemption—and a man labeled by the system as a permanent, radical threat.
@ict-news.bsky.social👇🏽
If it's #Friday, it's time for *This Week In #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees.*
Progress in #Arizona. Challenges in #Ohio. Building blocks in #Wisconsin.
#Incarceration systems excel at seeing you as less-than-human, coercing you into believing that about yourself, and exploiting that vulnerability. By design.
This @prismreports.org story isn't about Bedford Hills. It's about prisons and jails in this country. #NewYork #justice
When the #FirstStepAct was being debated, we (JLUSA) opposed it. For many reasons: who'd benefit the most, implementation foresight, resource constraints.
Peter Navarro isn't the face of incarceration. But he's right: Implement. The. Law. Even though it's flawed policy—as is now being exposed.
Happening TODAY! The Center for Youth Justice—at #Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy—hosting a virtual launch for the Forgotten Children Initiative.
The start of a hard, necessary conversation to connect the history of abuse and neglect of young Black men to current #youthjustice issues.
As a prosecutor, I helped build walls in the maze of #incarceration. As a defense attorney, I helped people navigate that maze. As an #advocate? I'm trying to knock those walls down. And #lawyers working in partnership to the movement, not just alongside it, will be crucial to our success.
25.02.2026 00:34 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Navigating #probation is like trying to cross a minefield. Blindfolded. Imagine doing that while worrying about where your next meal is coming from—or if it's coming at all. In 39 states, that's not hypothetical. It's what someone is dealing with as you read this.
New report from @prisonpolicy.org👇🏽
I found that this is wrong. Democracy actually is a powerful motivating force for a critical slice of the population *if they perceive a real threat*.
I call this the "legibility" theory of democratic backsliding: the more legible the threat, the more likely it is to prompt effective pushback.
Making it (theoretically) easier for a formerly incarcerated person to pay #debt feels good. It's, at least, a recognition of the problem. Forgiving debt? Slightly better.
The best *and necessary* step? Eliminate the underlying drivers of debt in the first place.
#Ohio #bipartisan #finesandfees
Water.
We're talking about water. For drinking. For cleaning. A basic element of human survival.
And the system is forcing people to choose between being poisoned and being extorted.
The worst part? This isn't unique to Texas.
From @truthout.org👇🏽
#incarceration #jails #prisons
2026 #campaigns have to invest in #VoPro and bring it into Field operations.
This is existential.
When I worked alongside a team political experts to help found Voter Protection Corps a few years ago, we tried to anticipate nightmare hypotheticals. At least some of them are now our reality. #vote
We never had an easy day in the fight to #CLOSErikers & #buildCOMMUNITIES. It was never a campaign limited by what's possible. It was—and is—a vision defined by what's necessary. I'll never stop being proud of what we achieved.
For what lies ahead? 👇🏽Excellent synopsis from @themarshallproject.org.
The Struggle and the Joy was already drifting from what I wanted it to be. So I decided to burn down the plan for this chapter and start again—by asking myself a question that maybe you've been asking all along: What gives me the authority to write this?
#leadership #reflections #advocacylife
"Inmates"
For all the work allies do to call attention to the hell of #incarceration & #immigration detention—the work is undone when we rely on the system's language to dehumanize the system's targets. It's PEOPLE. People are caged and emaciated here. If they stop being that, they stop being seen.
Who pays the price for systemic failures?
Kids. Children. The ones who the system is already punishing—in the name of growth and rehabilitation.
When the system is starved like this, it doesn't wither. It consumes more from the people already in it.
Necessary read from @themarshallproject.org👇🏽.
Federal #prosecutors were once held to a high standard. But now? Willfully diminished into mercenaries of an unjust cause—pushing lies, using public condemnation as a weapon, tolerating the whisper-quiet dismissals of their empty cases.
(h/t @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social)
Fascinating visualization of #NYC #crime data which I think demonstrates/reaffirms 3 ideas: progress—whether in policy reform or policy implementation—isn't linear; societal/environmental factors (e.g. the pandemic) really matter; & there's steady forward momentum in strengthening community #safety.
21.02.2026 18:51 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Everything we're seeing now is infuriating and tragic. It's also a remake. A remake of the #criminaljustice systems that have decimated Black communities, disappeared Black bodies, and shredded Black families.
For centuries.
This isn't who we've become. It's who we've always been.
👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
If they had been remotely serious about this being a "voter ID bill" they would have included pathways to getting free passports and birth certificates
This is - straight up - a voter suppression bill, and an ugly one #SaveAct
This week in #FreeToDrive and #EndJusticeFees: building events with state partners, #Chicago making a bad choice, and getting ready to learn from some allies in #Minnesota. Let's go! #advocacy
20.02.2026 22:21 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
