The criminal system is not about justice.
The United States has the largest apparatus of policing, prosecution, and prisons in world history. Those in power call it the “criminal justice system” but in reality it is not about justice. Across the punishment bureaucracy, the decisions made by police, prosecutors, prisons, probation and parole departments, judges, and the multibillion dollar industries that evolve in symbiosis with them are done for the purpose of profit, power, and control. The punishment bureaucracy even uses its own violence and ineffectiveness to get more resources in a recurring cycle of “reform.” Each failed reform means repeating the cycle, each time with more money. Civil Rights Corps interrupts this cycle.
Ending The Criminalization of Poverty
Every day over 500,000 people, who have not been convicted of a crime, languish in jails and prisons across the country. They are confined to jail cells mostly because they can’t afford to buy their freedom through cash bail. Others are caged because of their inability to pay court debts. Our work aims to end these cruel and unconstitutional practices that criminalize poverty.
Accountability: Police, Prosecutors, and Judges
We hold powerful carceral system actors accountable for abuse and misconduct through an array of strategies, projects, and partnerships. Having built a network of community-based organizations, advocates, attorneys, and law professors, CRC’s accountability work exposes abuses, litigates on behalf of those most harmed, and supports communities in implementing these unique strategies for sustainable change.
Ending Family Separation
Our work aims to redefine the way people see 1) jails and prisons as not just systems of mass human caging, but also as systems of mass family separation, and 2) the “child welfare” system as its true function, family policing. In this work, we use innovative strategies to effectively intervene in the systems that separate families.
Advocacy
Through developing deep relationships with partners on the ground from our most impacted communities, CRC’s advocacy work focuses on amplifying the voices of community organizers, directly impacted people and local advocates, as well as providing legal expertise where needed, to help create sustainable change in systems, government investment, and public policy.
Artists In Residence
Our criminal system’s ability to accomplish mass human caging depends on the erasure of people who are impacted by this injustice’s stories. Through our Artists in Residence Fellowship, we partner with directly-impacted artists, poets, and musicians, to amplify our work through creative mediums, shining a light on the past, and imagining new futures.
Organizational Incubation & Support
Collaboration with social movements and community-based organizations is foundational to CRC’s approach and key to our success. As part of this commitment, we provide small grant opportunities, as well as material support, to grassroots organizations. We have also incubated multiple organizations, offering infrastructure support during their early development.