our plan
Mass incarceration is a monster that took hundreds of years, with millions of laws and policies, to build. We need to dismantle it—piece by piece, structure by structure, and build something redemptive in its place. It’s not broken. It’s functioning exactly the way those who designed and built it intended it to function. It’s firing on all cylinders. It must be abolished, defunded, and completely reimagined.
DEFUND POLICE AND INVEST IN COMMUNITIES
END POLICE VIOLENCE
ESTABLISH INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT
HOLD POLICE ACCOUNTABLE
DECARCERATE
REFORM IMMIGRATION
OUR POLICY PLAN
What’s the plan? And what do we do next to make it happen?
Those are the two most frequently asked questions that we hear from people all over the country, and around the world, as we all continue to reel from the devastating impact of police brutality and mass incarceration.
This is our plan. It is a start. It is a living document that will be improved upon and developed daily. It was written with support and guidance from a dozen leading policy experts, activists, and impacted families.
White supremacy, bigotry, greed, and corruption are no doubt at the center of police brutality and mass incarceration, but do not confuse the presence of these evils with simplicity. These systems are complex, deeply entrenched, and took hundreds of years and millions of laws and policies to create. Dismantling them, and replacing them with something imaginative and redemptive will be the work of our lives. But together, step by step, we can do this.
Defund Police and Invest in Communities
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that budgets are moral documents. They reveal the priorities and values of a home, of a community, and of a nation. Right now, we have a fundamental math problem when it comes to policing and mass incarceration. What does that mean?
The United States spends a staggering $200 billion per year on policing and mass incarceration. That’s more than any country in the history of the world. It’s not even close. And we get out, what we put in. The United States arrests, jails, and incarcerates more people than any country in the world. We often say that 2.3 million people are in America’s jails and prisons, but that’s just on any given day. Over the course of a year, over 10 million Americans are jailed and millions more are placed on probation or parole.
What we have now come to learn, is that in most American cities, like Los Angeles, the LAPD takes up a staggering 53% of the city's entire general fund. It’s outrageous, but it’s not rare. It’s the norm, but this has not always been the case. Policing and mass incarceration should be more like 5% of a city’s budget and the remaining 95% should be spent on infrastructure, education, healthcare, jobs, housing, the environment, business startups, and so much more.
The end of policing and mass incarceration as we know it must begin with defunding police and investing in communities. Period.
Divert funds from police budgets and invest resources into community-based programs.
End the criminalization of drug use
Invest in and legalize safe injection sites
Invest in drug treatment facilities
Invest in mental health treatment
Invest in housing
Invest in schools
Pledge decreases in police budgets
Develop 24 hr non-police mental health crisis response capacity
Close youth and adult prisons and jails, and reinvest resources in community-based, transformative justice programs and alternatives to incarceration that focus on rehabilitation and accountability
Pledge decreases in incarceration budgets
Pledge to close jails and prisons
Demilitarize the police by banning the federal transfer of military grade weapons, tactical equipment and vehicles to local police forces and ending militarized training programs
Completely overhaul local 911 systems to convert them into smart systems that divert calls to specialized teams - i.e. mental health, substance use, children and family, etc. that are largely staffed by non-police professionals, such as social workers and trauma doctors
Invest in solutions to help survivors find safety and healing
Stop jails and prisons from contracting and outsourcing essential services (such as healthcare) to private contractors
End the practice of charging people incarcerated in jails and prisons for essential services and reading material, such as medical care, telephone calls, electronic tablets and books
Create a task force for Federal Review every officer involved shooting and in custody death
End the use of police in schools
End the arrest and handcuffing of juveniles
Create an unarmed first responder unit comprised of social workers and mental health professionals that responds to mental health crises and other non life threatening situations in the community
End Police Violence
End no-knock raids
Ban police tactics that are meant to impair people’s breathing including all restrictive choke holds
Change use of force standard from reasonable, which is nebulous, to necessary.
Completely redefine and systemize a safe use of force continuum to include new tools and strategies that are literally the standard all over the world
Provide regular de-escalation training
Require public reporting of all use of force incidents
Establish Independent Oversight
Establish civilian oversight committees with subpoena powers over law enforcement with powers to investigate and discipline acts of police abuse and killings independently of current law enforcement
Establish Police Accountability Unit that will review police misconduct and discipline officers for wrong doing
Hold Police Accountable
Require that police officers and other first responders live in the communities they serve.
Establish laws making it illegal for police departments to hire officers who were previously fired or who resigned while being investigated for serious misconduct including the use of excessive force, or domestic violence.
Establish public data systems to track critical information re: policing like arrest information, demographics, charges, conviction history, jail and prison population information
Require any officer who shoots someone to submit to a mandatory drug and alcohol test within one hour of the shooting.
Unseal and make public all records of police misconduct and complaints against police
Ban all union contracts from interfering with police accountability, by
Eliminating officers’ ability to review evidence before submitting to an investigation
Allowing for the investigation of all civilian complaints, regardless of when filed
Prohibiting the destruction of personnel files and complaints
Ending arbitration after internal discipline occurs
Ending indemnification for police abuse
Grant media and family immediate access to all body, dash and video evidence. (upload to a public warehouse)
End the doctrine of qualified immunity
In all fatal encounters with police require autopsies independent of the county
Decarcerate: Pretrial, Sentencing, and Prosecutorial Reform
End cash bail and allow for total pre-trial release
End pre-trial surveillance
Do not rely on racist risk assessments
End the death penalty
End absolute immunity for prosecutorial misconduct
Completely legalize drug possession
Direct all drug sales cases to diversion and treatment programs
End the criminalization of homelessness and poverty by ending arrests and prosecution of low-level offenses such as fare evasion, trespassing and panhandling.
Dramatically reduce supervision terms to no more than 6 months on misdemeanors and no more than 12 on felonies.
End the practice of jailing people for non-criminal violations of probation.
Establish sentence review units and make every incarcerated person eligible to have their sentences reviewed for parole every 5 years. Create a presumption of release once the person has turned 50 or after he or she has served ten years.
Require open file discovery and early-disclosure of all Brady material
Establish a fully funded Conviction Integrity Unit that is independently run in the prosecutor's office.
Make criminal record expungement automatic after one year for misdemeanors and after three years for felonies.
Remove legal barriers that prevent re-entering citizens from getting jobs, housing, education, and other social services
“Ban the box”
Complete massive reconsideration of sentencing laws and standards. Current terms were created in the most random and destructive ways imaginable. End mandatory minimums.
Radically reform parole, including shortening the length of time people are required to be on parole, the reporting requirements, the terms and conditions
Fully fund public defender offices
Restore the right to vote to all currently and previously incarcerated people regardless of felony charges, including granting easy access to voting for all local and national elections within jails and prisons
Reform Immigration
Establish sanctuary cities, where undocumented citizens won’t have to fear deportation even if they get in trouble with the law
End any collaboration between any local law enforcement agencies and ICE
Make prosecutor’s consider immigration consequences and present immigration neutral plea offers
End the separation of families in our immigration system
Fast track cases of migrants detained with children and those who have been detained for two weeks or longer
Full transparency within the immigrant holding facilities and detention centers
Access to immediate medical care within the facility
Access to specialized care for those with specific medical needs
Access to immediate competent legal counsel in their native language
End the practice of deportation back to the border without a full legal review of the migrants case
Establish access to an outside system of reporting security guard violence and abuse within the detention facilities