Transformation Efforts
Transformation Efforts
In order for our communities to heal from longstanding, ongoing structural racism and systemic harm, criminal legal systems must be reoriented to acknowledge the past harm done and reallocate resources toward repair and reparations.
Efforts Needed for Transformation:
Reparations must be made to communities disproportionately harmed and torn apart by cycles of criminalization and incarceration throughout the history of the United States. (1)
Invest in the housing and comprehensive supportive services necessary to prevent and end homelessness in an effort to repair the systemic harm done by criminalizing and institutionalizing people experiencing homelessness.
Federally abolish all laws that criminalize acts related to: experiencing homelessness or housing instability; youth, adolescence, and young adulthood; living in poverty; and laws that criminalize sex work. The federal government should incentivize states to do the same and enact federal protections that ensure the human rights of those experiencing homelessness.
Transformative justice must supplant the retributive carceral legal systems that exist today. The harms outlined above must be addressed and healed through comprehensive frameworks and mechanisms of transformative justice that are designed to shift social culture from punishment toward healing in the community.
(1) The forthcoming Economic Justice Pillar of the New Deal to End Youth Homelessness will define strategies for disbursing reparations.