RESOURCE LIST
If you are searching for more ways to get involved, here is a (constantly updating list) that will help you engage more deeply with America’s criminal legal system.
National Resources
-
Contact: contact_us@eji.org
EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
-
Innocence Project (each state has local groups)
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501c nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
-
Critical Resistance is a U.S. based organization that works to build a mass movement to dismantle what it calls the prison-industrial complex.
State By State Resources
Click on the plus to learn more about the organizations in that state
-
FAMM Arizona works to advocate for incarcerated people and support sentencing and prison reform in Arizona and nationally.
Mass Liberation Arizona is a community organization and movement working to end mass incarceration by building a world where we value people over property, healing over punishment, and liberation for everyone.
Read between the Bars is a volunteer-based, non-profit program that sends books to People Incarcerated in Arizona’s Federal Detention Centers.
The Arizona Justice project was the fifth ever organization in the United States created to help inmates overturn wrongful convictions.Its mission is to represent indigent Arizona inmates whose claims of innocence or manifest injustice have gone unheeded.
-
Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition
Contact: Kyle Giddings (Civic Engagement Coordinator) - Kyle@ccjrc.org
Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition is a non-profit organization that works to eliminate the overuse of the criminal justice system and advance community health and safety.
There are many ways to get involved with CCJRC. The first is becoming a CCRJR Supporter; they are also available to make presentations or participate in community discussions so feel free to contact us to make arrangements.
Contact: Khalil Halim (Executive Director) - info@SCCcolorado.org
Second Chance Center helps formerly incarcerated people transition to lives of success and fulfillment. We provide the formerly incarcerated, and their network, with education, resources, and support to successfully re-enter the community and cultivate a rewarding life.
Through Second Chance Center, there are a couple ways to get involved such as donating, volunteering or being a community partner.
Contact: Alex Landau & Gianina Horton (Co-Directors) - denverjusticeproject@gmail.com
Denver Justice Project radically transforms the criminal legal system through intersectional advocacy that fosters safe and healthy communities.
Through Denver Justice Project, individuals can reach out to volunteer with the program and learn more about the work they do.
-
Florida Prisoner Solidarity (FPS) is a carceral abolitionist collective with membership expanding across the state, both inside and outside prisons. Their efforts are focused around the needs of all incarcerated individuals, their care networks, and the people in community with them.
The Florida Justice Institute is a nonprofit public interest law firm that uses impact litigation and advocacy to improve the lives of Florida’s poor and disenfranchised residents, while focusing on criminal justice reform, homelessness & poverty, disability access, and other civil rights issues
Florida Cares is a community organization dedicated to improving the lives of incarcerated people and empowering one another
The Open Books Project is a Nonprofit Bookstore, where proceeds from the sale of books and donations support the Prison Book Project, operating since 2000.
The Prison Book Project currently sends around 10,000 books each year to indigent inmates in Florida prisons, one of the largest prison systems in the country and one sorely lacking in-house book collections. The Prison Book Project currently serves approximately 2,000 incarcerated individuals each year.
Florida Prison Education Project
FPEP is an initiative of the University of Central Florida that seeks to offer a high-quality undergraduate education to people who are incarcerated in Central Florida.
Florida Campaign for Criminal Justice
FLCCJR is a coalition dedicated to comprehensive reform that ends overreliance on incarceration and eliminates racial disparities in Florida’s criminal justice system. Members include SPLC Action Fund, ACLU of Florida, Florida Cares Charity, and more.
-
Hawai'i Friends of Restorative Justice
Contact: Lorenn Walker (Director) - lorenn@hawaiifriends.org
Hawai'i Friends of Restorative Justice provides education, training and program development for schools, courts, hospitals, prisons, government agencies, NGOs, and others based on a group’s unique needs for peacemaking and conflict management skill building.
-
VOTE is a grassroots organization founded and run by formerly incarcerated people (FIP), their families and allies.Through community organizing, policy advocacy, and civic engagement, they are dedicated to restoring the full human and civil rights of those most impacted by the criminal (in)justice system.
Louisiana Books 2 Prisoners is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to sending free reading material to people who are incarcerated. We send thousands of books every year to people who are locked up in jails, prisons, and ICE facilities in Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas. LAB2P is run by a small organizing collective, and we have a strong base of awesome volunteers who help make it all possible.
The Women’s Prison Project is a collaboration between Tulane Law School’s Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence Clinics, which provides legal representation, training, education, and consultation, and does policy work all connecting to women impacted by the criminal legal system.
PJI works to create positive change for people in the criminal legal system at the intersection of impact litigation, direct services and community engagement. Our tools include criminal and civil litigation, organizing, direct support, and policy advocacy.
Louisiana Appleseed is dedicated to solving the state’s toughest problems at the root cause by advocating for access to justice, opportunity, and education.
-
Families for Justice as healing
Families for Justice as Healing is led by incarcerated women, formerly incarcerated women, and women with incarcerated loved ones. Our mission is to end the incarceration of women and girls. Families for Justice as Healing is unapologetically focused on women and girls and are abolitionists. They organize in the most incarcerated communities in the Commonwealth to transform the way we respond to harm and develop alternatives to police, courts, and incarceration.
Black and Pink Massachusetts is an independent organization and open family working for abolition of the criminal punishment system, which disproportionately impacts lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people, as well as those living with HIV.
Deeper Than Water is an abolitionist coalition working against incarceration and water injustice in MA (and across the world) while demanding the immediate provision of clean, safe, free, healthy water to prisoners affected by contaminated water.
Great Falls Books Through Bars
Great Falls Books through Bars is an organization in Franklin County, MA that sends free books, resources and reading material to incarcerated people.
Concord Prison Outreach (CPO) is a 501(c)(3) organization composed of a coalition of individuals and faith communities committed to helping people who are incarcerated build better lives for themselves and their families.
The New Garden Society is run by horticulturists, landscapers and farmers who seek to expand green industry opportunities for our incarcerated and formerly incarcerated neighbors in Greater-Boston.
Partakers works every day to reduce prison recidivism through essential educational opportunities and empowering mentorship relationships.
The Petey Greene Program (PGP) supports the academic goals of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people through high-quality volunteer tutoring programs, while educating volunteers on the injustice manifest in our carceral system and encouraging them to engage in justice-oriented activism to reimagine the criminal legal system.
-
Contact: Ken Nixon (Director of Outreach and Community Partnerships) - info@safeandjustmi.org
Mission: Safe & Just Michigan works to advance policies that end Michigan's over-use of incarceration and promote community safety and healing
Contact: Sarah Ebidon (Volunteer Manager) - info@humanityforprisoners.org
Mission: With compassion for those who have nowhere else to turn, Humanity for Prisoners (HFP) provides personalized problem-solving services for people in prison.
-
Women’s Prison Book Project (WPBP) provides women and transgender persons in prison with free reading materials covering a wide range of topics from law and education (dictionaries, GED, etc.) to fiction, politics, history, and women’s health. They are an all-volunteer, grassroots organization.
The University of Minnesota Law School’s Clemency Project advocates for individuals serving disproportionately long prison sentences, with the primary goal of obtaining reductions in these sentences.
Black and Pink was formed to connect Midwest-based incarcerated trans/gender non-conforming people with other trans/gender non-conforming and allied community member pen pals for friendship. This project was initially launched to reach out to transgender prisoners who are placed in lockdown (administrative segregation) but later accepted pen pal requests across the LGBTQI spectrum.
-
Katal Center for Equity, Health, & Justice
Contact: info@katalcenter.org
Mission: Karl Center works to strengthen the people, policies, institutions, and movements that advance equity, health, and justice for everyone. We envision a world where all communities have the resources and power to exercise self-determination and participate meaningfully in the democratic process.
Contact: info@innovatingjustice.org.
Mission: Seeking to reduce crime and incarceration and increase public trust in justice, the Midtown Community Court works with neighborhood stakeholders to improve Midtown Manhattan
Restorative Justice Initiative
Contact: info@restorativejustice.nyc
Mission: Restorative Justice Initiative (RJI) is a citywide, multi-sector network of practitioners, advocates and community members seeking to increase support for, and access to, restorative justice approaches for all New Yorkers.
-
Ohio Justice and Policy Center
OJPC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit law firm with offices in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. We fight for equal justice and fair treatment in all stages of incarceration, because every person deserves dignity after their conviction and freedom after their sentence. We offer a spectrum of free legal services, programs, and resources for people in all communities who lack essential support as they navigate the complexities of our criminal legal system.
Ohio Innocence Project at Cincinnati Law
The Ohio Innocence Project at Cincinnati Law advocates for incarcerated people with the goal of freeing every innocent person in Ohio who has been convicted of a crime they didn't commit.
HBC challenges structural inequities to create new and unprecedented educational, artistic, and transformative opportunities, so that people are better able to live, wherever that may be, as healthy, connected, and contributing members of their communities.
-
Contact: staff@sentencingproject.org
Mission: The Sentencing Project advocates for effective and humane responses to crime that minimize imprisonment and criminalization of youth and adults by promoting racial, ethnic, economic, and gender justice.
Prison and Justice Initiative at Georgetown (Marc M. Howard - Founding Director!)
Contact: prisonsandjustice@georgetown.edu
Mission: PJI’s programs offer transformative education and training to open doors for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals in the Washington, D.C. area. We empower those whose potential has been stymied by lack of opportunity and constrained by incarceration to become leaders in their communities. We equip talented individuals with knowledge, skills, experiences, and academic achievement to help them overcome the stigma of incarceration.