Yes, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights advances a philosophy of Truth and Reinvestment, meaning we need to acknowledge how this country’s racist history has led us to where we are today, and reinvest in the communities that have been most harmed.

To achieve that vision, we campaign to move funding away from police and prisons and towards community resources. For example, in Oakland, where the Ella Baker Center is based, we worked with allies and won a Jobs Not Jails campaign last year to shift half of the county’s public safety budget away from the sheriff and towards re-entry services.

In 2014, California passed Proposition 47, an initiative that reclassified certain low-level felonies as misdemeanors and reinvested the savings in mental health treatment, educational programs, and victims services. We are working with other organizations across the state to make sure that those savings do in fact benefit communities, instead of being re-funneled into punishment systems.

Read more about our work: ellabakercenter.org.