Turning a storm into a movement
As Criminal Justice Innovation & Second Chance Employment is one of Greenbridge’s key portfolios, it’s been important that we are constantly meeting with and learning from those who have proximate experience with this system and those on the front lines of fighting for change throughout it. As part of that learning journey, I recently spent a few days in New Orleans at One for Justice’s first-ever summit, immersed in the criminal justice reform movement.
We’ve all been to conferences—you know the ones, with a jam-packed schedule, different speakers and panelists coming to and from the stage, while you freeze at your seat, enjoy underwhelming food, and squeeze way too much into each break.
This experience was different in all the best ways, some of which I want to highlight here. What’s more, I left having been exposed to the vast array of allies, each of whom holds significant power over the life of the person in front of them, and how they choose to show up with humanity, kindness, understanding, rationality, and responsibility. I better understood just how many levers we have to choose from when trying to decide what kind of change we want to affect.
As you read on, consider looking holistically at the causes you champion. Keep your eyes open for unlikely allies and outsized moments that can create change throughout the wider system. By expanding our perspective and collaboration, we can drive meaningful progress in criminal justice reform or whatever cause is closest to your heart.
Location
The One for Justice team thoughtfully chose to host this event in New Orleans in allyship with those movement builders working tirelessly to fight against the new bills passed in a special session by recently-elected Governor Landry. The former Governor, John Bel Edwards, a tireless advocate for sensible criminal justice reform, was our opening speaker. Throughout the summit, we heard from various movement leaders and coalition builders about how supported they felt as they worked to counter these setbacks and that our presence was powerfully felt.
Co-organizers
The team also chose a location where they had meaningful connections with movement leaders on the ground. This led to rich and diverse speakers and sessions. Its impact was outsized when, on the first day of the conference, New Orleans received a month’s worth of rain in eight hours (a good reminder about the importance of our portfolio working to counter the impacts of climate change!). Several iterations of the agenda were scrapped as the city shut down to avoid floods and tornadoes. But the folks with deep connections throughout the city and state were able to call in favors, and soon enough, we were having fantastic dialogues with a series of reform-minded judges, and listening to those who had spent years—or decades—at ‘Angola’ (the largest maximum security prison in the country, which we had planned to visit that day) and what lessons they took from that time ‘inside’ that informs the work they are now doing ‘outside’. The visit to Angola was also re-booked for later in the week which, for anyone who has tried to go on a visit inside a maximum-security prison, you know is not easy to do.
Influencers
Finally, I wanted to call out the diversity of folks who work at different points in the criminal justice system, who shared their perspectives on the influence they hold and how they use that responsibly, in the hopes of creating a criminal justice system that is humane, rational, and reasonable. This included Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, judges sitting in the Orleans Parish District Court, prosecutors, the warden of Louisiana State Penitentiary (aka Angola), and an incredible array of non-profit leaders running organizations that work at every stage of the system, including the experience of those returning to the community and seeking second chance employment.
They asked questions like:
Should I charge this person with one crime or several? (Each criminal offense carries a separate set of fines or years to serve.)
Should I charge this person with a crime that carries a mandatory minimum or a slightly lesser charge that doesn’t carry a mandatory minimum?
How can I bring humanity into a person’s time in prison? Would the program they are proposing increase the safety of the prison and the quality of life of those who live and work here?
A person who is incarcerated is asking to develop a skill that could be income-earning once they return to the community. Can I support them in honing that skill while they are serving their time?
A person who is incarcerated is seeking parole. Is their case worthy of consideration so we can decrease the time they spend away from their family and loved ones?
How do we simplify the hurdles that folks face as they return to the community and increase the likelihood that they can find a stable job that provides the routine that will help set them up for success?
How do we assess the success of someone who has returned to the community? How do we look beyond recidivism to indicators that point to positive contributions to one’s own life, family, and society?
I certainly left these few days with my eyes opened about the wide array of points throughout the criminal justice system that we can influence, each playing an important role in what the experience of the justice-impacted individual will be. I saw just how big the table must be to ensure all perspectives are considered and included so that everyone who chooses to show up in allyship can have a seat and play a role in evolving the American criminal justice system.
As we turn our attention to our own criminal justice portfolio later this year, these lessons and insights will influence what points within the system we choose to focus on and what kinds of organizations we support.
In the meantime, we invite you to explore the organizations we’re currently supporting whose work is vital in the criminal justice reform and second-chance employment space.
And as we’ve done since the start, we look forward to continuing to share the lessons we learn along the way.
(Thank you to the One for Justice team for letting me share a few of the photos they captured throughout the conference.)
