Jeremy Bearer-Friend is a Visiting Fellow at Justice Now and a Leadership Academy Fellow with Young People for the American Way. An educator at heart, Jeremy has taught within public schools, private schools, home schools, after-school programs, museums, colleges and prisons.
Prisons are bad for everyone–not just for the people in cages within them, not just for the children who have lost their parents to them, or the social programs who have their budgets cut because of them.
Prisons distract us from the root causes of violence and ultimately exacerbate the deeply entrenched challenges of racism, sexism and transphobia facing our communities.
Over this past week, Justice Now posted on how prisons operate as a form of population ...

Allison Forth, former client coordinator for Justice Now, just finished her Masters in Social Work at Hunter College of Social Work. Allison hopes to help create accountable and sustainable community interventions and programs that are not a part of the criminal legal system.
California is taking a fast turn down the wrong path by building “gender-responsive� prisons. Instead of getting caught up in the urgency of the prison crisis by attempting to create “better� punishment, we should say no to “Female Rehabilitative Community Correctional Centers� on the state and county levels.
Some critical questions we need to ask ourselves include: is it ethical or even possible to create comprehensive and effective treatment in a prison setting? ...

Robin Levi, Human Rights Director at Justice Now , is a bi-racial Jewish woman and attorney who has been working to protect and promote the human rights of women worldwide, especially women of color in the United States. She tries, and usually fails, to balance this paid work with taking care of her two daughters (with some help from her husband) and doing unpaid work in her many communities.
At Justice Now we examine the way the California prison system destroys people’s reproductive capacity. First, long sentences can keep people in prison through their reproductive years. And second, abysmal health care has led a significant number of people to face infertility. For example, ...

Misty Rojo, age 32 and mother of four, believes, “you don’t pity imprisoned women; instead, you question your own knowledge and belief in the society that has failed them and the system that has victimized them.” Misty is a member of Justice Now’s Board of Directors.
When the Assignment Lieutenant wanted me to do vocational training in Cosmotology, I said “HELL NO!”. Why me? Because I’m a petite 115lbs female? I wasn’t a petite 115lbs female in danger from an abuser when the judge sentenced me to 12 years for a violent crime.
What I didn’t know then was how fun and therapeutic welding is for me; I plan to make a career of it. Unfortunately, in a ...

Vanessa Huang is a queer Chinese-American organizer, writer, and artist born to immigrants from Taipei. Vanessa is the Campaign Director for Justice Now , and also organizes with Transforming Justice and the Bay Area chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence .
Our movements are at a turning point.
10 years have passed since Critical Resistance ’s founding gathering in 1998, when thousands of people converged in Berkeley to develop strategies to abolish the prison industrial complex. Back then, I was 14 years old and just beginning high school, unaware of this historic gathering taking place just across town.
As a queer female- and able-bodied kid of immigrants who came to the U.S. ...

Monica Wade was born and raised in Oakland, CA. She is now the Office Manager of Justice Now and is also the founder and director of Tender Care, transitional housing for those who need and want to be in a safe and healthy environment. She was incarcerated for 10 years of her life and knows what goes on behind prison walls and the torture and pain people go through.
Once a person is released, then what? What if they’ve been there 25 years? Then what? Children are all up and grown; rest of the family is dead or married. Where do they go? And how do they support themselves?
Once you’re incarcerated and you get out, things change. ...

I am very very excited this week to present our Voices of series for May featuring the amazing organization Justice Now. Justice Now is located in Oakland CA and works at the intersection of violence against women and incarceration and prison expansion. They are one of the amazing organizations that fights for prison abolition.
In their own words,

Our mission is to end violence against women and stop their imprisonment. We believe that prisons and policing are not making our communities safe and whole but that, in fact, the current system severely damages the people it imprisons and the communities most affected by it. We promote alternatives to policing and prisons and challenge the prison industrial complex in all ...