Our Work:
ADVOCACY
We advocate at the state level for divestment from punitive systems, investment in community-based healing practices. We uplift the success stories from the most impacted communities and work to permanently change the landscape of incarceration in California.
TRUSTED MESSENGERS
Our Trusted Messenger program is a great opportunity for people with lived experience to develop new advocacy skills and play a meaningful role in shaping policies that highlight the transformative power of community-based programs in CA state prisons. This fellowship elevates the insights of people who have directly experienced incarceration and community-based rehabilitation. Fellows participate in structured legislative meetings to help policymakers understand the impact, value, and needs of rehabilitation programs.
We select a cohort of Trusted Messengers every legislative season who both support our advocacy efforts and gain valuable training and first hand experience which provides skills and insight the can use in future endeavors. The benefits go beyond TPW or our Trusted Messenger team as we all seek to further common sense efforts which reduce harm inside prisons for staff, officers, and incarcerated folks alike and reduce recidivism - essentially reducing future harms in our communities - while saving taxpayers money.
COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS:
We serve as an umbrella for CBOs that foster personal transformation through a diverse array of interventions, from family restoration, civic engagement, education, emotional literacy, entrepreneurship, employment training, yoga and mindfulness practices, to healing arts and music programs, vocational gardening, and more.
WOMEN’S COMMITTEE:
Our Women’s Committee is comprised of CBOs that provide healing programs inside California women’s prisons, giving incarcerated women a chance to speak their truth, to see that they can have the life they want for themselves and their families, and to acquire the tools to do it successfully.