Policy Research & Advocacy
Policy Research & Advocacy Overview
Represent Justice turns stories into action. Using the power of storytelling, we raise awareness and bring policy-makers and the general public proximate to the history and issues of the justice system. We also engage in and support advocacy initiatives designed to create public demand around the need for justice-system transformation, with a focus on tipping-point issues where our involvement alongside other community organizations and system-impacted advocates can be the most effective, and where we can make the greatest impact.
Key Advocacy Issue Priorities
Represent Justice seeks defined advocacy outcomes responsively based on the needs and desires of our Ambassadors and other community partners. This means identifying stories that shine a light on these specific issues within the legal system that will strengthen advocacy and later lead to legislative and policy targets.
The issue areas for Represent Justice are:
Gender-inclusive justice
Youth justice
Alternatives to incarceration
Reentry and opportunity
Gender-inclusive justice: Since 1980, the women’s prison population has grown by over 700%—faster than any other population in the country. Over 80% of women entering the legal system have experienced some form of sexual, partner, or caregiver violence. Additionally, women in prison experience high rates of serious mental illness (32%), medical issues (53%), and drug/alcohol dependence (82%). LGBTQ people, in particular BIPOC transgender women, are overrepresented at all areas of the prison system.
Represent Justice seeks to influence discussion around the laws, policies, and practices that address the unique drivers of incarceration for women, as well as the unique barriers experienced in their reentry. This includes replacing destructive narratives—“why didn’t she just leave?” and the “perfect victim,” in which women who do not fit racist and bigoted stereotypes of what a “victim” should be are shown little or no compassion—with intersectional narratives that highlight the compounded traumas of racism, sexism, and poverty in and outside of the carceral system. By uplifting stories that link rape culture to prison culture through policy and practice, we can further unpack how violence happens at interpersonal and communal levels and actualize interventions that prioritize gender justice and holistic community.
Policy areas include, but are not limited to:
Sentencing relief policies that prevent the criminalization of survivors of abuse and gender-based violence who have been involved in crimes.
Ensuring the safe and dignified treatment of women in the legal system (e.g., protection from sexual assaults, family-centered treatment, dignity for pregnant women, and access to female hygiene products).
Assigning women to prisons that keep them close to their children and eliminating barriers to reentry that keep women from their families.
Represent Justice also continues to refine and grow our understanding of the many nuanced issues that impact gender non-conforming and trans people, who are four times more likely than other U.S. adults to be arrested and/or incarcerated. In addition, transgender and gender non-conforming people are much more likely—in society as well as in the legal system—to be refused adequate medical care and to experience continued dehumanization, abuse, and disregard for their identity.
Youth justice: The United States incarcerates more young people than any country in the world. According to data from the ACLU, on any given day, over 60,000 youth are confined in juvenile facilities and each year 250,000 kids below the age of 18 are tried and prosecuted in adult courts. Represent Justice seeks to influence discourse around related laws, policies, and practices in order to end the harmful treatment of children in the legal system, respect their humanity and dignity, and recognize their great capacity for change. This includes replacing the narrative framing of the “incorrigible” child and the “superpredator” with “treat children like children.”
Policy areas include, but are not limited to:
Eliminating the school-to-prison and foster-care-to-prison pipelines.
Prioritizing diversionary programs and alternatives to incarceration.
Preventing children younger than 14 from being charged with any criminal offense or impacted by the legal system in any way.
Prohibiting or limit the transfer of children to adult courts (e.g., Raise the Age legislation).
Ensure that children are adequately represented by legal counsel during interrogation.
Prevent children from being sentenced to life without parole (JLWOP) and other extreme sentences that do not allow meaningful opportunities for release.
Alternatives to incarceration: Represent Justice seeks to uplift the systemic failure of mass incarceration and present reimagined alternatives to incarceration that don’t rely on jails and courts, but instead treat root causes with community investment. For example, it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of people entering the justice system are struggling with some form of substance abuse, and over one-third of people entering the justice system have been diagnosed with a mental illness. This includes replacing the narrative of “investments in incarceration and policing are necessary to keep dangerous criminals off the streets and keep the communities safe” with “investments in the community (health, housing, education, etc.) are more effective ways to keep communities safe.”
Examples include, but are not limited to:
Substance abuse treatment.
Mental health support.
Bail reform.
Community street teams (e.g., violence interruption).
Community-led diversion programs.
Community investment, such as affordable housing and job training.
Reentry and opportunity: Over 3.8 million people in the United States are currently under some form of legal system surveillance (e.g., pardon, parole) and many are disenfranchised from basic opportunities, like the right to vote, pursuit of education with student loan assistance, access to housing, and the ability to pursue meaningful employment. Despite the fact that over 95% of incarcerated people will one day reenter society, there are over 45,000 collateral consequences that affect the ability for those returning home to live meaningful lives, putting them at risk of recidivism. Represent Justice seeks to influence discourse around dehumanizing practices—including language—that create barriers to reentry for system-impacted individuals and communities. Our programming instead highlights success stories of system-impacted leaders effecting positive change in their communities, with examples that provide hope and opportunity. This includes replacing the narrative of “strict parole and probation laws are necessary to keep dangerous offenders from reoffending” with “policies of exclusion and barriers to reentry that deny incarcerated people their humanity and well-being, drive costly recidivism and decrease public safety.”
Examples of barriers we seek to address include, but are not limited to:
Felony disenfranchisement.
Lack of access to fair hiring and employment.
Denied access to housing.
Eliminating costly court-ordered fees and fines.
Ineligibility for public benefits.
Ineligibility for student loans and financial aid.
Key Geographic Priorities
Represent Justice seeks to broaden our reach in the coming years to geographic areas covering a critical mass—which we are defining as 70%—of the total population of people incarcerated in prisons and jails across the country.
Currently, Represent Justice operates in nine different states and the District of Columbia, covering a geographic area of roughly 800,000 of the 1.8 million people in jails and prisons. Over half (17) of our Ambassadors come from states that are among the top five incarcerators of children in the country. The below geographies in which Represent Justice currently operates represent roughly 45% of the total population of people incarcerated in prisons and jails across the country:
California
Georgia
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Louisiana
New York
Arizona
Illinois
Wisconsin
District of Columbia
Represent Justice is actively expanding into an additional six states by 2026, broadening our reach to geographies in which the criminal legal system is actively impacting a total of 1.26 million currently incarcerated people, or a critical mass of 70% of the total population currently incarcerated:
Alabama (year 1)
Texas (year 1)
Florida (year 2)
Michigan (year 2)
Oklahoma (year 2)
Indiana (year 3)
Virginia (year 3)
Active Coalitions
Federal Youth Justice Coalition – is a broad coalition of victim and child advocacy groups advocating for youth justice reform at the federal level.
Abolish Slavery National Network (#EndTheException) – is a national coalition focused on ending the exception in the thirteenth amendment that allows for slavery as punishment for crime.
Justice for LaKeith Smith – a coalition of concerned Alabama residents and organizations that are currently working to identify and cultivate potential champions among local elected officials and leadership organizations to help highlight and amplify the case of LaKeith Smith.
