Join us on Valley Gives Day to double your impact

On Tuesday, May 2, we'll be participating in Valley Gives, a 24-hour online giving event for nonprofit organizations located in western Massachusetts.

by Wendy Sawyer, April 25, 2017

On Tuesday, May 2, we’ll be participating in Valley Gives (link no longer available), a 24-hour online giving event for nonprofit organizations located in western Massachusetts. And this Valley Gives Day, a generous supporter will match the first $2,500 given to the Prison Policy Initiative.

In the past year, we have had historic successes in our major campaigns:

• We organized an unprecedented 100,000 people to submit comments to the Census Bureau demanding an end to prison gerrymandering, including 13 U.S. Senators and 39 civil rights organizations.
• Following the success of last year’s campaign in Massachusetts to eliminate an outdated law suspending driver’s licenses for drug offenses unrelated to driving, we expanded our campaign nationally. So far, we’ve seen progress in D.C., Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia, and just this month legislation was introduced in Congress that would repeal the federal law.
• Local jails are allowing private companies to replace in-person visits with expensive, low-quality “video visitation,” as our research has shown. Fortunately, policymakers in Illinois and New Jersey have stepped up to protect crucial in-person visits, and we continue to fight this damaging and exploitative practice.
• We’re also pushing for criminal justice reform in our home state of Massachusetts. In a recent report, we showed that probation fees hit the state’s poorest communities hardest. Legislation introduced this year would eliminate probation fees for more people under community supervision, and ensure that no one is locked up because they can’t afford a fee.

Together with individual supporters like you, we’ve been able to accomplish so much in the past year. The need for criminal justice reform – and to protect the reforms we’ve achieved – has never been more urgent. So please donate by May 2nd to double the impact of your gift. As always, we thank you for your support.

You can visit our Valley Gives page here: https://valley-gives.org/designee/prison-policy-initiative-inc-1 (link no longer available)