Webinar: Combating “carveouts” in criminal justice reforms
Learn strategies to convince policymakers to adopt reforms that help all people tangled in the criminal legal system.
by Sarah Staudt, October 12, 2023
In this webinar presented on November 1, 2023, staff from the Prison Policy Initiative and a panel of criminal justice experts have a discussion on how advocates for reform can talk to policymakers about carveouts, with a particular focus on addressing fentanyl and sex offense-related charges.
Webinar resources
The slides for the webinar are available here
Prison Policy Initiative has two publications on this topic:
- Contending with Carveouts: How and Why to resist Charge-Based Exclusions in Reforms — a toolkit of arguments and strategies for resisting carveouts in criminal legal system reforms.
- Reforms Without Results: Why states should stop excluding violent offenses from criminal justice reforms — a 2020 report about the consequences of excluding violent charges from criminal legal system reforms.
Additional Resources:
- Chicago 400 Alliance produced this video about people on public registries in Illinois, which is a great example of how to bring the stories of impacted people to legislators. To learn more about the Chicago 400 Alliance, coordinated by Laurie Jo Reynolds, you can view their website: https://www.chicago400.net/
- To learn more about Drug Policy Alliance’s work advocating for a health-focused approach to fentanyl, you can find their website on the topic here. https://drugpolicy.org/campaign/build-a-health-approach-to-fentanyl/. To sign onto Drug Policy Alliance and Broken No More’s open letter from people who have lost loved ones to overdose, click here.
