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Advocacy Toolkit

Table of Contents

How we help

Big picture resources

Finding data

Public records

Working with data

Issue-specific trainings

Jail expansion

Prison Policy Initiative’s Advocacy Department works with criminal legal system reform or abolition activist groups and elected officials to provide free research help and technical support. We prioritize state and local groups that have reduced resources, ones that are in areas without strong organizing networks, and ones led by directly-impacted people.

We work on projects about all stages of the criminal legal system, from pre-arrest diversion all the way to post-conviction issues. Each project we do is slightly different, and tailored to the needs of the individual organization we are working with. See below for some of the kinds of help we provide.

If your organization would like to explore partnering with our advocacy department, you can use our contact form. Although we cannot help every group that contacts us, we would love to meet with you to see if a collaboration would be a good fit.

In addition to helping with local projects, we also produce toolkits of our own to support advocacy efforts. Below, we’ve shared some of the resources, tips, and best practices we’ve picked up along our two decades of work to expose the harms of mass incarceration. We’ve learned a lot in that time; our hope is that these tools help advocates in their efforts to address mass incarceration in their area.

Big picture resources

These resources cover topics that are relevant to a variety of criminal legal system reform efforts, and which cut across issue areas.

• Ten statistics about the scale and impact of mass incarceration in the U.S. — A curated list of some of the most useful statistics to help the public comprehend the magnitude of criminalization in the U.S.
• Contending with Carveouts: How and Why to resist Charge-Based Exclusions in Reforms — Too often, reforms are handicapped because they exclude large categories of people impacted by the criminal legal system — usually people convicted of violent, sex-related, or other serious charges. In this guide we provide resources that show the problems with the carveouts and arguments to avoid them.
  • Webinar: Contending with Carveouts: How and Why Charge-Based Exclusions Harm Reform — In this webinar, we’re joined by representatives from the Drug Policy Alliance and the Chicago 400 Alliance, as we discuss strategies to talk with lawmakers about avoiding these carveouts.
• In their own words: Organizing legislative testimony from incarcerated people — Lawmakers need to hear from directly impacted people in order for them to understand criminal legal system issues and make meaningful reforms. But it can be difficult to get the voices of incarcerated people heard by legislators. In this guide, we provide tips from state-level advocates who have successfully coordinated legislative testimony from incarcerated people so that advocates around the country can work to expand this practice.
  • Webinar: In their own words: Organizing legislative testimony from incarcerated people — In this webinar, we’re joined by representatives from Look 2 Justice, Civil Survival, and Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, as we discuss strategies to to help incarcerated people be heard at legislative committee hearings.
• Guide: Mass incarceration is on the ballot — We’ve put together a guide to 19 of the most common offices for which voters are asked to cast their ballots during elections and how those offices can help end mass incarceration. We also explore how those offices can make decisions to reduce the number of people behind bars, improve conditions in prisons and jails, and help turn the page on America’s failed experiment with mass incarceration.

Finding data

Getting access to quality data is one of the most difficult parts of our work. We’ve pulled together a list of some of the methods and sources we use most in our research on policing, incarceration, probation, parole, and more.

• Public Records — Every state and the federal government has laws that give the public access to most government information. However, getting access to that information can be difficult. These guides will help you navigate the system to get the documents you need.
  • Public records request toolkit — This guide covers the laws on records requests in all 50 states, providing guidance on how to request records and what to do if your request is denied.
  • HIPAA and jail deaths data — This guide provides tips that are useful for journalists - but also for criminal legal system advocates - who are researching deaths in prisons and jails. Corrections institutions often cite medical privacy laws in order to dodge or deny these requests; this guide gives tips on how to navigate those issues.
• Data Sources — asking a question about the criminal legal system but not sure where to start? This guide shows you were to find answers to common questions using public data sets.
• Data Toolbox — All of our reports and many of our briefings compile previously unavailable or incompatible data. We’ve put these unique datasets here to empower advocates and researchers to build on our work.
• Departments of corrections policy manuals — To help researchers and advocates, we’ve pulled together links to the policy manuals for the policy manuals for state departments of corrections, as well as the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
• Correctional Contracts Library — Through our work to expose and stop the abusive practices of private companies that profit off of incarcerated people and their loved ones, we’ve amassed a collection of hundreds of documents, including contracts, bids, evaluations, and more that show how for-profit companies work with jails and prisons to squeeze money out of people who can least afford it. We’ve made these documents public in one place to help advocates, journalists, researchers, and policymakers stop these exploitative practices.

Working with data

Prison Policy Initiative works hard to write compelling, data-driven reports on the criminal legal system that combine robust data analysis with striking visuals. We are often asked to share more about how we do our work. Below are some resources sharing some of our best practices.

• Managing and organizing data — Data is at the heart of nearly everything we do. In this guide, we provide a few tips and tricks we’ve learned to work with datasets effectively, without getting overwhelmed.
• Designing effective visuals — A compelling visual can quickly make a point about a topic that might otherwise take hundreds of words to describe. We’ve pulled together a few tips that have helped us make powerful visuals that can motivate people to action.
• Writing guide — A key part of our strategy hinges on getting to people to read what we write. This guide will help you write about complex topics in a way that is informative and persuasive.

Issue-specific toolkits

• Jail Expansion Resources — The reflexive response to jail overcrowding and deteriorating conditions is often to build a larger jail. The research is clear: building more jail cells is never likely to be a good solution to overcrowding or the harms people suffer in jails, and expansion only benefits the law enforcement agencies and jail architects who have a financial interest in building more jails.
  
  Since 2015, the Prison Policy Initiative has gathered data to produce reports about the harms jails cause communities and the alternatives to incarceration that make communities safer for everyone. Below, we’ve organized these resources to support advocates with the data that empowers communities and educates local decision-makers.
  • Arguments against jail expansion — Research and resources to help advocates illustrate the harms of jails to local decision makers. It includes findings about jail overcrowding, counterarguments against jail expansionists, and points of intervention in jail fights.
  • Understanding jail assessments — When counties discuss building or expanding their jails, they often commission “jail assessments” to analyze current operations and recommend new construction. These assessments are usually dense, but riddled with obvious flaws. This guide helps you understand these documents and push back on jail construction proposals.
  • Webinar: Fighting Jail Expansion — Across the country, communities are fighting against efforts to expand the carceral system and build new jails. In this webinar we brought together activists who have pushed back against jail expansion to discuss strategies they employed to prevent new jails from being built and give an overview of the tools and support that Prison Policy Initiative can provide to support these efforts.
• Prison gerrymandering — A guide to help residents who want to end prison gerrymandering in their local community. It provides tips, worksheets, and tools to determine whether and to what extent prison gerrymandering is occurring in your area.
• Lowering jail phone rates — In this guide we explain how to find out what your local jail charges for calls, identify ways it can reduce prices, and time your campaign for the greatest chance of success.
• Video visitation — A collection of resources for protecting in-person visitation from the for-profit video-calling industry. It includes information on the benefits of in-person visits, reports, history, and more.
• Reviewing public housing authority policy exclusions for people with criminal histories — Local public housing authority policies often unnecessarily limit or completely deny public housing assistance to people with criminal histories. We put together a guide to help advocates identify ways public housing policies can be more inclusive.

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