It’s time to repeal California’s Three Strikes law. This unjust 1994 law made it mandatory for anyone convicted of three felonies to serve 25 years to life if any two of the crimes were considered serious or violent. The result was a tidal wave of life sentences that have disproportionately affected African American, and mentally ill and physically disabled defendants, costing taxpayers billions of dollars each year. Learn more about this law here. 

SURJ Bay Area partner organizations CURB and Initiate Justice have formed the Repeal California’s Three Strikes Law Coalition with organizations across the state to put an initiative to repeal this law on the California ballot in November 2022. But how does change like this move from idea to reality?​

​By SURJ Bay Area 
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​Norman Williams was sentenced to life for stealing a car jack from the back of an open tow truck. Charles Ramirez got a life sentence for stealing a car radio. Vincent Rico, too, for the petty theft of two pairs of children’s shoes from a department store. Why such harsh sentences? All were sentenced under California’s Three Strikes Law, which made it mandatory for anyone convicted of three felonies to serve 25 years to life sentences if any two of the crimes were considered serious or violent.

​By Micki Luckey 

Showing Up for Racial Justice partners with BIPOC-led organizations, supporting their efforts and following their lead. What do our partners do and how do we show up for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color? How does accountability manifest in these relationships? This article is part of a series exploring these questions in depth for the fifteen community partners of Bay Area SURJ.

By Star Zagofsky 

I recently watched Whose Vote Counts, Explained, a 3-episode Netflix series about voting that should be required viewing for anyone interested in racial justice. The first episode, “The Right to Vote,” starts things off with a long list of eye-opening facts like how, until the mid 1800s, it was common for non-citizens to vote in US elections.

As it turns out, many voting restrictions that seem normal in the US are, in fact, not. Today more than 45 countries permit non-citizens to vote, and in 35 countries either all or most people convicted of felonies can vote, even while in prison.

So why is the US different?

I am a survivor the terrible disease of Covid-19 at Folsom State Prison. I am a survivor of the terrible negligence and deliberate indifference of individuals responsible for my care. This experience reaffirmed for me that our lives simply don’t matter. I am one of the voices and numbers assigned to a cage, a cot, a shelf, in my human warehouse. My legal name is Daryel Burnett. My California Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (CDCR) number is B60892. My physical body has been imprisoned for 46 years. But my spirit is strong, free, and resilient. I too laugh, smile, feel, care, and love. I hold a profound respect for humanity. I am a father, son, brother, uncle, nephew, and friend. I dare to challenge people outside these walls to see and judge me through a humanistic prism. ​

Stripping communities of their voting rights is a centuries-long tool used to silence and disenfranchise people of color — and it must stop now.

​The passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was a major victory of the civil rights era. But in the decades since, attacks on voting rights have been relentless. In California, 162,000 citizens — mostly people of color — can’t vote today, simply because they are in state prison or on parole.