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SURJ Bay Area’s Policy Committee supports incredible partner organizations – Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) / All of Us or None, Essie Justice Group, Initiate Justice, Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employer’s Network, and the Drop LWOP Coalition – in their legislative advocacy campaigns, aimed at ending the prison industrial complex and building a world free of cages and with equitable working and living conditions for all.  An image of the Capitol Building in Sacramento. Photo by Andre M. (2014, Creative Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sacramento,-California---State-Capitol_(cropped).jpg) We are excited to share that seven (7) bills that we supported this year were signed into law!
“We” are SURJ Bay Area’s Policy Committee (formerly the Policy Working Group). We are working in service to and in collaboration with our POC-led partner organizations that work on legislative advocacy: Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) / All of Us or None (AOUON), Essie Justice Group, and Initiate Justice. We listed our work-in-progress in a couple of earlier blogs (SURJ Bay Area Policy Priorities For 2019, Updated SURJ Bay Area Policy Priorities for 2019, Cross-Over Edition) and now that this year’s legislative cycle is over, we’d like to celebrate some successes, as well as get ready for next year! As we continue the struggle to challenge and topple the prison industrial complex, it is important we take pause to celebrate our successes and learn from our losses. In many ways, 2018 marked a year in which legislation undoing the dark legacies of mass incarceration gained momentum. Led by the inspiring work of our POC-led partners, last year grassroots movements generated enough pressure to pass five vital pieces of criminal justice reform. Together, our actions were part of a targeted and coordinated legislative strategy that elevated the voices of the most impacted, amplified the power of our organizing, and led to some significant legislative victories in California.
 Victory Against White Supremacy in the Bay!
Statement from the organizers - a coalition of Black and immigrant interfaith, anti-racist, anti-fascist, LBGTQ and civil rights groups. |
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March 2025
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