Ben Barbosa

Initiate Justice

Initiate Justice is created by and for people directly impacted by incarceration. We build the power of currently and formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones, engaging them in grassroots campaigns focused on ending punitive justice while investing in people, communities, and restorative means of reducing harm. We envision a California with safe communities free from mass incarceration. Initiate Justice has an inside-outside strategy where we prioritize organizing people directly impacted by incarceration, inside and outside prison walls. Most of our organizing takes place in prison visiting rooms, in front of county jails, and inside prisons themselves. We also pursue social media organizing strategies that target online groups of people with incarcerated loved ones, so that they can disseminate Initiate Justice information to their loved ones inside directly. We have a two-pronged approach to our organizing: 1) Educating: We educate our members on how the ballot proposition process works, their voting rights, and how propositions are implemented once they are passed. We also educate our volunteers, who are not all directly impacted by incarceration, about the mass criminalization system and inform them of ongoing campaigns they can be a part of to further Initiate Justice's work. 2) Advocacy: We also directly educate our base about specific ballot propositions and offer advice on whether or not to support them and why. We also plan to draft, pass, and implement ballot propositions created by incarcerated people and their loved ones beginning in the 2018 election.