Resources from Standing Together: Coalition Building to Stop Jail Expansion

Publication date:

July, 2019

"Instead of asking for a piece of the pie, we want the whole pie!" - Eunisses Hernandez on the uncompromising demands of JusticeLA

On July 24, 2019, CCJFG hosted a webinar on the statewide fight against jail expansion that featured organizers from JusticeLA and No New Jails. The speakers explored dynamic and critical subjects including how to shift the focus from creating better conditions inside jails to resourcing communities and bringing people home into these communities, how to mobilize intersectional alliances with healthcare workers and unions against jails, and how to push for abolitionist reforms that won’t require us to build something we have to tear down later. The speakers asked funders to develop their own analysis and long-term vision for funding the movement to end mass incarceration that incorporates an awareness of the inequitable distribution of resources between grassroots organizations (often led by impacted communities) and grasstops organizations that have more substantial financial support.

JusticeLA organizers Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Eunisses Hernandez at LA County Board of Supervisors meeting | Photo: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

Over 30 funders attended the webinar and heard from panelists Ivette Alé of Californians for a Responsible Budget (CURB), Lily Fahsi-Haskell of Critical Resistance, Eunisses Hernandez of JustLeadershipUSA, and moderator, Melanie Havelin of the John M. Lloyd Foundation. If you weren’t able to join us, you can watch the webinar below.