From Vera Institute of Justice:
NEW YORK, NY (August 3, 2021) – Today, the Vera Institute of Justice’s In Our Backyards initiative announced its third round of partnership grants to community-based and statewide organizations committed to reducing incarceration and resisting jail expansion in smaller cities and rural communities.
While major cities have seen a reduction in jail and prison populations, smaller cities and rural counties are now grappling with the nation’s highest rates of jail and prison incarceration and the negative impacts that accompany this rising trend. In 2020, three of every five people in jail were incarcerated outside of major metro areas. These community grants are intended to support local organizations committed to: reducing incarceration rates; limiting arrests; addressing inequities in the pretrial justice system; eliminating racial, gender, and class-based disparities in incarceration; and resisting jail expansion. The grants will help redirect resources toward community priorities that support families and actually enhance community safety.
The grantees can use the funds for efforts to:
(1) make data and knowledge about local incarceration more widely available;
(2) change the public narrative about incarceration in local and national media by elevating the human toll of jail, the ways incarceration harms public safety, the financial impact of jails, and the experiences of communities in small cities and rural areas; and
(3) build public and governmental will to end mass incarceration locally and statewide, through policy and practice change.
“Vera’s In Our Backyards initiative is building a national movement to end mass criminalization and reverse mass incarceration by focusing on the nation’s smaller cities and rural communities,” said Jasmine Heiss, Campaign Director for Vera’s In Our Backyards. “We are focused on ending the quiet jail boom by decriminalizing poverty and public health issues, centering racial equity, and shifting power and resources so that public safety truly means the safety of everybody. As the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront, investment in carceral infrastructure instead of community resources has made many communities even more vulnerable during public health crises. That is why we are proud to distribute this third round of community grants to local organizations working to combat the rising use of jails that is threatening our small cities and rural communities.” Continue reading >>>
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