Keith Porter should still be here...to raise his daughters, to love his mother, to fish with his uncle, to bring joy to rooms, and light to community. Black fathers...Black sons...Black people...matter. We matter. We must speak up, step up, demand, organize for, and build a world where our lives are protected. As ICE plagues our communities, Black and Brown migrants viciously targeted, brutalized, detained, and deported, those who are birthright citizens of this country are increasingly also being harmed and killed...especially African Americans.  The fight for Keith Porter is a fight to protect the sanctity of Black life.  It is a fight against white-supremacist terrorism and fascism. It is a fight to hold ICE, police, and government accountable. This petition is an essential piece of that.  When you sign and share, you are honoring the life of Keith Porter and putting it on record that you refuse to sit idly by as Black lives are stolen.

It is past time to make more efficient use of Pennsylvania’s supervision resources by setting up low-risk parolees for continued success, not failure. Please support common-sense parole reform by signing on to this proposal. Only organizations may sign on... 

This $470 million proposal, which would be the largest capital project ever funded by the county, will not support a thriving Western New York nor improve the lives of its residents. We have four main concerns, detailed in our full letter:  • CONCERN 1: DEPARTMENT CULTURE & COUNTY CULTURE: Under at least two different sheriffs, the sheriff’s department has had a rate of an incarcerated person dying from medical neglect or other human rights violations every 4-5 months. For comparison,  Rikers Island has an average of about one death per month, despite an average daily population of over 10,000, so Erie County’s facilities are over twice as deadly as Rikers. A renovated incarceration facility won’t change the culture of repeated human rights violations, or address the multiple lawsuits against the sheriff’s office which are costing county taxpayers millions of dollars in settlements. In fact, shifting operations to Alden, away from community scrutiny, is likely to strengthen the culture of impunity. • CONCERN 2: DISTANCE: Moving jail operations to Alden would further isolate anyone in the facility, both staff and those incarcerated. Former Erie County Legislator April Baskin stated “[moving to Alden] will make it much harder for detainees to maintain contact with their family by significantly increasing the distance between their neighborhoods and where they are being detained.” People will be further from their homes and families (their support systems), emergency medical services, and legal representation. The distance will discourage medical professionals from applying to jail jobs, where there is already a 25% vacancy rate. Moving jail operations to Alden will also increase transportation costs because it would be irresponsible to simply release people in a remote community where they are not from. The sheriff has previously stated transportation is a recurring issue for getting people to and from court. Since only 47% of individuals are incarcerated for longer than a week in county facilities, costs for distal transportation, including vehicle maintenance and depreciation, are fiscally illogical. Although the Sheriff’s office has offered to partner with NFTA to make Alden more accessible, a similar program has already been abandoned once, and there are no assurances that, if revived, it would not be abandoned again. A genuine commitment to providing reliable transportation to those in the Alden facility would’ve resulted in this program already being restarted without the new construction proposal. In any event, an inaccessible facility with an unreliable bus is no substitute for an accessible facility.  • CONCERN 3: FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY & BREAKING THE REVOLVING DOOR OF IMPRISONMENT: The sheriff’s office stated in 2024 that about 60% of county [detainees] are treated for some type of mental illness, which is above the national average; moreover, Michael Phillips, the superintendent for jail management, admitted that “Jails weren’t meant to be mental health providers.” This suggests that the relatively well-funded sheriff’s department is expensively and ineffectively attempting to fill gaps created by the underfunding of other county services. Due to federal budget cuts, Erie County already faces increased spending in many sectors. Incarcerating a person is almost double the cost of providing needed housing or healthcare services Moreover, multiple studies demonstrate that communities with ample housing and healthcare resources experience less crime, and also that incarcerating someone without addressing the root reasons that they committed a crime merely creates a revolving door of repeated incarceration. According to April Baskin in 2020, “Multiple studies show that a detainee who maintains regular contact with family and friends is less likely to be a repeat offender”. Therefore, budgetary decisions should focus on keeping people in the community and on addressing root causes of crime. The county should be prioritizing investment in mental health services provided by appropriately trained medical professionals, who are adequately compensated for their expertise, and should be focusing on increasing beds in mental health facilities and substance use disorder facilities instead of on increasing jail beds. The county should also support and invest in alternatives to incarceration such as the Community Responder Model, the Treatment Court Expansion Act and the additional alternatives listed in the feasibility study. The Sheriff has repeatedly requested more beds at ECMC for people in crisis. Jail is no place for people who are detoxing (such as Sean Riordan), people with serious mental illness (such as William Hager), and people with severe chronic health conditions (such as James Ellis). It makes far more sense to expand capacity in existing healthcare facilities for these services than to build new jail beds. Were Sean Riordan, William Hager, and James Ellis placed in health care beds instead of jailed, they would most likely be alive today, and the county would not be facing multi-million dollar lawsuits for their preventable deaths. Investing even more county money into 156 new jail beds specifically for detox, acute and sub-acute mental health needs, and chronic health conditions is a playbook for ensuring additional lawsuits for years to come.  • CONCERN 4: LACK OF BUDGETARY TRANSPARENCY: The proposal does not include the project’s full cost. The feasibility study was commissioned by architecture firms but it omits demolition costs at either facility that would be vital for making an informed decision. It also does not discuss the expenses and complications that would be involved in demolishing ECHC, which (due to proximity to other buildings, city contracts, etc.) are likely greater than that of Alden. A similar plan to close ECHC already failed to demonstrate budgetary savings in 2020. Further, a commitment to Alden entails a permanent commitment to increased travel costs for, at best, one-time savings. Lastly, one of the noted “benefits” in the feasibility study of choosing Alden was that the facility has “ample room for facility expansion, if bail reforms are terminated and there is a necessity to increase bed space capacity in the future.” Which implies even greater spending as well as a lack of support for a law that has already reduced the jail population.

People should join in this effort across the nation because state sanctioned kidnapping in NOT exclusive to Tennessee! It's happening across the nation and families are being destroyed because of it not to mention how costly it is to fight back when you are faced with a false charge.of abuse and or neglect. It is also important because families aren't afforded the same protections that are guaranteed to those accused of criminal violations. This means it is easier and you are more likely to loose your child tha to go to jail for stealing a .35 cent pack of gum!!! Another gross compent of this cash for kids scheme is the money that is attached to removing children from their homes. There is a 15 month clock given to parents to get their children back before termination of parental rights proceeding begin to adopt a families child out. The cumbersome things asked of DCS and the many continuance they create can and do easily exhaust this time and you can be in jeopardy of loosing your child just because DCS hasn't prepared themselves and keeps stalling parents out on unnecessary programs and other requirements that they provide ZERO support for. The states bill over $2.8 million dollars a year in fist care cost, none of that goes to support families! If we are to continue to pay these cost we should have a say in how that money is spent and based on the data the money should be spent on providing support of families to reunify other than tear apart family bonds. https://www.npr.org/2021/12/27/1049811327/states-send-kids-to-foster-care-and-their-parents-the-bill-often-one-too-big-to-

In response to the recent tragedies in our community, the Youth Justice Action Council would like to first offer our sincere condolences to the victims, their families, and others in our community who have been impacted as they navigate this time of loss, grief, trauma, and uncertainty. Our YJAC family joins hands with Memphis & Shelby County, and offers support as we try to find peace and solutions in the coming days. YJAC is committed to designing solutions that get to the root causes of violence in our community by centering the voices of those who are directly impacted - youth who have experienced the justice system firsthand. In light of the recent tragedies in our city, many elected officials and community members have responded by claiming that more and harsher punishment would have prevented future acts of violence. However, we believe that the punitive and inhumane measures that are currently in place in our juvenile injustice system not only fail to stop the cycle of violence but also create more harm by traumatizing our youth who need support, not isolation. Our current system isolates youth away from their loved ones, community, and support systems that would actually allow them to change and grow. To truly address the cycles of violence in our community, we need to get to the root. Youth are not the problem. Our quick fixes, based on retribution and revenge, will never solve long-term problems - which are embedded in institutional and systemic oppressions like racism and poverty. Memphis ranks second in the nation for overall poverty, with 24.5% of our community members living below the poverty line and 39.6% of our youth living below the poverty line. For Black youth in Memphis, nearly half live below the poverty line. What we need are solutions that include the voices of those who are directly affected. Our 10 “Break the Chains” Demands were created by justice impacted youth in our community to offer truly transformative solutions that would allow young people to feel safe, supported, and empowered. Our public officials and local media’s responses to these events have pushed an existing narrative that Black and Brown youth should be feared and controlled. Now, more than ever, the voices of these youth need to be heard. This is what the Youth Justice Action Council embodies. As justice impacted & connected young people, we have already begun to create solutions & design alternatives to our current system. Over the past year, we have: -Released a research report on what justice impacted youth in Shelby County are experiencing and asking to be changed in our current system. -Provided Diversion Program Recommendations for the new Youth & Family Resource Center -Visited the Shelby County Youth Detention Center currently in development and sent key decision makers a memo on our experience with our questions, concerns, and recommendations -Submitted Public Comments on Proposed Changes to the Minimum Standards for Youth Detention Centers in Tennessee -Engaged and supported the Youth Law Center and Disability Rights Tennessee on the release of their Designed to Fail report. In the coming months, we will release recommendations on a continuum of care that should replace our current youth justice system. But, we cannot change this system alone. We are calling on youth and adults to join YJAC in our youth-led advocacy to transform our youth justice system and build a safer and more just community for us all. Join the YJAC movement by signing up as a “Break the Chains” Supporter and following us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Tiktok @YJAC901. We will need to combine our voices and advocacy to make sure leaders hear our demands and are held accountable to make them happen. Together, we can create solutions that center the voices of justice impacted youth in our community.

The Alameda County Free Our Kids Youth Justice 10 Point Plan was written by young people themselves! For the past year, youth leaders from 67 Sueños, Young Women's Freedom Center, Urban Peace Movement, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, and Genesis have gathered to create a Youth Justice 10 Point plan. Its purpose is to empower and center youth voices, and it gives the youth an opportunity to demand the justice they deserve and want to see in their communities. The Youth Justice 10 Point plan was completely youth-led, and draws from the inspiration of youth led movements from the past - and especially from the legacy of the Black Panther Party. We hope this platform will empower other youth to create similar 10 point plans that can help them create the change they want to see in their communities!! Alameda County spends nearly $500,000 per youth per year on incarceration and $23,000 on average per year to place a young person on probation. Nearly one in three youth incarcerated in Alameda County are later reconvicted. On the other hand, evidence-based restorative justice practices have a one-time cost of $4,500 and the County’s restorative justice alternatives produce recidivism rates of 5% when working with youth charged with specifically violent and serious offenses. We are safer and get a better return on our investment when we invest in the well-being of young people instead of locking them in cages and putting them under surveillance.

On January 13th, the Illinois legislature passed a landmark omnibus bill on justice reform. This momentous policy package, which was championed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus (ILBC), would take crucial steps in advancing racial equity in Illinois by enacting sweeping reforms to anti-Black systems of police brutality and mass incarceration. The legislation includes provisions to standardize police use of force, eliminate key mechanisms of officer impunity, abolish prison gerrymandering, and end systems of wealth based pretrial incarceration. We are now mobilizing community members to demand that Governor Pritzker sign the ILBC’s bill on justice reform (HB 3653) in its entirety, without delay. Timely implementation of this omnibus package is vital to the safety, justice, and liberation of the nearly two million Black residents throughout the state. In September of 2020, when the ILBC released its preliminary racial justice policy agenda, Governor Pritzker pledged to support Black leadership in the Illinois General Assembly. Since that time, the ILBC has received an outpouring of public input, held a series of subject matter hearings, heard hours of expert testimony, and rigorously deliberated on a sweeping array of policy proposals to address racialized systems of police abuse and anti-Black sentencing practices. The ambition and strength of this historic racial justice legislation attests to the unequivocal imperative that public policy be led by the constituents and elected officials most impacted by the issues at hand. We now call upon Governor Pritzker to honor his commitment to stand with the ILBC and the millions of constituents its members represent, by signing HB 3653 in its entirety. We also urge the Governor to leverage the platform of his office to counter the dangerous narratives unleashed by White Supremacist groups that seek to undermine the ILBC’s racial equity legislation through divisive dog whistling and fear mongering tactics. As the nation looks on, it is incumbent upon the Pritzker administration to renounce toxic misinformation that equates racial justice with rampant crime and a Trumpian vision of “American carnage.” Join us as we call upon Governor Pritzker to help set a new tone for the nation by promoting an inclusive message of universal safety, justice, and liberation in Illinois, and enacting HB 3653 in its entirety.

The child welfare system traumatizes children and rips families apart. Far from helping, law enforcement only makes things worse. Their partnership must end now. Los Angeles County is home to the largest locally-run foster care system in the country, run by the Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS). The system disproportionately targets Black, Brown, and Indigenous children for surveillance and removal, actions that, even when well-intentioned, terrorize and traumatize families of color. While Black children are 10% of LA County’s population, they represent 40% of the young people in the child welfare system. DCFS works in direct partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and LA Sheriff’s Department (LASD). Approximately 25% of DCFS referrals come from law enforcement. DCFS and law enforcement agencies work together to enter homes and remove children. Police presence during DCFS investigations further traumatizes children and escalates the situation. Removing law enforcement from the child welfare system is the first step to curb the racist practices that break up families of color. We must demand an end to systems that separate families instead of supporting them. The REIMAGINE CHILD SAFETY campaign is supported by: Black Lives Matter LA; ACLU of Southern California; Alliance for Children’s Rights; Black Los Angeles Young Democrats; Dignity & Power Now; JusticeLA; La Defensa; Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers; Movement for Family Power; National Coalition for Child Protection Reform; Public Counsel; The RightWay Foundation; Trans Lifeline; and White People 4 Black Lives.

in the past, BLACKS could NOT own Property. Then, when the laws appeared to change, the BANKS RED-LINED Ownership. Now - the City Governments are Creating FALSE CASES to take BLACK PROPERTY OWNERS and ILLEGALLY TAKING their Properties. In the case of Ms. Kihagi, the smear campaign that represented her as Black Slumlord is so far from the truth. Yet - knowing most people would NOT get past that PR Machine - the City derailed the Truth. The San Francisco City Attorney made more than 20 misrepresentations to the Court with full knowledge of the actual facts. This is total abuse of power - and should be stopped! In fact, the TRUE MOTIVE for such conduct was to RACIAL DERAIL a successful, black landlord. More than $25million is at stake. It is clear that the 2 major cases in San Francisco have been against successful, BLACK Landlords - is this a Coincidence? They spent over 70% of their resources fighting one lone, black landlord and lied to the public that she was a slumlord. Yet the BUILDINGS are in better condition than 90% of S.F. Condo. EYES DON'T LIE. STOP DIRTY CITY ATTORNEYS - see more articles at annekihagisf.com

The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice is a call for us to transform our personal, institutional, and global thinking. We believe that culture moves before policy. We believe that culture endures beyond politics. We wrote this Call because our work in culture and arts is inextricably linked to larger social movements for change. We invite you to adopt and adapt this Call to your specific contexts to hold leaders, policy-makers, and institutions — and ourselves — responsible, accountable, and transparent in achieving equity and justice. In these unprecedented times, as justice movements converge, many of us have asked ourselves what the stakes are for the culture we want to advance. We concluded that we needed to change the conditions under which we artists and culture bearers labor and live. The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice points us toward new understandings of how we together can build a culture that is inclusive, sustainable, and leads us toward justice and freedom for all. We urge timetables that are immediate and demonstrate change that is not aspirational, but concrete, measurable and visible within 1-3 budget cycles. We offer this Call in the spirit of advancing accountability and collective responsibility, and urge you to activate these ideas within your work and our shared future. // El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial es una convocatoria para que transformemos nuestro modo de pensar personal, institucional y global. Creemos que la cultura cambia antes que la política. Creemos que la cultura perdura más allá de la política. Escribimos este llamado porque nuestro trabajo dentro de la cultura y las artes está inextricablemente entrelazado con los movimientos sociales para el cambio. Les invitamos a adoptar y adaptar este Llamado para sus contextos particulares para responsabilizar a líderes, creadores de políticas e instituciones, al igual que nosotres mismes, por lograr la equidad y la justicia de forma responsable y transparente. En estos tiempos sin precedentes, conforme convergen los movimientos por la justicia, muches de nosotres nos hemos preguntado qué está en juego para la cultura que queremos avanzar. Hemos concluido que tenemos que cambiar las condiciones bajo las cuales nosotres les artistas y portadores de cultura trabajamos y vivimos. El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial nos dirige hacia nuevos entendimientos sobre cómo, juntos, podemos crear una cultura que es inclusiva, sustentable y que nos lleva hacía la justicia y la liberación para todes. Exigimos cronogramas que son inmediatos y que demuestran un cambio que no es aspiracional y que, más bien, es concreto, medible y visible dentro de 1 a 3 ciclos presupuestarios. Ofrecemos este Llamado en aras de avanzar la transparencia y la responsabilidad colectiva y urgimos que activen estas ideas dentro de su trabajo y dentro de nuestro futuro compartido.

We are members of the Northeastern University (“NU”) and Fenway, Roxbury and Boston communities who are outraged at the continuing systemic violence against Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. We stand against the manner in which systemic racism, racial violence, and white supremacy is institutionalized at Northeastern University including through NU’s investment in and operation of a private police force. The fight against institutionalized racism requires that we divest from organizations and systems that harm Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. We must rebuild our institutions to engage in life-giving practices. In this vein, we support the #BlackatNU platform’s call to build sustainable alternatives to policing, to fund efforts to end systematic oppression of Black people, to terminate interagency agreements with public law enforcement agencies, and to demilitarize and disarm Northeastern University Police Department. Further, we endorse #BlackVoicesMatterNEU’s demands regarding financial support to retain students of the African diaspora, increasing access to health insurance and hiring Black health practitioners and therapists, observation of Black historical celebrations, diversity and cultural competency training, and recurring town hall meetings on anti-Black racism. Undoing racism inherent in the function of our institutions requires that we understand and confront the harms that our systems create. Accordingly, we seek transparency from the Northeastern University Police Department.

The most impressionable time for a student is during their years of mandatory education. These years should be centered and catered towards providing the absolute best educational experience that is based on accurate, factual information in a safe and comfortable learning environment. This cannot be accomplished with the use of police on campus and anti-Blackness systemically perpetuated in the curriculum. The removal of police officers from campus as well as reformed curriculum that addresses racism in its actuality will foster the growth necessary on FCUSD campuses. For more information, contact us at: Instagram: @genup.fcusd & @cordovahighbsu Facebook: GenUp FCUSD If you have a testimony in regards to your experience with racism, discrimination, or police on campus, don’t hesitate to leave a comment as you sign the petition.