Criminal Justice Committee Meeting

The NAACP Criminal Justice Committee aims to advocate for and advance a better public safety system that reduces the reliance on prisons as a means of solving social problems, advances effective law enforcement, and removes barriers to voting and employment for formerly incarcerated people. The Criminal Justice Department will accomplish its goal in ways that are responsive to individual needs and builds stronger families and communities. In efforts to advance Criminal Justice goals, the Criminal Justice Department has developed a “smart and safe” framework to implement an advocacy agenda to ensure public safety as a civil and human right for all communities and more specifically the many communities in crisis. Instead of calling for “tough on crime” rhetoric and lock’em up practices, Smart and Safe was developed to capture the true goals and aspirations of how public safety and criminal justice institutions should operate and perform in communities. Our communities will only become safer when trust is built between the criminal justice system and the communities they serve, when more help and services are provided as opposed to prison, when citizens coming home from prison can vote and work freely and when we expand and reinvest our prison budgets on education and other civic institutions that helps and serves communities.