Restoring Human and Civil Rights to Those Impacted by the Criminal Justice System
Since its founding in 1978, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) has been at the forefront of criminal justice reform, as one of the first organizations to support incarcerated women when their struggles were nearly invisible. Over the decades, LSPC expanded to serve all incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, advocating for the restoration of civil and human rights, family reunification, and community healing. The organization takes a unique, holistic approach by combining legal advocacy, policy work, and grassroots organizing to address the systemic injustices of mass incarceration.
“We were successful in advocating to amend the California Constitution, restoring the right to vote for over 50,000 people on parole,” says Executive Director Paul Briley. “We’re building a movement, not just another nonprofit.”
LSPC litigates trailblazing cases resulting in new legal standards, including expanding alternatives to incarceration, ending long-term solitary confinement in California, and preventing the shackling of incarcerated people who are pregnant.
Through its All of Us or None (AOUON) project, LSPC empowers formerly incarcerated individuals to lead policy initiatives, advocate for their communities, and challenge the discrimination they face because of their conviction histories. With over 30 chapters, it is the largest group of formerly incarcerated people engaging in policy and legislation reform in the country. “We introduce policy at a local level,” says Briley, “Then it turns into a statewide measure, and then it permeates throughout the entire country.”
Alissa Moore, LSPC’s Reentry Coordinator, knows the power of this work firsthand, as she was incarcerated when she was 17. Soon afterwards, Moore started working alongside LSPC as an AOUON member, helping others facing life in prison. “I started filing litigation for myself and my cellmates because I could read, and a lot of my counterparts didn’t have that skill to be able to advocate for themselves,” she says. When she was released almost 25 years later, LSPC hired Moore through the Ronald “Elder” Freeman Memorial Policy Fellowship, to support the very women she was incarcerated alongside, helping them prepare for parole hearings and advocate for their own freedom.
From the beginning, LSPC has addressed the collateral impacts on families through its Family Unity Project. This Project is designed to strengthen family relationships during and after incarceration by expanding visiting to maintain family bonds, advocating to reduce financial burdens for families, and removing barriers to family reunification upon release.
LSPC receives hundreds of letters annually from prisoners asking for advice or help, and they respond to every single letter. And when these individuals are freed, LSPC is waiting to welcome them home. They host a group dinner with spiritual and community leaders and surprise each newly released citizen with a gift amounting to more than the $200 “gate money” the prison system gives them upon release, an amount that has not increased since the 1970s.
LSPC has shown that even such seemingly small gestures make a large impact when citizens feel cared for and supported.
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
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Mission
LSPC organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights, and to reunify families and communities. We build public awareness of structural racism in policing, the courts, and the prison system, and we advance racial and gender justice in all our work.
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In California, one in three of our residents-our friends, neighbors, and family members-has a criminal history. Even in the toughest circumstances, people have the potential to learn, grow, and recreate themselves.
Help Build Strong, Safe Communities, One Returning Individual At a Time
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) is asking for individual donations to cover program costs for their Elder Freeman Policy Fellowship. The Fellowship is an intensive 12-month program for formerly incarcerated individuals, who are returning to their community, that teaches them grassroots organizing, legislative and administrative advocacy, and other strategies to run local and state campaigns with the important goal of elevating the leadership of formerly incarcerated people in criminal justice reform.
•$225,000 sponsors (3) full-time Fellows through 2025.
LSPC Executive Director Paul Briley, a 2019 Fellow, describes the program as a powerful vehicle for helping people who are coming home from jail and prison return to their communities as an asset and not a liability.