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Dear Members of our Community,

The newest edition of our quarterly Inside Newsletter, sent to thousands of individuals inside California prisons and facilities, is now available! You can read it HERE. 

Thank you for reading,

Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC)

Hello ARC Community,

Please read the following LA Times story about the record settlement for thousands of women humiliated during strip searches in LA County’s Women’s Jail. Please also see below if you might have been impacted by this settlement.

If you were incarcerated at Lynwood (CRDF) and have questions about the class action settlement for strip searches, please reach out to Lindsay Battles, one of the attorneys handling the case. You can send her a friend request and she will add you to a private Facebook group for this case. You can also call (626) 844-7660.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you were strip searched between 3/2008 and 1/2015, you should also go to www.lynwoodstripsearch.com to register your contact information. This is the case website.  Registering your contact information will help ensure that you receive class notice and have the opportunity to file a claim.  

The Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) has selected Sam Lewis as its next Executive Director.

Sam is an ARC member and Director of Inside Programs, a first-of-its kind initiative that he built from scratch. A former life prisoner himself, Sam oversees our Hope & Redemption Team (HART), nine former lifers who go back into California state prisons to provide hope, to demonstrate that redemption is achievable, and to prepare participants for successful reentry into our communities. His work on the HART team exemplifies what’s best about ARC: our desire to reach and walk with those who have been most marginalized by society.

Sam previously worked with Friends Outside Los Angeles County (FOLA) as Job Specialist, Case Manager, Employment Programs Supervisor, and Project Director, roles that reinforced his commitment to creating opportunities for formerly incarcerated men and women as they transition back into society. In 2018, Sam was the recipient of a Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Award and an Uncommon Law Uncommon Heroes award.

We are confident that Sam brings both the professional and life experience needed in this important leadership role and within the ARC community. We believe that Sam’s promotion to Executive Director is a victory for all ARC members and allies committed to developing leadership among those most impacted by the system.

As we celebrate Sam’s promotion, we want to thank Shaka Senghor for his great contributions to the ARC community during his tenure as Executive Director. Shaka launched ARC Creatives, a program that will continue to grow as an engine for cultural change in the criminal justice reform movement and beyond. We are grateful for Shaka’s vision and leadership at ARC.

Thank you to our community for your patience, support, and partnership in this transition—and we look forward to providing many opportunities for you to see Sam’s transformative work in action.

Sincerely yours,

Charity Chandler-Cole, Board Chair

Scott Budnick, Founder

As part of its ongoing Inspire Change platform, the National Football League today announced that eight social justice organizations are receiving grants, as approved by the joint NFL owner-player working group. ARC is one of the organizations receiving a grant.

The grants, which total nearly $2 million, are part of a $20 million commitment from the NFL and its teams to social justice organizations during the 2018 calendar year. The $20 million is comprised of grants to social justice organizations from the NFL Foundation, social justice grants approved by the NFL owners-players working group, team and player contributions, and an ongoing financial commitment to the Players Coalition.

NFL teams also continue to engage directly with their communities on social justice matters with hundreds of events and millions of dollars in funding for various social justice organizations.

This round of funding will be awarded to the following organizations, with a focus on education and economic advancement; police and community relations; and criminal justice reform:

• Alliance for Safety and Justice: Alliance for Safety and Justice is a national organization that aims to win new safety priorities in states by reducing incarceration and barriers for people living with a past conviction, advancing policies that help communities most harmed by crime and violence, and expanding constituencies and support for justice reform.
• Anti-Recidivism Coalition: ARC advocates for transformational criminal justice reform, empowers people to achieve their dreams, and supports people as they make their way back into society.
• Campaign for Black Male Achievement: The CBMA is a national membership network that seeks to ensure the growth, sustainability, and impact of leaders and organizations committed to improving the life outcomes of Black men and boys.
• Civil Rights Corps: Civil Rights Corps are leaders in landmark litigation and high-impact advocacy that empowers communities to change the unjust legal system.
• Gideon’s Promise: Gideon’s Promise is building a public defender movement to amplify the voice of impacted communities and transform criminal justice.
• NAF: NAF solves some of the biggest challenges facing education and the workforce by bringing education, business, and community leaders together to transform the high school experience for students in underserved communities nationwide.
• Vera Institute of Justice: The Vera Institute of Justice is a justice reform change agent studying problems, testing solutions, harnessing the power of evidence, and driving public debate to urgently build justice systems that ensure fairness, promote safety, and strengthen communities.
• VOTE: By centering the voices, expertise, and experiences of formerly incarcerated leaders, VOTE helps the people most impacted by mass incarceration create a pathway to change.Working together with the Players Coalition, the NFL continues to support programs and initiatives that reduce barriers to opportunity.  Other organizations receiving NFL Social Justice grants thus far include Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA), Dream Corps, Operation HOPEand the UNCF (United Negro College Fund).During the March 2018 Annual Meeting, team owners voted to create 32 club/player matching social justice funds. As a result of these collaborative efforts, NFL teams and players raised an additional $10 million to be directed to social justice organizations.For more information on the joint work between players, teams and the league office on social justice, please visit www.nfl.com/inspirechange.

Congratulations to the graduates of Ventura Training Center’s first class (01-19)! We are so proud of all your work and accomplishments! Thanks to our partners CALFIRE, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), and California Conservation Corps (CCC) for leading this innovative venture to train and develop participants for careers in firefighting, emergency response, and resource conservation.

Thank you to all our ARC staff and support at VTC. We see here the power of giving people opportunities and we know how much they can give in service of their communities. As graduate Joseph Whalin said on behalf of his class, “let the bridges we’ve burned light the path we follow.” Not tethered to the past, all eyes on the future!

 

Nicole Jeong is Root & Rebound’s Reentry Attorney and Manager of Southern California Partnerships. As a result of this partnership, it is our pleasure to have Nicole in our office to provide legal aid to ARC members as they navigate the many barriers they face post-incarceration. Shaka Senghor, Executive Director of ARC, spoke with Nicole about her work. Read the full piece on our Medium site: interview with Nicole Jeong.

We are thrilled to inform you that Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a series of bills that will create a more just system, improve public safety, and bring hope to thousands of incarcerated men, women and their loved ones across California.

ARC co-sponsored four of these measures (SB 1391, SB 1437, SB 439, and AB 2138), working alongside tireless advocates throughout the state to educate legislators about the importance of these justice reforms. While walking the halls of the State Capitol to advocate for these measures, ARC members showed again what is possible when you provide hope and invest in human life. We know these living examples of rehabilitation and redemption had great impact on California legislators and Governor Brown.

“The Equity and Justice bills signed by Gov. Brown make rehabilitation and community recovery the focus of our criminal justice system,” said Senator Ricardo Lara, who coauthored SB 1391 and SB 439. “Thirty years of harsh sentencing laws resulted in overcrowded prisons without improving public safety. We need to be tough but smart on crime. With these laws, California is reducing mass incarceration through research-based reforms that will contribute to public safety.”

Below are the specific bills:

• SB 1391 will prohibit 14 & 15 year-olds from being tried in adult court or being sent to adult prison, ensuring that every youth has access to the rehabilitative services the juvenile system can provide. Click here to read Governor Brown’s resonant message on his signing of SB 1391.
• SB 1437 ends California’s felony murder rule that holds accomplices to the same standard as those who actually committed the crime.
• SB 439 establishes a minimum age for juvenile court prosecution at age 12, reducing the early criminalization of children. It also ensures alternative pathways to services for children whose behavior is indicative of unmet need.
• AB 2138 prohibits the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) from denying or revoking a license for the following reasons: a non-serious conviction older than seven years, a dismissed conviction, or a non-conviction act that is not directly related to the qualifications or duties of the profession for which the application is made.

These bills build upon our previous advocacy work in providing second chances to people in the system and further lay groundwork for hope and redemption for those who were young adults when they entered the system.

This is a special time for justice reform work in California. We are enthusiastic about the ways in which opportunities for redemption are manifesting throughout California’ prison system. The enactment of these bills cements California’s position at the forefront of this reform work nationwide.

While helping to fight for the dignity of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, we are continuously inspired by the magnitude of your support. Whether through volunteering your time, your generosity, providing your expertise, or serving as mentors to our members, you let us know each day that you are deeply committed to healing families throughout the state.

We look forward to your continued support as we work to strengthen our communities in California and around the country.

In hope and redemption,

The Anti-Recidivism Coalition

July 11, 2018 – The Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) and Root and Rebound (R&R) are thrilled to announce a new partnership – the Southern California Reentry & Advocacy Project – that will pair comprehensive reentry support with high-quality legal services to ensure that individuals returning home from incarceration to Los Angeles County are able to live healthy, fulfilling lives, breaking the cycle of poverty and incarceration.

Since its founding in 2013, ARC has demonstrated a strong track record of providing effective reentry programming and transitional services to help formerly incarcerated individuals live healthy, productive lives once released. ARC provides its formerly incarcerated members with supportive housing, mental health services, education and employment assistance, mentorship, and opportunities for civic engagement. However, ARC staff do not have the legal expertise necessary to support its members in navigating the various legal barriers to reentry documented nationally, including in the areas of identification, voting, employment, housing, public benefits, family, and education.

Without this critical piece, ARC members and other Los Angeles County residents with criminal records face challenges in several areas of life: when they try to obtain identification, access public benefits, secure employment, enroll in higher education, and reunite with their children and other members of their families. Furthermore, with only one attorney for every 8,000 indigent individuals in California, and few civil legal aid organizations offering reentry legal support, there are very few places for members to turn to for help in navigating these challenges.

To address this gap in services and critical need, ARC is partnering with Root & Rebound. Root & Rebound has a unique model that encompasses legal education, advocacy, and systems reform that fills the gap for formerly incarcerated individuals and the community-based organizations and government agencies that support them. R&R’s programs have reached over 35,000 people to date and include both in-person and online legal education and training, the first-ever reentry legal hotline, a prison letter-writing service, an online training hub, and high-impact policy advocacy.

For the Southern California Reentry & Advocacy Project, R&R, which is based in Northern California and works throughout the state, will house one staff attorney at both ARC’s downtown Los Angeles and Sylmar offices, to provide comprehensive legal support to ARC members and their families, including: reentry legal clinics; Know-Your-Rights trainings for ARC members; and legal trainings for community-based partners, law enforcement agencies, academic institutions, and workforce development partners. This partnership was made possible with critical funding from the S. Mark Taper Foundation and the Valley Community Legal Foundation of the San Fernando Valley Bar Association.

“The Valley Community Legal Foundation is pleased and excited to provide financial support to the Southern California Reentry and Advocacy Project, and especially its Sylmar location, assisting the legal needs of reentry individuals and helping them reacclimate into our Southern California valley community, so they can lead constructive and productive lives,” said Laurence N. Kaldor, President of the Valley Community Legal Foundation.

To lead this partnership, R&R has hired Nicole Jeong as the Reentry Attorney and Manager of Southern California Partnerships. Nicole received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2011. Prior to joining R&R, Nicole was a staff attorney in the Pro Bono Department at Legal Services NYC, the largest provider of civil legal services in the country. Nicole was also a general litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York and Morrison & Foerster in Los Angeles, as well as a law clerk to the Honorable Jesus G. Bernal of the Central District of California. During law school, Nicole participated in the Community Reentry Clinic, worked as a summer law clerk at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, and served as an editor on the Yale Law Journal and Yale Journal of Law & Feminism. Nicole received her B.A., magna cum laude, in Sociology from the University of Southern California. She is an attorney licensed to practice in California and New York.

Katherine Katcher, Founder and Executive Director of Root & Rebound, shared her enthusiasm for the collaboration: “ARC is a dream partner for our organization for their high-quality services and support and the wonderful community they have created. We feel so lucky and honored to be working alongside and in partnership with them. Together, we look forward to both serving their members and providing greater capacity building resources and trainings for the wider Southern California community.”

ARC Executive Director Shaka Senghor shared, “We are excited to work in unison with Root and Rebound and look forward to fostering a long-term relationship that allows our organization to better serve our members. It’s a great day when two organizations collaborate to create pathways to success for the women, men, and families they serve. Nicole’s presence in our office provides ARC with the confidence that we can meet the legal needs of our members, ensuring their success.”

ARC and R&R are thrilled to announce this partnership to advance the civil rights of Southern Californians impacted by incarceration and empower formerly incarcerated individuals to live healthy, successful lives upon returning home.

For questions about the Southern California Reentry & Advocacy Project or opportunities to get involved, please contact Nicole Jeong at njeong@rootandrebound.org.

The S. Mark Taper Foundation, founded in 1989, is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of people’s lives by supporting nonprofit organizations and their work in our communities.

The mission of the Valley Community Legal Foundation is to support law-related programs that assist children, families, domestic violence victims and those in need; enhance community access to the courts; provide educational opportunities and scholarships to students who demonstrate a commitment to law-related studies; and, recognize and honor the achievements of law enforcement and firefighters.

April 24, 2018

Dear ARC Friends and Allies,

Over the last year, as our organization planned for the transition of our Founder Scott Budnick, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) has undergone an extensive and thoughtful search to identify its next Executive Director. With guidance from our outstanding Board of Directors, ARC worked with Koya Leadership Partners and gathered valuable insight and direction from its staff and formerly incarcerated members to find a candidate who is committed to ARC’s values of redemption, social justice, and empowerment of system-connected individuals. ARC’s Board and staff are thrilled to announce Shaka Senghor as its new Executive Director.

Shaka is a gifted artist, a passionate leader, and a strategic advocate for criminal justice reform. He possesses a deep and unyielding compassion for the men, women, children, families, and communities who have been impacted by the juvenile and criminal justice systems, grounded in his own experience of having spent 19 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections. He has shared his story, both in his New York Times best-selling memoir “Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death and Redemption in an American Prison” and in news articles, television pieces, and lectures around the world, including through TED Talks and Google Zeitgeist. In doing so, Shaka has contributed to our understanding of the inner workings of the U.S. prison system and the changes that need to take place in order for those who become involved in it to reach their fullest potential.

Formerly the Director of Strategy and Innovation at partner #cut50, Shaka has helped lead several successful criminal justice reform campaigns to reduce the prison population and improve community health. Van Jones, President and Co-Founder of #cut50 and Founder of The Dream Corps, Rebuild the Dream, Green For All, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change says, “We at the Dream Corps were proud to be able to hire Shaka soon after he came home. He has been an integral part of our team, helping us to build #cut50 into a national force. We know that his contributions to ARC will be equally profound. We look forward to continuing to collaborate in every way we can to end the scourge of mass incarceration.”

Shaka is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2017 Rev. Cecil Williams Legacy Award, 2016 EBONY Power100, 2016 Ford Man of Courage, 2016 NAACP Great Expectations Award, 2015 Manchester University Innovator of the Year, and 2012 Black Male Engagement (BMe) Leadership Award. He was recently recognized by the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) as a Soul Igniter in the inaugural class of the SuperSoul 100, a dynamic group of trailblazers whose vision and life’s work are bringing a higher level of consciousness to the world around them and encouraging others to do the same.

Shaka was a 2014 TED Prize finalist for The Atonement Project. He is a MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow alumnus, and former Fellow in the inaugural class of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Leadership Network. He has taught at the University of Michigan and shares his story of redemption around the world. He is the father of two adult children who live in his hometown of Detroit and a six-year-old son, Sekou, who lives with him in Los Angeles.

Shaka has shared with great exuberance his forward-thinking vision as the newest member of the ARC family: “It’s an honor to lead an organization that works tirelessly on behalf of system-impacted men, women, and children, to ensure they return home healthy, whole, and employable. I am looking forward to helping grow ARC’s programs, continuing the leadership development of its members, and working closely with our partners to transform the system and create safer communities.”

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Shaka’s appointment as Executive Director is particularly exciting for ARC’s formerly incarcerated staff members. ARC’s Inside Coordinator Jose Gonzalez shared, “The fact that the title ‘Executive Director’ and ‘formerly incarcerated’ can be in the same sentence describing one person, gives those of us with similar experiences hope.” ARC’s Director of Inside Programming, Sam Lewis, added, “It’s really great that the next Executive Director of ARC is a formerly incarcerated person. This definitely demonstrates that our organization believes in the leadership of the men and women we serve.”

In mid-May, ARC Founder Scott Budnick will transition to serve as full-time President and Chief Executive Officer of Good Films, a film and television production company focused on developing projects that promote social change through coordinated advocacy and action campaigns. While Good Films will develop projects that highlight a range of social issues, its first project will be the film adaptation of Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” in partnership with Warner Bros.

“We couldn’t have asked for a more capable, inspiring leader to take over the role of Executive Director,” says Founder Scott Budnick of Shaka. “Shaka is a powerful advocate for criminal justice reform, and with first-hand experience of the system, he brings a deep understanding of this work. I’m confident that he will guide our organization in fulfilling our mission and create new opportunities for the men and women we serve. ARC is incredibly lucky to have Shaka at the wheel.”

We are thrilled to welcome Shaka to the ARC family and look forward to continuing our work of changing lives and creating safer, healthier communities together.

In spirit and gratitude,

The Anti-Recidivism Coalition