For twenty-five years the Ella Baker Center has worked locally, statewide, and nationally to shift resources away from prisons and punishment and towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong. We believe that what you water grows. That’s why we mobilize everyday people to build power and prosperity in our communities.   

Local |  StateNational

Local Campaigns

We sit on the Alameda County District Attorney’s Accountability Table (ACDA Accountability Table). The ACDA Accountability Table is a coalition of local community-based organizations committed to ending mass incarceration, eliminating racism from the criminal legal system, and police accountability! 

We believe community-led violence prevention solutions must be at the forefront of public safety. We strive to eliminate punitive and carceral approaches, which have failed to keep our communities safe and replace them with transformative and restorative solutions.

  • The Alameda County District Attorney Accountability Table is made up of the following Core Organizations:
  • Urban Peace Movement
  • Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ)
  • Ella Baker Center
  • Oakland Rising
  • Berkeley Law Policy Advocacy Clinic (PAC)
  • Anti-Police Terror Project
  • Alameda County Participatory Defense HUB
  • Justice Reinvestment Coalition (JRC) 
  • East Bay Community Law Center
  • ACLU NorCal

State Policy:

We win policies that reduce sentences, remove barriers, and restore opportunities. 

  • Advocacy for legislation that abolishes abusive practices in prisons and jails, strengthens family connections, ends the economic burdens placed on people by mass incarceration, and reinvests in communities. Learn about our current bills
  • Inside/Outside Fellowship: is a new dual fellowship program designed to increase contributions to the Ella Baker Center’s policy work by people who are directly impacted by the policies we are advocating to change. It’s also an opportunity for directly impacted people to learn more about the criminal justice movement and the process for changing policies, while also receiving payment for their contributions and labor. 
  • Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Families: Identified how to restructure sentences, reinvest resources, remove barriers, and restore opportunities for families and communities with Forward Together, Research Action Design, and 20 organizations across the country.

National Narrative Work:

We change the conversation about public safety to be less focused on fear and punishment, and more focused on having a living wage job, healthy food, and affordable childcare, healthcare, and housing. 

  • Night Out for Safety and Liberation: We bring people across the country together on the first Tuesday in August to redefine what #SafetyIs: dignity, opportunity, and power in our communities.

Read more about our history and victories.

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