We live in a nation that has 924,000 hospital beds and 3 million prison and jail beds. This at a time when there are an estimated 4.9 million coronavirus cases in the US.
The time is now to divest from a mass incarceration system that does nothing to stop the cycle of crime and violence and invest in a community-level health and safety infrastructure.
With thousands of COVID-19 cases in prisons around the country and survivors of crime facing unprecedented challenges to their wellbeing- real, direct action is more important than ever before. We know that our members — survivors of crime and violence, people living with past convictions and people serving sentences — are especially vulnerable in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic this moment.
That’s why we launch the #StopTheSpread Emergency Assistance Fund to provide direct cash assistance to crime survivors, people living with convictions, and those recently released due to COVID-19.