THE U.S. HAS THE HIGHEST INCARCERATION RATE IN THE WORLD—HIGHER THAN CHINA AND OTHER AUTHORITARIAN NATIONS, AND HIGHER THAN SOUTH AFRICA UNDER THE APARTHEID REGIME.

Campaigns

clean slate illinois

The Clean Slate Initiative is coming to fight to create automatic record relief in Illinois. There are an estimated 3.3 million people currently living in Illinois with an arrest or conviction record. With expungements and automatic sealing of records, these individuals can get a second chance at life.

Fully Free Campaign

People with criminal legal system involvement continue to face punishments long after their system involvement has ended. New data estimate that 3.3 million adults were arrested or convicted of crimes in Illinois since 1979 and are likely living under the shadow of these permanent punishments today. Due to racial disparities at every step in the criminal legal system, Black people are disproportionately impacted by permanent punishments.

decarceration fellowship

The Decarceration Fellowship aims to improve individual outcomes and opportunities for recently returning citizens while also building future leaders who will use their skills and experiences to challenge overly punitive and racially charged criminal justice policies and practices. Live Free Illinois’s current program theory holds that providing recently returning citizens with an intensive, highly structured, and paid leadership and community organizing training curriculum within the critical first months of release will help program participants achieve greater health and well-being, improve reentry outcomes, and grow into community leaders who are able to leverage their voices and lived experiences to mobilize their communities and influence justice reform policy change.

The People’s Coalition for Safety and Freedom

Live Free Illinois is proud to be a member of the People’s Coalition for Safety and Freedom (“The People’s Coalition” or “PCSF”). PCSF is a coalition made up of base-building and member-led grassroots organizations, racial justice policy and advocacy institutions, most of which are Black- and queer-led, representing a cross-section of communities impacted by systems of criminalization and incarceration who are committed to transforming the legal system and redefining public safety. Our primary vehicle for accomplishing this goal is to dismantle the harmful 1994 Crime Bill and replace it with a new federal law that adopts The People’s Bill for Safety and Freedom, which was developed with the participation of the people most harmed by systems of policing, surveillance, criminalization, and incarceration. The cornerstone of the PCSF campaign strategy is the implementation of “The People’s Process,” a democratic process that gathers the expertise of those most impacted by the 1994 Crime Bill. The People’s Process relies on and strengthens existing grassroots organizations, networks, and other groups of community members fighting to curb criminalization and create safer communities. PCSF is a program of the Center for Popular Democracy.

ADVISORY BOARD

We affirm that individuals who are closest to the problem are also closest to the solution, and oftentimes furthest from the resources. LIVEFREE Illinois’s Decarceration Advisory Board was developed to ensure that all of our decarceration work is led by individuals impacted by the justice system.

Our decarceration work is led by our Lead Decarceration Organizer and Decarceration Advisory Board. Our Decarceration Advisory Board is comprised of justice-impacted individuals who are leading in various sectors of criminal justice reform work.

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