DURHAM, N.C. (Sept. 23, 2025 — Southern Union for Social Justice is committed to progressing justice and structure secure, prospering areas. We decline the obsolete view that criminal justice is a zero-sum video game that matches safety versus justice against each other. Moreover, history– and plenty of research studies, information, and lived experiences– tells us responsive policymaking driven by politics and worry in action to a certain incident, regardless of just how horrible, results in poor regulation that serves neither justice nor safety and security.
These are simply several of the reasons why we are deeply concerned regarding any legislation that uses only much more prison, prison, and implementations as solutions, as opposed to resources and interest to deal with the origin and systemic problems. We believe in evidence-based options, not tired “hard on criminal offense” reactions that misuse public sources and, most notably, do not make us more secure.
Areas are safest when individuals have access to prompt mental healthcare, budget-friendly housing, educational chances, and great jobs. For also long, nevertheless, public safety and security plan has actually been driven by fear, bigotry, and misinformation rather than proof The outcome is an excessively punitive system that fails to safeguard all neighborhoods relatively. Enhancing the number of people kept in prisons and jails, speeding up state-sponsored executions, and pressing death-by-firing-squad as a way for executing those implementations is not a dish for public safety.
There is an urgent demand for financial investment in community-based supports that fulfill individuals’s demands prior to harm happens. Mental health and wellness therapy, restorative techniques, financial investment in and support of reentry initiatives, real estate security, and possibilities for youngsters are the pathways to much safer areas.
Our state faces a selection: spend much more in systems of punishment that have actually failed to supply safety and security and justice or concentrate our resources on genuine remedies dealing with the origin of damage.
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Southern Union for Social Justice , founded in 2007, partners with communities of shade and financially deprived communities in the South to defend and advance their political, social, and financial rights via the combination of lawful advocacy, research study, organizing, and communications. Discover more at southerncoalition.org and follow our work on Facebook , Instagram, and LinkedIn