Dorsey Nunn, long-time advocate for the human and civil rights of formerly incarcerated Americans, was awarded the White House Champion of Change award last week in recognition of his “ban the box” campaign, which works to end structural discrimination against former inmates. Nunn is executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) and co-founder of All Of Us Or None, a national movement of formerly incarcerated people speaking in their own voices and working for their human and civil rights. Nunn was one of 10 individuals selected to receive the award, which showcases local leaders working to empower their communities.

Though nearly 70 million American adults have a criminal record, those re-entering society often face staunch discrimination that makes it difficult for them to find a job, secure housing, or access financial services. Through their ban the box campaign, All of Us or None has advocated nationally to remove questions about prior convictions from applications for jobs, housing, public benefits, insurance, loans, and other services. Thanks to this campaign — and the many local spin-off campaigns it has inspired — 100 cities or counties and 18 states have removed questions about conviction history from their public employment applications.

PolicyLink was honored to feature Nunn during the 2015 Equity Summit, where he presented tactics to reduce mass incarceration and reduce recidivism.

“Dorsey Nunn is an inspiring and courageous leader who has worked tirelessly to fight discrimination and connect former inmates and their families to the resources and opportunities they need to thrive,” said Angela Glover Blackwell, president and CEO of PolicyLink.

Read the rest of the May 5, 2016 America's Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Clean air and high-quality schools are fundamental elements of “communities of opportunity” that allow residents to thrive. Last week, the National Equity Atlas, produced jointly by PolicyLink and the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE), added three new opportunity indicators to equip local leaders with relevant data to build equitable cities and regions:

• School Poverty
• Air Pollution: Exposure Index
• Air Pollution: Unequal Burden

The National Equity Atlas team was proud to participate in the “The Opportunity Project,” an Open Opportunity Data event held yesterday at the White House where the new Atlas indicators were showcased. The White House effort focuses on facilitating the development of a suite of digital tools that puts neighborhood-level information on access to opportunity at the fingertips of families, community organizers, non-profits, local leaders, and the media.
 
Writing in a letter to the editor published in the New York Times, on March 7, PolicyLink President and CEO Angela Glover Blackwell noted the importance of disaggregating data by race and ethnicity is critical to understanding trends and developing solutions: “Recognizing this ‘people’ dimension of poor neighborhoods — and the complex interplay of race and place — is essential for catalyzing equitable and sustainable economic prosperity for all.”
 
School Poverty Data Highlighted in The Atlantic
The Atlantic is already demonstrating the analytical power of this new data. Abigail Langston and Sarah Treuhaft from PolicyLink are quoted in “The Concentration of Poverty in American Schools,” by Janie Boschma and Ronald Brownstein, who note that in about half of the nation’s largest 100 cities, most Black and Latino students go to schools where at least 75 percent of all students qualify as poor or low-income:
 
“Kids who spend more than half of their childhood in poverty have a high-school graduation rate of 68 percent,” said Abigail Langston, a senior associate at PolicyLink, and a public fellow at the American Council of Learned Societies. “You see how these things compound over time. There is a link between housing policy, economic and racial segregation, you see what those do to schools and to people who grow up in those neighborhoods.”
 
In the article, promising school integration models from Dallas and New York City are lifted up as tools to address these gaps. The Atlantic also uses the National Equity Atlas’s school poverty indicator in the stories “Separate and Still Unequal” and “Where Children Rarely Escape Poverty.”
 
Join upcoming Equitable Development and Environmental Justice Webinar
On Friday, March 11 the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice will conduct the free webinar “New Data Tools for Supporting Analysis of Equitable Development and Environmental Justice.” Sarah Treuhaft, who is PolicyLink director of equitable growth initiatives will present the new air pollution indicators in the National Equity Atlas. The webinar will also feature a demo of the new environmental justice screening and mapping tool. Register here

A reflection on the PolicyLink Equity Summit, which took place in Los Angeles, Oct. 2015.

As I sit here among 3,000 people, I cannot help but think this is the moment. I look out and see the faces, young and old, new and familiar. I cannot help but think this is the moment.

The affirmative advancement of fair housing, the empowerment of low-wage workers, fighting urban displacement, ending mass incarceration, Black Lives Matter, addressing immigration, improving the lives of boys and men of color, addressing income inequality. These issues are front and center, with thoughtful leaders ready to take action.

I think this must be the moment. But what moment is it?

Is it the moment that we fear? The moment that we realize the great American dream of opportunity for all is really just the opportunity for a few? That the promise of this young nation is just another in a long line of promises unkept? Is it that moment?

Is it the moment that we throw up our hands and say that our differences are just far too wide, too deep and too complex, and go to our respective corners and try to make it work separately and segregated by race, class, or party affiliation? Is it that moment?

Or is it the moment we’ve been waiting for? The moment when we finally realize that our fates are linked, the moment when we find the highest common denominator. The moment when we find our best selves and live up to the promise of liberty and justice for all.

I hope it’s that moment. No, let’s make it that moment.

See new video: What does it mean to be Bay Area Bold?

In two recent National Journal articles, Matt Vasilogambros uses data from the National Equity Atlas to explore how the wages of workers in America’s 150 largest metro areas differ according to race/ethnicity and educational attainment (here and here). The Atlas provides data on median hourly wages broken down by race/ethnicity and level of education.

Overall, White workers earn more than people of color in every metropolitan area in the country—and the same pattern holds true within each category of educational attainment. (There are a handful of metro areas, most of which have incomplete data on the wages of workers of color, where Asians edge out Whites for the highest average pay.) Vasilogambros notes that “this gap in earn­ings between races and eth­ni­cit­ies is well-doc­u­mented, as are its reas­ons: Work­ing-age people of col­or tend to be young­er, have less ex­per­i­ence in skilled labor, and are less edu­cated than whites.”

While it is true that median hourly wages tend to rise with increasing educational attainment, so do racial wage inequities. According to Valerie Wilson, the dir­ect­or of the Eco­nom­ic Policy In­sti­tute’s Pro­gram on Race, Eth­ni­city, and the Eco­nomy, wage gaps have grown the most for college graduates. Data from the National Equity Atlas show that these hourly wage gaps are greatest (around $7 per hour) in cities like San Jose, San Francisco, and New York, where average levels of education and median wages are much higher. The narrowest gaps—still around $2 per hour—are seen in metro areas where the median pay for all workers is far below the national average. As Wilson puts it, “Things tend to equal out at the bot­tom, un­for­tu­nately.”

Sarah Treuhaft, the dir­ect­or of equit­able growth ini­ti­at­ives at Poli­cyLink, underscores the significance of these wage inequities, which are expected to grow as U.S. demographics continue to change. “It im­pacts the over­all eco­nomy,” says Treuhaft. “If people are not earn­ing as much pay, they have less money to save, to edu­cate their child, to spend in the eco­nomy, which fosters more eco­nom­ic activ­ity. Over­all, that ra­cial gap in wages adds up to a big gap in eco­nom­ic prosper­ity for the re­gion.”

Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), a youth-led alliance for education and racial justice in Chicago and greater Illinois, has been lifting up the stories of young people of color who experience overly harsh and racially biased discipline in schools to advocate for more equitable and safer schools for everyone.

Zero tolerance policies that mandate suspension or expulsion for certain offenses emerged in the 1980s, largely in response to rising juvenile arrest rates. The passage of the Gun-Free Schools Act in 1994 required states that wanted access to federal education funding to pass laws mandating yearlong suspensions for students who brought firearms to school. While the original intent of zero-tolerance policies was to make schools safer with a tough-on-crime approach to major offenses, over time, minor violations of school codes of conduct became grounds for suspension or expulsion. One young person from VOYCE reported getting suspended for skipping one class—an extreme disciplinary response that resulted in a disruption of the student’s learning.

Zero-tolerance policies have not only failed to make schools safer but also encouraged punishment practices that prevent youth—especially youth of color—from succeeding at school and being prepared to enter the workforce. 

These practices are not simply ineffective; they have harmful repercussions. School suspensions can disrupt young people’s lives and increase the likelihood that they will be arrested. Even more troubling, the increased likelihood of arrest is highest among youth who do not have significant criminal histories. And youth who do have prior criminal histories are more likely to recidivate while suspended from school. This phenomenon of schoolchildren being channeled into the criminal justice system has been referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline. The suspension of young people—like the member of VOYCE who was suspended for skipping a single class—increases their likelihood of arrest or recidivism, when they should be the classroom.

Recognizing that school suspensions should be the last resort rather than the first response, VOYCE lifted up city- and state-wide data on suspensions, expulsions, and youth arrests to successfully advocate for and pass state legislation mandating the implementation of more fair and effective disciplinary practices instead of zero-tolerance.   

Uncovering racial inequities in school discipline

To reach legislators, VOYCE advocates needed compelling data to communicate the urgency of the harmful outcomes and disparate impact of these punishment practices in their communities. They launched the Campaign for Common Sense Discipline, and analyzing data disaggregated by race and ethnicity was a critical first step of their work.

The coalition analyzed 2012-13 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Police Department data and found alarming disparities in suspensions and expulsions and widespread criminalization of students of color. Black students were more than 30 times more likely to be expelled and had six-and-a-half times more suspensions than their White peers. Students of color were also far more likely to be criminalized: 96 percent of all arrests were of Black and Latino students.

VOYCE also analyzed U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights data and Illinois State Board of Education data and found that state-wide there were over 272,000 out-of-school suspensions of Illinois students, more than 2,400 expulsions, and more than 10,000 arrests in just one school year. About 13 percent of all students enrolled in Illinois public schools had been suspended, but VOYCE knew that actual suspension rates were much higher because charter schools are not required to report suspension numbers.

VOYCE’s analysis also found that suspensions, expulsions, and arrests added up to a significant loss of time in the classroom for Illinois students: more than one million instructional days per year. This was the data point that really captured the attention of decision-makers, according to Jose Sanchez of VOYCE, because it showed how exclusionary discipline was disrupting student learning and creating an enormous barrier to student success.

Data underpins policy wins for safer and more equitable schools in Illinois

Using data and organized public action to get the attention of local and state decision makers, VOYCE was able to advocate for and successfully pass two bills that will curb the devastating impacts of these discriminatory policies and make public schools safer and more inclusive for all Illinois students. 

SB 100 is the most comprehensive attempt by any state to address the causes and dire consequences of the school-to-prison pipeline, and youth advocates from VOYCE played a key role in securing its passage. VOYCE youth drafted a version of the bill in 2012 and sent youth representatives to all legislative hearings about the bill. SB100 passed on May 20, 2015, with broad bipartisan support. It mandates that suspensions and expulsions become the last resort in school discipline, not the first response. The bill also works to make schools more equitable by holding public and charter schools to the same disciplinary standards and by providing academic and behavioral support to struggling students. Instead of excluding students by expelling or suspending them, SB 100 is working to put students back on the road to graduation and a future in the workforce.

Credit: VOYCE Coalition.

This quarter, we highlight the work of Mark-Anthony Johnson, director of health and wellness with Dignity and Power Now, a grassroots organization based in Los Angeles that fights for the dignity and power of incarcerated people, their families, and communities. Dignity and Power Now has several campaigns, including establishing comprehensive and effective civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and allocating the money from the $2 billion jail plan into mental health diversion programs and community health centers.

Click to watch a video interview with Mark-Anthony.

Read the rest of the Summer 2015 California Equity Quarterly issue>>>

Guest Author Rosa Aqeel is the Legislative Director for PICO California, the state’s largest faith-based community organizing network, representing half a million families. The post below is excerpted from her testimony at a May 26, 2015 hearing on community safety and police reform, conducted by the California Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color.

I’ve thought a lot about what I would say today, and really struggled.  There’s so much to say, and yet I can’t find the right words to express the deep and profound pain and anger that live in my heart, and is deepened every 28 hours with news of another Black life that has been taken.  

The stories of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Brother Africa, Alex Nieto, Rekia Boyd, and Walter Scott are just a few of the lives that have been taken in the last several months.  Lives that mattered to some of us, but not to all of us.  Lost lives that demand a conversation about courage and leadership and what changes we must make to prevent the unnecessary loss of life.   

The challenges facing our communities are great — communities of color do not trust law enforcement. Black and Latino mothers and fathers continue to have “the talk” with their kids about how to stay alive when they come into contact with law enforcement.  This isn’t hyperbole — it’s a sad fact and one that we must work courageously to change.

This year we have seen a plethora of legislation aimed at police reform.  Bills that require body cameras, more training, and our co-sponsored bills that require data collection will go a long way towards improving the status quo.*

But we must do more.  We must be bold and fearless in seeking real reforms that will change the way police officers police and the way in which communities experience those who vow to protect and serve them.  

I propose two reforms that have not made their way into this legislative session, but that our members across the state support enthusiastically.

The first involves independent investigations of police shootings with civilian oversight.  We know that police officers are rarely convicted of criminal misconduct, and are not often held accountable for their actions.  The wall of silence that exists among all law enforcement agencies — coupled with the need for district attorneys and local law enforcement to work together — make it very difficult to conduct independent investigations.

Civilian oversight experts agree that we must have independence from the beginning, to avoid planting and/or tainting of evidence that often impacts any subsequent prosecution.  A truly independent review process that puts outside, independent investigators at the scene of a police shooting at the same time as local police is necessary.  

Second, we need to take a close look at the Police Officers Bill of Rights.  These were laws that likely began as a way to protect the integrity of the important work done by police officers but have, over time, become a set of special privileges that make it nearly impossible to remove bad officers. Police officers accused of wrongdoing should not have rights over and above those of citizens like you and me.

One special right requires that interrogations of police officers shall be conducted at a reasonable hour, and if they occur while the officer is off-duty, he or she is entitled to be paid for that time. Others include the requirement that an officer must be informed of the nature of the investigation before the interrogation begins, that an officer may not be subjected to offensive language, and that an officer under interrogation shall be allowed to attend to his or her own physical or personal necessities.

I am certain that we would all love these special rights if we were accused of a crime. But they put officers above the law, are inherently unjust and unfair, and offend notions of equal justice.

I understand how politically charged my suggestions are — let’s not pretend that the decisions made in this building are completely based on notions of good public policy.  But if we are to make Black Lives Matter, and if we are to begin to build real trust between communities of color and law enforcement, then we will have to be courageous, and potentially risk a long political career in exchange for a shorter one that yields real and substantive change.

And law enforcement officers that know that change is needed within their own departments must also exercise courage and name and call out the injustices to which they bear witness.

Real change and real trust demands that all of us — policy makers, advocates, law enforcement and community — act bravely.  We can’t wait — soon, when another 28 hours have passed, another Black life will be lost.  What if that life is someone you love?  What must happen for us to feel the urgency of this moment?  

I pray that has already happened, and that we can work together now, courageously and unapologetically, to create a California where all lives matter.

*To check on the status of these and other bills, please visit http://allianceforbmoc.org
 

The ongoing protests against police brutality have shone a spotlight on the fraught relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve.  While the recent deaths of Black men and women at the hands of police have served to galvanize these protests, they are only the most visible instances of a litany of abuses that affect many poor communities of color on a daily basis.

“The tragic killings make headlines, but the daily harassment of people of color is the thing that boils people's blood every day…the roughing people up, the cursing at them, throwing them up against a wall, illegally arresting and ticketing them,” said Udi Ofer, the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey. 

The fact that many of these communities have little to no effective recourse in the face of police misconduct makes these issues all the more intractable.

“The most common thing you hear is that it’s very hard for people to find redress for those abuses because the justice system isn’t set up to address them — in many ways, it’s like the fox guarding the hen house,” said Ofer.

In Ferguson, a Justice Department investigation revealed that the police not only failed to respond to complaints against police officers, they discouraged personnel from even taking those complaints and support a culture of retaliation in which those attempting to seek recourse for police misconduct were then targeted for abuse. In Newark, a 2011 investigation by the ACLU of New Jersey found that of the 261 internal affairs complaints filed against police officers over a period of two and half years, only one had been sustained (a 2014 Federal report on Newark’s police department corroborated the rampant misconduct documented in the ACLU investigation, including the fact that 75 percent of those stopped by police — disproportionately Black Newarkers — were innocent of any crime).

In Newark, the need for community oversight of police became a galvanizing issue for local advocates, spurring an unprecedented coalition of labor, LGBT, immigrant, and civil rights groups called the Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP). 

“Uniting all these groups in Newark was a game changing moment,” said Ofer, who sits on the steering committee for N-CAP.  When former Newark Mayor Cory Booker left for Senate, N-CAP hosted rallies, released a report on stop and frisk data, and organized meetings to ensure that community oversight of policing would have to be part of the discussion for the next mayor.

Their advocacy paid off last Thursday when Mayor Ras Baraka signed an executive order establishing one of the most progressive civilian police review boards in the nation.

“Previously, we didn’t prefer using CCRBs, because they usually had no power,” Ofer said, speaking at a convening on police reform last Thursday co-hosted by PolicyLink and the Center for Popular Democracy.  “But after looking at other CCRBs out there, we decided we wanted to make a national model for what a CCRB should be. We came up with seven principles of what would make a perfect CCRB — this executive order includes six out of the seven.”

This Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) will have independent authority to investigate police misconduct, subpoena data and testimony from the department, audit the department’s policies and practices, and determine disciplinary decisions that, barring a “clear error” in the board’s investigation, will have to be carried out by the police director.  The police department will also have to report racial and demographic information to the board regarding police activities, including stop and frisk.

The board will also have diverse representation from the community, with seven out of its 11 members recommended to the board by local community-based organizations, including the ACLU of New Jersey, People’s Organization for Progress, Ironbound Community Corporation, NAACP New Jersey, Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, La Casa de Don Pedro, and a representative of the clergy.  

The main measure not included in the order was making the CCRB budget a fixed percentage of the police department budget. The CCRB was given $500,000 for start-up costs, but according to Ofer, they will need at least double that to build an effective board, and N-CAP will continue to advocate for adequate and sustained funding. N-CAP will also work to codify the executive order, ensuring its survival past the mayor’s term by making it a municipal ordinance.

The CCRB is a part of N-CAP’s larger goals for police reform in Newark, including regular meetings between community members and local police leadership, incentivizing community policing practices (for more information on community policing see the following PolicyLink report), and reducing the use of consent searches, racial profiling, and de facto quota systems for the number of stops and citations.  

“Giving the community a voice in how they are policed is one of the most important checks on policing — it combats the disconnect that’s often seen between the big picture decision being made [by police leadership] and the impact of those decisions on the street,” Ofer said. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it is an important part of the solution.”

In the midst of outrage following the tragic killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and numerous other Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement, I’ve been remembering my late grandfather. He served as a Black police officer in Philadelphia for 27 years. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, he was disgusted by video footage of his colleagues in the Deep South using water hoses and attack dogs to terrorize peaceful protesters bravely marching for civil rights. This was not the world he wanted to leave for his grandchildren.

I inherited my grandfather’s commitment to justice. I’ve attended several marches and die-ins in New York City, demanding a change in police and judicial practices that allow for brutality to go unchecked. Many of the police officers monitoring the demonstrations have been Black, and I truly believe that they, like my grandfather, are also eager for change.

This change is certainly easier said than done. As a Black man born and raised in a racially mixed neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I can attest to how law enforcement treats White youth differently. It did not matter that my community was known as “liberal” or “progressive.” White teenagers could openly engage in adolescent indiscretions, while Black teenagers, including myself, were constantly anxious about our appearance and demeanor in public spaces and particularly during casual interactions with police officers.

There is an urgent need for strategic intervention — we need large-scale changes to the justice system. But stakeholders must also begin to repair the many layers of mistrust that exist between law enforcement and people of color. We need to have tough and courageous conversations about race, perceptions of black masculinity, and implicit bias in police departments and in American society as a whole. We need to get uncomfortable to press forward. Like many Black men of my generation, I refuse to have disparaging chats with my future son about how he “should” and “should not” behave around police officers. The time to change the discourse is now.

To help support this dialogue, PolicyLink and Advancement Project are releasing a series of briefs — Beyond Confrontation: Community-Centered Policing Tools — to help advocates, policymakers, and police officials implement community-centered policing practices. The second brief in the series — Engaging Communities as Partners — lifts up promising practices to build bridges between local law enforcement and community groups and highlights how police departments and community organizations are finding common ground for change in neighborhoods nationwide.

The practices in Engaging Communities as Partners can be tailored and adopted by today’s movement to help make police departments and communities stronger. The brief contains strategies to help preempt rising tensions between police and community members. Although my grandfather passed away many years ago, I believe Engaging Communities as Partners is a step toward the world he wanted to leave for his grandchildren.
 

The grand jury’s decision last night not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown burns with the pain of loss and the anger of injustice.  Once more, we are told that black and brown lives are disposable, vulnerable to being cut short at any moment without a guarantee of justice. Michael Brown was just the latest in a long line.  

As a young black man, I reject the complacency bred from illusions of progress. Despite our best efforts, we continue to be confronted with a system that kills unarmed people of color with impunity. As activists and community leaders, we must redouble our efforts to make the system work for communities of color. We must act together to build an equitable society where everyone — including young men and women of color — is valued and supported.  And we must remain confident in our conviction that doing so will not only help our communities; it will build a stronger, fairer, and more just America for all. Here are some of the things you can do right now:

(1)  Stay informed about what is happening in your community
Protests and direct actions are planned in dozens of communities over the next several days. Find out what’s happening near you, join an action and invite your network to attend. You can also follow what’s happening on the ground in Ferguson and other places by searching the hashtag #Ferguson and by following these groups and people on Twitter and Instagram:
@Handsupunited_
@OBS_StL
@millennialAU
@HotepTNT
@TefPoe
@DeRay

(2)  Host conversations about the inequities facing communities of color
The tragic death of Michael Brown, and too many young men and women of color before him and since, have shone a national spotlight on police militarization and the systemic inequities affecting communities of color: historic disinvestment in housing and infrastructure and unequal access to quality jobs, healthcare, and education. Use this moment to help community leaders, educators, students and families understand these inequities and work with them to envision a more equitable society in which all can fully participate and prosper. The Race Matters Institute Toolkit offers a range of tips for hosting productive conversations about race.

(3)  Donate to the courageous young leaders who are risking their lives to lead this movement
Young activists on the ground in Ferguson and across the nation need support to continue advocating for a more equitable society in which the emerging majority people-of-color generation can reach its full potential. You can donate to their organizations through the following links:
Hands Up United
Millennial Activists United
Dream Defenders
Black Youth Project
Ohio Students Association
The Organization for Black Struggle

(4)  Join advocacy networks such as the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color in California, and national networks like the Institute for Black Male Achievement, and the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights to advance more just policies in your community.