Category: Racial Justice

Legislative and Advocacy Priorities, UU FaithAction NJ 2020-2021

by Rev. Rob Gregson 1 Comment

Legislative and Advocacy Priorities, UU FaithAction NJ 2020-2021

Criminal Justice Task Force

  • Youth Justice Transformation. Stopping the school to prison pipeline is essential to reducing the number of individuals, especially people of color, out of our state corrections facilities. Restorative justice pilot projects called for in one of our priority bills, will work to keep young people, especially youth of color in urban areas, out of the criminal justice system and provide them with support they need in their own communities.
  • Expanding Post-Prison Reentry Services. With continued corrections and parole reform, as well as Public Health Emergency Credits, more and more individuals will be released and need to reintegrate into their communities of origins. Services are critical to ensure as smooth a transition as possible. Reentry services will assist those being released in reintegrating into their home communities, becoming active citizens who can participate in the important work to be done in rebuilding their communities– often urban, and minority.
  • Dismantling Racism. Three different bills address different aspects of racism within the criminal justice system: the need for an amendment to the Constitution, a bill to form a Reparations Task Force, and a bill to restrict the use of deadly force by the police. Advocacy will focus attention on how institutional racism feeds the criminal/corrections system– through our failures to protect all lives in the Constitution, to failures to protect individuals during interactions with police, and failures to correct for our history of slavery which has left African Americans — as individuals, families and as a people– robbed of their labor, their wealth and their influence in the larger society and economy.

Environmental Justice Task Force

  • Reduce Fossil Fuel Emissions, especially in EJ Neighborhoods with Focus on Transportation. Follow lead of Environmental Justice partners including NJEJA, Ironbound Corp., Clean Water Action. This will have direct impact on health of residents in EJ neighborhoods.
  • Reduce lead in households, both in drinking water and lead paint. Following lead of EJ partners including NJEJA, Ironbound Corp. and Clean Water Action, help promote outreach to residents about avoiding or reducing lead in drinking water and lead paint in their households
  • Promote the Green Amendment. Conduct outreach, especially through UU congregations, to build understanding and support for the Green Amendment Bill in NJ promoting the right to clean air, clean water and a healthy environment. Follow the lead of “Green Amendments for the Future”. The Green Amendment is supported by our EJ partners.

Gun Violence Prevention Task Force

  • The GVP task under the leadership of its chair, Liandra Pires, has been active in renewing their focus and vision. Additionally, the task force continues to advocate for the Safe Storage Bill which is in the process of being updated to centers an anti-racist/anti-oppression lens around this important legislation concerning firearm and ammunition storage. The task force will continue in the process of identifying specific legislative and educational priorities in their monthly meetings.

Immigrant Justice Task Force

  • Legislative Priorities
    • Enact Covid-related relief legislation to include undocumented persons, starting with S2480/A4171.
    • Enact the Immigrant Trust Directive into Statutory Law with few carve-outs for criminal offenses.
    • Enact DACA program into statute, at federal level, with as few restrictions as possible.
  • Advocacy/Educational Priorities
    • Effective implementation of driver’s license regulations for undocumented persons, with as little interaction with federal government as possible.
    • Investigate and publicize the holding of children separated from parents at southern border in South Jersey foster homes
    • Promote need for as much funding for legal representation of detainees as possible.

Reproductive Justice Task Force

  • Support for the Reproductive Freedom Act. S3030/A 4848, which safeguards reproductive care, upholds basic rights and justice, and respects decision-making throughout pregnancy for all women regardless of race, class, sexuality, ability, or citizenship status. The bill expands the protections of reproductive justice beyond the right to abortion to include protections and expanded access to birth control and pregnancy-related care, as well as eliminating medically-unnecessary restrictions that block access to care.
  • Monitor the work of the Commission to Study Sexual Assault, Misconduct and Harassment by Staff against Inmates in NJ State Correctional Facilities, especially at NJ’s Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, who are disproportionately Black and Brown women, poor women, and also transgender women.
  • Strengthen maternal health and reduce maternal mortality, including supporting the Maternal Mortality Review Commission, and affirm our commitment to ending New Jersey’s shameful record as a state with one of the worst Black-White racial disparities in maternal deaths in the nation.
  • Support the strategic plan of the Sexual Education Subcommittee of Thrive NJ, which challenges heterosexist and cis-sexist assumptions about sexuality and gender.
  • Monitor the implementation of the address confidentiality law (PL 2019.c175) by reviewing the proposed regulations with assistance from Legal Advocacy, and encourage comments that will advance our goal of protecting access to abortion for all women and their providers.
emissions rising from factory smoke stacks

Call to Action: NJ&’s Cumulative Impacts Bill (S232 / A2212)

by Charles Loflin Leave a comment

The NJ Senate passed a landmark Environmental Justice bill (S232/A2212, Singleton/McKeon) in June. Governor Murphy made a public announcement of support on Juneteenth. However, Speaker Coughlin canceled a final vote on July 30th just hours before it was to occur.

Now it is past time for the Assembly to act.

A2212 will:

  • Protect communities hardest hit by COVID & pollution
  • Tackle the legacy of environmental racism in NJ
  • Ensure communities of color & low income communities do not continue to get
    dumped on
  • Expand the right of residents to weigh in on decisions
  • Promote green, clean business over dirty, toxic industries
  • Make NJ a leader in the fight for environmental justice

The NJ Assembly must pass NJ’s Cumulative Impacts Bill (S232 /
A2212) without any weakening amendments by the end of August.

Take Action

Fall Issues Conference 2019 – Agenda

Agenda

8:30 – 9:45 Cong. Liaisons Breakfast     Breakfast and conversation with Board members

9:30 – 10:00   Registration

10:00 – 10:10   Welcome & Worship     Rev. Andrée Mol, Central Unitarian Church

10:10 – 10:15   Remembering Luis Merlo     CUC members

10:15 – 10:30   Welcome & Update     Tim Catts, Board President & Rev. Rob Gregson, Exec. Director

10:30 – 10:35   Another Way to Serve     Carolyn Baldacchini, Chair, Nominating Committee

10:35 – 10:45   Helping Justice Thrive     Marty Rothfelder, Chair, and Rev. Jennifer Kelleher, Eco Gala 2020 Committee

10:45 – 12:15   Keynote Panel w/Q & A.    Prof. Sara Wakefield, Tia Ryans, Andrea McChristian

12:15 – 1:30   Lunch   “Lunch with A Leader” in the Sanctuary

1:30 – 1:40   Task Force Introductions    Tom Moran, Chair, Task Force Committee

1:40 – 3:15   Task Force Break-out Groups & Voting on Issues

Gun Violence Prevention –  Kathy Allen

Criminal Justice Reform –  Susan MacDonnell and Anne Houle

Environmental Justice –  Nancy Griffeth and Ray Nichols

Immigration Justice  – Clara Haignere and Peggy Hayden

Reproductive Justice  – Carol Loscalzo

3:15 Break

3:30 Closing

Legislative Priorities 2019/2020

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Legislative Priorities 2019/2020

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
  1. Restore right-to-vote to those on parole, probation, and those still incarcerated
  2. Dignity for Primary Caretakers Act, for incarcerated women
  3. Reform parole system to include ways for certain offenders to earn their way to earlier parole

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
  1. Mandatory emissions reductions in EJ communities, including transition to electric buses and alternate fuel trucks
  2. Reduce single use plastic bags
  3. Maintain adequate water infrastructure – no lead in NJ water

GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION
  1. Continue to support Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO)
  2. Work with NJ legislators to strengthen proposed Safe Storage of Guns bill

IMMIGRATION JUSTICE
  1. Drivers licenses for undocumented. We expect this to be considered and presumably enacted in the 2019 lame-duck legislative session.
  2. Increased funding for legal defense for detainees in NJ facilities. This is connected with the budget process. As part of the NJ Universal Representation Coalition for the past two years, we will continue to advocate for the amount required to ensure all detainees without means have access to legal rep.

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE
  1. Access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion care, by working with coalitions who are introducing legislation in NJ
  2. Strengthen maternal health and reduce maternal mortality including supporting the Maternal Mortality Review Committee
  3. Dignity for incarcerated Primary Caregivers Act, a bundle of bills that incorporates allowances for incarcerated parents to spend time with their children, bans the use of shackles for pregnant women and provide appropriate mental health and substance abuse care
  4. Work alongside a newly formed coalition working to pass/bundle bills related to preventing & supporting sexual assault survivors including reporting and investigating sexual assault inside NJ prisons

Annual Fall Issues Conference held on October 19, 2019

by UU FA Office Leave a comment

The UU FaithAction NJ annual Fall Issues Conference was held on Saturday, October 19 at Central Unitarian Church in Paramus.  This well-attended event featured a panel of criminal justice experts.  If you were unable to attend, you can still read the reports by clicking on the link below.

Get Conference Packet Information Here: https://www.uufaithaction.org/?page_id=8284&preview=true

Chuck Collins 2019 Plenary Keynote Speaker

by UU FA Office Leave a comment

Chuck Collins is an author and senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He is also co-founder of Wealth for Common Good. He is an expert on economic inequality in the US, and has pioneered efforts to bring together investors and business leaders to speak out publicly against corporate practices and economic policies that increase economic inequality.

Collins has written a number of books about inequality, tax policy and social change philanthropy. In 2000, he co-authored the book, Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change. In 2000 (revised in 2005), he co-authored with Felice Yeskel Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity.  Collins is coauthor, with William H. Gates Sr, of the 2003 book, Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes, which argues that the estate tax is both fair and necessary. In 2013, he authored 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It. His most recent book is Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good.

Between 1983 and 1991, Collins worked at the Institute for Community Economics, based in Greenfield, Massachusetts, providing technical advice to community land trusts and mobile home resident cooperatives. Between 1991 and 1995, he was director of the HOME Coalition in Massachusetts and a field organizer for the Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts (now the Mass Budget and Policy Center). In 1995, he co-founded, with Felice Yeskel and S.M. Miller, United for a Fair Economy in Boston, Massachusetts, a left-leaning national organization devoted to education about growing income and wealth inequality.

Collins has worked with a number of prominent wealthy individuals, including William H. Gates, Sr. and George Soros, in an effort to promote tax equity. 

In 2005, he became a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits the web site, Inequality.org and directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good. In 2008, he cofounded Wealth for the Common Good, which subsequently merged in 2015 with the Patriotic Millionaires.

At the Institute for Policy Studies, Collins’ research has looked at income and wealth inequality and the racial wealth divide. He has co-authored a number of studies including “Billionaire Bonanza” exploring the share of wealth flowing to the top 1 percent and Forbes 400, and the “Ever Growing Gap”, which examines the future of the racial wealth divide.

 

Virtual Reality Solitary Confinement Headsets

Regarding the solitary confinement Virtual Reality experience, this 6X9 website has more information.

Two Sundays, Two Awesome Conferences

by UU FA Office Leave a comment

On Sunday, February 3rd, UU FaithAction held the first Justice Policy Update Conference, which featured Professor Meghan Sacks, Criminal Justice Program Chair at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  Professor Sacks talked very knowledgeably and passionately about the legislation that created mass incarceration, the current efforts to amend some of these policies, and the injustice these policies perpetuate.  As one seasoned conference attendee stated, “It was the BEST speaker she had ever heard on this topic.”  Professor Sacks recommends that anyone interested in mass incarceration watch the films 13th and Riker’s Island: An American Jail.

On Sunday, February 10, UU FaithAction held the second Policy Update Conference at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton.  Our guest speaker was journalist and WNYC on-air correspondent Matt Katz.  Matt Katz has become, over the past three yeas, a leading investigative reporter on immigration, detainees, protective status and refugees in America.  His talk was informative and riveting.  Prior to his deep dive into Immigration, Matt reported on former Gov. Chris Christie and was part of a team of journalists who earned a Peabody award for their reporting.

CONTACT UU FAITHACTION NJ:
4 Waldron Avenue, Summit NJ 07901 | (908) 376-6535 | execdir@uufaithaction.org