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CIRCLE

for JUSTICE

​

INNOVATIONS

Funding Grassroots Organizations to End Mass Incarceration & State Violence

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OUR MISSION

CJI’s mission is to end mass criminalization and incarceration by building and strengthening the infrastructure of the grassroots criminal justice movement to fundamentally transform the U.S. criminal legal system. We fund where the movement is developing, shifting and growing. We believe this movement should be led by those most impacted by the injustices of the current system, working in alliances across race, class, faith, gender, gender identity, sexuality, immigration status and age.

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NOW IS THE TIME.

iNTRODUCING tHE UNTIL SHE'S FREE CIRCLE!

 

 

Dear CJI Family,

 

Our ability to support grassroots innovators transforming the criminal legal system would not exist without you. Your support over the past two decades,​ at every level, has allowed us to serve the most critical needs of our movement to end mass incarceration and state violence. For this we thank you, we appreciate you, and we would like you to be the first to know that our FreeHer Circle, CJI’s grantmaking fund supporting organizations focused on the intersection of women’s rights and the criminal legal system, has been renamed!

 

Introducing the Until She’s Free Circle!

 

The name change comes as CJI takes full ownership over the fund, previously a partnership between CJI and The National Council of Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. The decision to change the Circle’s name was made after careful consideration of a myriad of circumstances, including the potential for confusion between the fund housed at CJI and The National Council’s separate and distinct “FreeHer Campaign.” We are absolutely thrilled to continue building upon the foundation of women-focused funding laid down jointly with The National Council. We congratulate them on their organizational growth and thank them greatly for their ongoing dedication to our movement!

 

The Until She’s Free Circle will continue to fund women and gender-expansive led organizations addressing state-sanctioned violence against women and girls, including trans women and trans girls, and gender-expansive people, and their criminalization and subsequent incarceration. The Circle is doubling down on its efforts to lessen the ways the system harms women, girls, and gender-expansive folks by supporting:

 

  • Ending state sanctioned violence against women and the abuse-to-prison pipeline

  • Reproductive justice

  • Establishing alternatives to incarceration and ensuring human rights in conditions of confinement

  • Clemency campaigns for women and gender-expansive folks in state and federal prisons, especially those who are elderly, infirm, and/or serving extremely long sentences

  • Family reunification, including an end to automatic termination of parental rights due to incarceration, especially for parents and children at the U.S. border

  • Restoring rights restricted due to a history of incarceration or detention

 

The Until She’s Free Circle will support and incubate the leadership of women, girls, and gender-expansive folks through a robust capacity building program and a prioritization of their positioning as leaders of entire organizations, not just certain projects within larger institutions. This is to strengthen the presence of women and gender-expansive folks in the ecosystem of directly impacted leadership, and place the invaluable wisdom gleaned from lived experience at the forefront of the movement.

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We are so excited to share our news with you, and we hope that you will continue this journey with us until she’s free!

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