Former Prisoners Organize to Fight Discrimination

WHAT: Peace & Justice Community Summit

WHEN: Saturday, July 31, 2004, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

WHERE: First Unitarian Church, 685 14th Street in Oakland.

Oakland, CA -- A new civil rights movement is being born in Oakland. For the first time ever, people with felony convictions are organizing to fight against the discrimination they face after they are released from prison. That discrimination includes barriers to employment, housing, and social services, and denial of access to former prisoners’ own children.

This new civil rights movement, All of Us or None, is a national,
grassroots group dedicated to building political power for people in
communities devastated by mass incarceration.

On Saturday, July 31st at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland, former prisoners and their families will come together to dialogue with elected officials and other community leaders. This Peace & Justice Community Summit will address the many barriers to re-entry that people confront when coming out of prison. “Discrimination against people with felony convictions has moved from ugly private practices into accepted public policy,” says Dorsey Nunn, Program Director at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and a co-founder of All of Us or None. “We must endure life-long punishment for crimes committed years ago, even though we have suffered the punishment of prison. We say, ‘Enough is
Enough. When our prison sentences are over, we should be accepted back into our communities and given equal opportunities and support for our re-entry.”

Speakers at the Summit will focus on how sending so many people to prison has impacted families and our communities and they will tell policy-makers about the specific changes that former prisoners and their families are demanding. Formerly-incarcerated people will testify about:

- one-strike evictions from public housing,

- the lifetime welfare and foodstamp ban that people convicted
of felony drug charges face,

- fast-track adoptions and barriers to family reunification,

- discrimination in public and private employment,

- deportations of immigrants and how deportations tear families
apart, and

- the impact of locking up youth.

Former prisoners will also present specific recommendations for policy changes at local, state, and federal levels of government.

In a letter inviting elected officials and community leaders to
participate in the Summit, Keith Carson, Alameda County Supervisor, writes, “There is a need for elected officials and policy makers to do a better job of facilitating a successful transition for those who have been convicted of committing crimes and paid their debt to society into our neighborhoods so we can sustain healthy communities…. At this point we are not successfully engaging those who have been convicted of committing crimes in the past to develop a system that will prevent criminal activity in the future.”

The public is urged to attend the Peace & Justice Community Summit:
Saturday, July 31, 2004, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 685 14th Street in Oakland. Childcare and a community lunch will be provided. This Summit is being sponsored by All of Us or None, Keith Carson, District 5 representative on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, and several community based organizations.