Your Voice is Needed for Smart Justice: Hearing Wed., Nov. 6

Call for Smart Justice in Spokane

Criminal Justice Commission Hearing
Wed Nov 6^th at 6:00pm
**Pre-Hearing Training at 4:30pm**
Gonzaga Law School Court Room,
721 N Cincinnati St, Spokane, 99220

We have an opportunity to make major steps this year to reform our criminal justice system in Spokane, and your voice can make the difference!

Join PJALS and the Smart Justice Campaign in calling for Smart Justice by:

Attending and testifying at the public hearing on the Spokane Regional Criminal Justice Commission’s draft recommendations for regional criminal justice reform on Wednesday, November 6 at 6pm in the Gonzaga Law School Court Room, 721 N Cincinnati St, Spokane, 99220. Show support for Smart Justice in Spokane by attending the hearing. You are encouraged to testify and share your personal story or perspective. The Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) will have their draft recommendations available for public review on Friday, November 1 on their website – http://www.spokanecounty.org/srcjc/.

Attending the Smart Justice Campaign Pre-hearing Training for Smart Justice Supporters on Wednesday, November 6, 4:30pm to 5:30pm at the Gonzaga Law School Court Room, 721 N Cincinnati St, Spokane, 99220 (which is also the site of the hearing at 6 pm). This training will provide a briefing on Smart Justice, provide an overview of the Smart Justice Campaign and CJC recommendations, and provide support for developing your testimony and telling your story. For more information and resources for developing your comments, go to www.smartjusticespokane.org.

If you can attend, please RSVP at: http://bit.ly/1aRoOfS

Background
In November 2012, the Spokane County Board of Commissioners and Mayor Condon appointed a joint City-County Regional Criminal Justice Commission charged with recommending reforms to our criminal justice system. The Commission’s final recommendations will provide “the to do list” for City and County elected officials to implement criminal justice reform.

The Smart Justice Campaign is focused on getting the CJC, who has been receptive to the campaign, to include our Policy Recommendations and Plan to Implement Regional Smart Justice in their recommendations. The Plan provides a framework for how to design a regional Smart Justice system that so that Smart Justice can be successful and sustainable, and includes recommendations on how to eliminate the disproportionate impact of our criminal justice system on people of color.

The Smart Justice Campaign is a broad, diverse coalition of 30 organizations, community members, and criminal justice professionals who have come together to reform our unfair criminal justice system. Instead of warehousing members of our community in jail, who pose no danger to our neighborhoods, we are urging our elected officials to spend our tax dollars on proven programs that are fiscally responsible, reduce crime, and create a thriving and healthy community.

The Smart Justice Campaign is advocating for an end to outdated polices that jail people for failing to pay fines and other non-violent behavior, and unjustly target communities of color, those of us living in poverty, and our neighbors with mental illness, addiction and disabilities. We are demanding that taxpayer dollars not be used to build more jail beds, but rather are invested in alternatives to incarceration and support services that hold people accountable for their behavior and provide opportunities to get better. Doing so will preserve jail beds for high-risk violent offenders who actually pose an imminent danger to our community, and change peoples’ lives so they can get out of the cycle of crime permanently.
This is Smart Justice and Spokane deserves it.

For more information on the Smart Justice Campaign, go to: www.smartjusticespokane.org