Issue Areas

Our work goes deep to build ecosystems of adult criminal justice and youth justice reform.

Group of people at Public Welfare Foundation

Building a New Approach to Justice

As designed, our justice system is fundamentally unjust, inhumane, and no derivative of it is going to work. We must build something brand new in its place that is restorative, community-led, and racially-just.

We need a transformative vision of justice. Justice that is actually just.

As a Foundation, we want to catalyze this new vision of justice; strategies created from a place of caring rather than fear; strategies that are rooted in community and led by those who have been most harmed by our nation’s failed systems; strategies that are proven to make people safe and reduce harms.

It’s Working.


What we’re calling for is not a moonshot. There are leaders and organizations working tirelessly to build and implement new models of justice that are rooted in the community and led by those who have been most impacted by the system’s harms. And they are working. We need to drive resources to the ground to fund this work

Resources & Media

What Love Looks Like: Building Community in DC

Leaders at the District of Columbia's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) are mobilizing Credible Messengers as an effective community-based alternative to support youth and young adults. The program engages formerly system-impacted people as examples of what national service should look like in communities.

Prioritizing the Community: Funding Alternatives to Reduce Reliance on the Justice System in Oakland

The short video highlights the incredible work leaders in Oakland are doing to resource effective community-based alternatives and lessen the city’s reliance on governmental justice systems through a focused tax initiative.

All Right There: Elevating Investment Over Incarceration in Colorado

Billions of dollars have been wasted on ineffective prison reform. Learn how community-based restorative efforts in Colorado are transforming the system.

Demand More: Investing in Communities to Transform Criminal Justice

Billions of dollars have been wasted on ineffective prison reform. Learn how community-based restorative efforts will transform the system. This video from Public Welfare Foundation highlights efforts in Colorado, California and the District of Columbia as examples of what can be done across the country.

Previous

Next