Vote Safe — Criminal Justice Reform Policy Advocacy

Table of Contents

Grant investigator: Chloe Cockburn

This page was reviewed but not written by the grant investigator. Vote Safe representatives also reviewed this page prior to publication.

The Open Philanthropy Project recommended that Cari Tuna personally contribute $250,000 to Vote Safe for criminal justice reform policy advocacy.1 Vote Safe is affiliated with Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ), an advocacy and policy reform organization that developed the first statewide network for crime victims supporting justice reform. Vote Safe crafted and ran the successful campaign for Proposition 47, a 2014 California ballot measure that reduced incarceration by changing several low-level felonies to misdemeanors, and reallocating the prison cost savings to prevention and treatment.2

The Open Philanthropy Project separately recommended a grant to the Alliance for Safety and Justice, a national organization aiming to build off and scale up the success of CSJ.

This funding falls within our focus area of criminal justice reform.

Sources

DOCUMENT SOURCE
The New York Times 2015 Source (archive)
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1.Vote Safe later changed its name to the Alliance for Safety and Justice Action Fund.

2.“Until recently, California locked up more people per capita than any other state. It has been under federal court order since 2009 to bring its severely overcrowded prison system below 137.5 percent of capacity, or about 114,000 inmates. It met that modest goal in February, thanks in part to a 2014 ballot initiative that reclassified six low-level offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies. The initiative, Proposition 47, was expected to lead to the release of thousands of inmates, and cut new admissions by about 3,300 per year. It also required that the cost savings — estimated to be more than $150 million this year — be reinvested into anticrime services like drug rehabilitation, antitruancy efforts and mental health treatment. Victims’ services receive funding, too.” The New York Times 2015.