01/19/2024
Church of the Holy Spirit Advocacy Project in Prison Reform
SIMPLE ACTION STEPS TO SUPPORT REFORM
Watch a recording of our webinar to learn about problems in our criminal justice system. LINK IS
HERE https://vimeo.com/900901890/dbed3e57f6?share=copy
TRAFFIC STOPS [HB 1513]
Current policing strategies for
low-level traffic stops
disproportionately harm
marginalized communities.
LIMITING SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT [HB 1087]
Overreliance on solitary
confinement subjects hundreds of
incarcerated persons to
psychological torture.
UNSTACKING GUN
ENHANCEMENTS [HB 1268]
Stacking of gun enhancements leads to mass
incarceration; incarcerated persons remain
warehoused into old age even when they age
out of crime and can productively rejoin
society.
Support these bills by writing or calling our District 34 legislators:
Senator Joe Nguyen
[email protected]
(360) 786-7667
Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon
[email protected]
(360) 786-7952
Rep. Emily Alvarado
[email protected]
(360) 786-7978
Why support these bills? Passing these bills will help undo the racial, social, economic, and spiritual harms of
Washington state’s criminal justice system and will begin ending mass incarceration. As Christians, we believe that
incarcerated persons are loved by God. A reformed criminal justice system can help end systemic racism and help all
incarcerated persons turn their lives around.
SAMPLE LETTERS
I write to support HB 1268 on unstacking gun enhancements. I am dismayed by the excessive length of sentences in
Washington prisons that grow out of the 1980s war on drugs and disproportionately affect people of color. I think of
myself as tough on crime, but I deeply desire a more just and humane prison system. Unjustly long sentences have done
enormous harm to minority communities, created spiritual and psychological hopelessness for prisoners, been enormously
expensive for taxpayers, and done little to promote public safety. I hope you will vote “yes” on HB 1268, which will be a
major step toward revising those 1980s laws that have turned our prisons into warehouses. Our prisons should be places
of rehabilitation and hope. Please fight mass incarceration by supporting HB 1268.
I recently watched a webinar on criminal justice reform sponsored by the Episcopal church on Vashon Island. I am
writing in support of the bills featured in the webinar: HB 1513 on Traffic Stops, HB 1087 on Limiting Solitary
Confinement, and HB 1268 on Unstacking Gun Enhancements. All three bills work together to help create a kinder
prison system that treats incarcerated individuals as valued persons loved by God and capable of turning their lives
around. The webinar spokespersons for all three bills show the racial injustices in our criminal justice system and the
damage that prison life does to individuals. The aim of our criminal justice system seems to be punishment and retribution
rather than rehabilitation and return to a productive life in society. Please count me as a voice favoring criminal justice
reform.
I write to support HB 1513 on traffic stops. I am glad that ACLU is sponsoring this carefully designed bill that allows
police to stop vehicles for safety violations like failure to signal turns, not wearing seat belts, or using cell phones while
driving, but not for non-traffic violations like burned out taillights or expired tabs. Too often these minor traffic stops are
pretenses to search cars for drugs and disproportionately affect people of color. ACLU has designed this bill carefully as a
response to the justified fear of “driving while black.” Passing this bill is an important way of dismantling systemic
racism.
Moderated by Cindy Arends Elsberry and featuring Rachael Seevers, Enoka Herat, and David Trieweiler. Held on January 4th, 2024.
