A Makeover With Meaning

For years EJUSA has worked with families of murder victims on campaigns to repeal the death penalty. They taught us that the death penalty fails to meet their needs – but so does the whole system.

Services like counseling, financial assistance and time off from work are often totally absent. This is especially true in communities of color, where people are most likely to be victimized by crime.

The neglect leaves crime survivors more likely to experience serious mental health issues, domestic crises, drug abuse and more – some of the same factors that fuel continued violence.

Ignoring victims’ needs makes all of us less safe. Yet the criminal justice system ignores victims’ focuses almost exclusively on what happens to the offender after the fact. The death penalty is just one example of this backwards system.

So we’re adding a new a new program to our work - helping crime survivors in underserved communities advocate for their needs. We’ll use the same model that we have used so effectively on campaigns to end the death penalty.

We will still focus on ending the death penalty state by state across the US. But we also want to prevent violence before it occurs, help crime victims rebuild their lives and creates opportunities for former offenders so they won’t repeat the harm. In short, we want a criminal justice system that works - for everyone.

Find out more about where we are and how we got here in Re-imagining What’s Possible