| Hey there, As you may have seen on our social media, we like to spend March celebrating Women’s History Month! This year on International Women’s Day (March 8th), we officially kicked off our newest campaign, which is focused on ensuring that Texas families can reunite and remain together. In the past month we’ve also co-hosted two community events, shared our perspectives in the local news, and more. Check out all of our March updates below! |
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| | Events from Austin to the Valley. In addition to our research and policy work, TCJE is committed to connecting with local community members—particularly those who’ve been personally impacted by the criminal punishment system. This month, two of our system-impacted coalitions co-hosted events where they met more justice-involved neighbors to share ideas and resources. On March 1 in Austin, the Texas Women’s Justice Coalition (TWJC) joined forces with Truth Be Told, Tomorrow’s Promise Foundation, and the St. Edward’s University Social Work Program for “The State of Public Safety Through Healing and Equity.” Attendees heard from a panel including impacted people, crime survivors, community leaders, and more. Afterwards, they participated in a healing circle and a community conversation focused on true public safety, with concrete policy solutions. Thanks to our partners and to everyone who joined us in Austin! |
| | On March 2, our Statewide Leadership Council (SLC, a group of formerly incarcerated and system-impacted advocates) gathered for their first-ever event in the Rio Grande Valley! “Reclaiming Our Voices, Building Better Communities” took place at the University of Texas RGV in Edinburg. In addition to forging community connections, attendees received information about navigating the legal and carceral systems, with the goal of ensuring that as many people as possible know their rights. We’re so grateful to everyone who attended! |
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| | Our newest campaign and resources: Family Preservation. Earlier this month we participated in Amplify Austin, an annual 24-hour giving marathon that boosts Central Texas nonprofits. This year, we proudly continued fundraising for our work to strengthen Texas families—seeking support for 2 new resources to help parents and their children come and remain together. With the money contributed by our Amplify donors, we’ll be partnering with Texas attorneys to create a “know your rights” guide about the child welfare system, and we’ll accompany the guide with “know your rights” clinics for parents! For all those who invested in our work during Amplify Austin or helped spread the word, a huge thank you! If you still want to give, you can donate to our year-round I Live Here I Give Here page or make an investment on our website. Just hours after Amplify Austin ended, we celebrated International Women’s Day—officially launching this family preservation campaign with the start of a new video series. The first video featured TCJE Women’s Justice Director Cynthia Simons and Grassroots Leadership’s Annette Price, who sat down to share their personal experiences with the family policing system. |
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| | Our team on the national stage! This month, we’re delighted to share that one of our colleagues has been recognized for his leadership. Leon Theodore, who heads our work in Dallas County, has recently been announced as one of Rockwood Leadership Institute’s Black and Latino Changemakers Fellows! Leon will join other leaders from around the country as he continues his work dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline in North Texas and beyond. Check out the full list of fellows in the cohort here. Leon also sat down recently with social work student Lauren T. Latiolais to share his perspectives on leadership as a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW). She wrote: |
| “Leon identifies empathy, humility, authenticity, resilience, adaptability, inclusivity, and vision as the essential qualities of effective leadership that must be underpinned by a deep understanding of oneself and a strong set of values. He believes these attributes enable leaders to forge meaningful connections, recognize and learn from their limitations, navigate adversity with perseverance, embrace change and innovation, remain inclusive of diverse identities and perspectives, uphold integrity, and foster a positive culture.” |
| As we close out National Social Work Month, please join us in a round of applause for Leon and his well-deserved recognition! |
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| | TCJE in the news. This month, our team has helped spread the word about key justice-related issues by connecting with the media. After our Harris County team published our most recent policy brief, focused on failures in legal representation for indigent defendants with the most serious cases, TCJE’s Jay Jenkins caught up with Houston Public Media. Jay, our Harris County Project Attorney and a co-author of the brief, said: “We arrest so many people that cannot afford their attorney and then provide inadequate representation for them.” Check out his full interview here. After the Dallas Morning News editorial board published its concerns about the state’s ability to fully staff proposed new youth prisons, TCJE’s Youth Justice Policy Director Sarah Reyes responded with a letter to the editor. “We all want to see Texas children thrive,” Sarah wrote, “but new child prisons will only perpetuate the failures of youth incarceration at a great fiscal and human cost.” Read Sarah’s full letter here, or see it below. |
|  | TCJE’s Cynthia Simons also sat down for an interview recently with KOOP-Austin’s show “Racism on the Levels.” Keep an eye on TCJE’s Facebook page, where we’ll share the recording once it’s released! |
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| | March resource corner. Every month in 2024, we’re dedicating space in our newsletter to a relevant resource that might be useful to our supporters. As we continue our family preservation campaign, what better time to highlight data on families affected by Texas’ state systems? |
| The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) and its Child Protective Services division (CPS) play a major role in family separations in the state. Like many other state agencies, the department is facing significant staff shortages and high rates of turnover; also like other agencies, DFPS involvement tends to disproportionately impact Black families and other families of color. To understand these disparities and the atmosphere within the agency, it’s helpful to look at the data. The Texas Open Data Portal, along with the agency itself, publish data books to make this information available to the public. The pages include shorter snapshots as well as more in-depth data sets. Check them out to learn more. |
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| We’ll also share a reminder about our own new resource: a “Know Your Rights” video for Texas parents presented by TCJE’s Cynthia Simons and Shanti Khanna of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which explores recent state legislation that gives formerly incarcerated people a path to restore their parental rights! |
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| | That’s it for our March updates! If you want to stay up to date with our work, you can find us on social media, including our accounts on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Thanks for reading our newsletter! We’ll be in touch with more info soon! In solidarity,
The TCJE Team |
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| | Texas Center for Justice & Equity
Formerly Texas Criminal Justice Coalition
1212 East Anderson Lane, Suite 500 | Austin, Texas 78752
(512) 441-8123 |
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