A Criminal Justice Reform Funder Expands its Footprint, State by State

When most people think about U.S. states that are on the forefront of battles for criminal justice reform, New York certainly comes to mind. So does California, where reform-minded candidates are doing well despite the recent San Francisco recall. Even Michigan, which used to be well behind many other states, has made the news for reforms including laws designed to sharply decrease the number of people incarcerated in its jails.

The Just Trust, on the other hand, is looking to advance reform in some potentially surprising places. With its August 3 announcement of $7.4 million in grant commitments, the CZI spinoff is targeting states that don’t exactly have a public reputation for being open to reforming their criminal justice systems: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma. The move is part of The Just Trust’s State by State Campaign, a development IP first reported in March. In addition to the four new states, the grantmaker plans to continue its work in the states that were the sites of its first round of grants: Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina.

Criminal justice reform work in these states might seem like an uphill battle. A lot of people believe that criminal justice reform is limited to states like California, New York and Michigan, said Just Trust CEO Ana Zamora. “But the reality is that criminal justice reform is certainly needed in every single state in this country, and it is possible in every state in this country, as long as you have strong advocacy infrastructure at the state level and you have leaders that live and breathe in that state that have the resources to advance the issue in a way that makes sense,” she said. Advocates and funders need to acknowledge that “what works in California is going to look and sound different than in Mississippi.”

To pick the four new target states, Zamora said, the trust conducted a “very robust” analysis of all 50 states, taking into account factors including local criminal justice issues, advocacy infrastructure on the ground, and each state’s policy landscape, including the types of criminal justice legislation that have been introduced and either passed or failed.

Groups in each state targeted in the new strategy will receive significant funding, particularly given the relatively small size of many grassroots reform organizations. The smallest amount per state, $1.15 million, will be spread across seven organizations in Mississippi, including the Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition and Clergy for Prison Reform. Eight Alabama organizations will receive a total of $1.55 million, eight groups in Oklahoma will receive $2.1 million combined, and Louisiana will receive the most money, with $2.6 million spread across 11 organizations. In addition to grassroots groups, state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union are among the awardees in each of the new states. Most of the money will be given over two years.

A Just Trust press release announcing the grants says that the chosen organizations tackle many criminal justice reform issues, including parole and sentencing reform, campaigns against prison and jail expansion, and decriminalization of substance use and mental health disorders. The groups also, according to the release, “represent a big tent of organizations working across the political spectrum, across urban and rural divides, and across a myriad of constituents from businesses to formerly incarcerated people and survivors.”

Zamora told IP that each of the new target states offer “great opportunity,” and also great need, because some of them “have really extreme problem statements with their incarceration rates; while our country has experienced a reduction in incarceration over the last decade, some of these states have actually ticked up.” Finally, she said, “We saw an advocacy community and organizers in the states, and some legislative leadership who really care about this issue. And we had to ask ourselves the question — if they had flexible resources on the c3 and c4 side, what could those incredible leaders do?”

The Just Trust was originally launched in 2021 as an independent spinoff organization of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), which invested an initial $350 million to allow the organization to focus exclusively on criminal justice reform. Originally referred to as the Justice Accelerator Fund, The Just Trust is currently made up of two separate entities: The Just Trust for Education on the c3 side, and The Just Trust for Action, the organization’s c4.

It’s true that there have been some heartening developments in each of The Just Trust’s new target states. Among other reforms, Alabama recently banned the use of waist and leg restraints on pregnant people who are incarcerated. While anti-reform forces are pushing back, in 2017, Louisiana passed a set of laws estimated to reduce the number of incarcerated people in that state by 10% over the following decade. Mississippi’s legislature started 2022 with a slate of possible reform bills to consider, while Oklahoma’s legislators introduced 10 bills, including one allowing the automatic expungement of some past criminal records — an essential step to allow people with past convictions to secure jobs, housing and postsecondary education.

Confronting the backlash and getting ready to expand

The spike in the murder rate over the past few years in particular has provided new gas to forces opposed to criminal justice reform, despite the fact that crime in the U.S. overall remains at historic lows and despite the lack of evidence that neither reforms passed to date nor the election of progressive prosecutors have contributed to the increase.

“We’re experiencing some challenges for a number of reasons,” Zamora acknowledged. At the same time, she said, “I’ve been doing criminal justice reform advocacy and policy for a long time. I started my career at a time where there was no winning. ‘Winning’ was keeping the laws from getting more severe and more harsh. I cut my teeth working 100% defensively, so as an advocate, I know full well that the ebbs and flows of culture and politics, and specifically crime, necessarily impact the trajectory of criminal justice reform.”

In response, she said, the answer is not to pull back on funding front-line organizations that continue to push for reform. Instead, The Just Trust’s core theory of change involves building a well-funded movement that can both weather hard times for criminal justice reform and take advantage of more favorable conditions. To that end, the trust has recently hired an investment partnership manager to raise additional money for both the c3 and c4 sides of the grantmaker. And, according to the announcement of the new State-by-State grants, the trust hopes to expand its efforts to all 50 states.

In challenging times like these, Zamora said, “now is the time to double down on flexible funding and making sure leaders across the country, particularly at the state level, have the resources to make the strategic shifts that we need to make right now.”

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