Your Gift at Work: Our Op-Ed is making waves, upcoming voting rights webinar, and more

2 views
Skip to first unread message

Dianne Tramutola-lLawson

unread,
Sep 30, 2023, 11:16:24 AM9/30/23
to Colora...@googlegroups.com
 
   September 30, 2023
 
 
 

From: "The Sentencing Project" <st...@sentencingproject.org>
Subject: Your Gift at Work: Our Op-Ed is making waves, upcoming voting rights webinar, and more
 
The Sentencing Project logo stacked on white text on red background that reads your gift at work, next to a photo of a woman with a megaphone

September 2023

Welcome to Your Gift at Work, a monthly newsletter about just a few ways your contributions to The Sentencing Project are making an impact on the criminal legal system.

Celebrate

The Sentencing Project is committed to making our issue areas more widely known, and one way we do this is by submitting Op-Eds to news outlets across the country. This month, our efforts to end the extreme sentencing of abused survivors in Oklahoma had a tremendous ripple effect. ��

 

First, we collaborated with Dr. David McLeod, a former police detective turned professor at the University of Oklahoma, to publish an Op-Ed on lowering sentences for domestic violence survivors in The Oklahoman, the state’s largest daily newspaper.

 

Clytie Bunyan, the newspaper’s Opinions Editor, was so inspired by the Op-Ed that she wrote her own in support of legislation that would “stop punishing women who already have endured lasting physical and psychological pain.”

 

Then, The Oklahoman printed an infographic about domestic violence by the numbers in the state. 

 

��We’re grateful to have your support for criminalized survivors in Oklahoma and across the U.S. If you’re able to help us keep this momentum going, please forward this email to a friend.

Get involved

This year, The Sentencing Project and a coalition of advocates, experts, and partners launched a public education campaign, 50 Years and a Wake Up: Ending The Mass Incarceration Crisis In America, designed to raise awareness about the dire state of the criminal legal system in the country. Learn about its progress and what’s next in the movement. Join our webinar on Wednesday, October 4 at 2 p.m. EST. 

Community Spotlight: Carol Menaker

Carol Menaker is a writer living in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California. When she was 24 years old, she served on a sequestered jury who ultimately sentenced a young Black defendant to life without parole. Decades later, the trauma of that experience inspired Carol to publish a memoir, The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done: One Juror’s Reckoning with Racial Injustice.

In her book, she shares how her youth, naïveté, and white privilege may have led her to wrongfully convict a man whose experiences were vastly different from her own. Carol first encountered The Sentencing Project as part of her writing process, and credits the organization with helping her to learn more about the many flaws in our criminal legal system. The staff’s commitment to ending mass incarceration and focus on building authentic relationships with community members inspired her to become a donor. Today, Carol is a dedicated advocate for criminal justice reform. She looks forward to the way her story will influence others to consider second chances for the thousands of people serving extreme sentences. “[With this book]...I want to open the minds of people who are used to slamming the door,” she says. 

 

You can learn more about Carol and get in touch through her website, carolmenaker.com.

 

If you'd like to be featured in a future Community Spotlight, please contact Development Director Heather Koslov.

One quick question

Would you like the latest criminal legal reform news delivered straight to your phone?

Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube

 

 

The Sentencing Project
1705 DeSales St. NW
8th Fl
Washington, DC 20036
United States
 

 

 

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages