WATCH: Dignity and Power Now's 2019 highlights
of advocacy, events, healing and more.
Welcome, Hilda, Ivette & Trudy!
We're excited to announce additions of Hilda Eke, Ivette Alé andTrudy Goodwin to the DPN family.
Hilda Eke is a human resource professional with extensive finance and management experience. She holds a Master’s Degree in Healthcare Administration from California State University, Long Beach and a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from University of Benin, Nigeria. Her expertise in organizational policy, strategic human resource planning, and administration led to a reduction in operational redundancies and improved productivity in previous positions. Her innovative work also led to the implementation of a resource management initiative that streamlined workload and consolidated responsibilities. Hilda is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Golden Key International Honor Society and was awarded by the Kano State Governor for her exceptional service to non-profit organizations in Northern Nigeria. Currently, she serves as the Administrative and Human Resources Specialist at Dignity and Power Now, where she is committed to personnel and operational excellence.
Ivette Alé is a grassroots organizer, LGBTQ community leader, and artist with 15 years of community organizing and advocacy experience. Her experiences growing up in Southern California as an undocumented person and as the child of an incarcerated person have informed her activism throughout her career. Most recently, she served as Statewide Coordinator for Californians United for a Responsible Budget, a statewide coalition of over 85 grassroots organizations successfully shifting state and local spending from corrections and policing to human services. As the Coordinator of the JusticeLA Coalition, her work helped secure the victory against L.A. County’s $3.5 billion jail expansion plan. When she is not fighting against prisons and jails, she organizes queer music and art spaces locally and across the country. Ivette is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Political Science, a Women’s Policy Institute Fellow, Justice Policy Network Fellow, and a UCLA Law Fellow. Ivette serves as a Senior Policy Lead for Dignity Power and Now.
Trudy Goodwin’s commitment to organizing began as a child of the Civil Rights movement to end police brutality and to promote equality in education and voting. Later, she joined the Black Panther Party and was an advocate for self-defense, coalition-building and a better quality of life for the oppressed. Trudy has served as an organizer, legal observer, radio producer and considers her most rewarding work that of defending the rights of the homeless and those imprisoned. She co-founded the Committee for Racial Justice – an anti-racist group committed to dismantling all forms of racial oppression. She is a steering board member of Global Women Strike L.A. – an organization working to bring value to all women’s work and lives. Through sacred medicine and root healing practice, Trudy works with healers, artists, visionaries, and change-makers to co-create a movement of self-determined people who are ready to empower themselves and resist the oppression of white supremacy. She is a MFA fellow of Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles and is Dignity and Power Now's new Healing Justice Organizer.
New Report!
THIS IS HUGE! A report presented to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors by the Alternatives to Incarceration Work Group--which Dignity and Power Now is a part of-- offers more than 100 strategies that could potentially reshape the criminal justice system in L.A. County.
"Care First, Jails Last Health and Racial Justice Strategies for Safer Communities" outlines strategies designed to allow people affected by the justice system to benefit from mental health care and other services and to receive them in their communities. The report explicitly addresses the disparate racial impacts of the justice system.
Are you watching Good Trouble on Freeform? If you're not, you missing out on Dignity and Power Now being featured this season. Check out this still of our founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors and our Director of Campaigns and Policy. Support Dignity and Power Now and the work we're doing by watching Good Trouble on Freeform!
LA County Will Try Bail Reform, But Critics Say It's Going About It All Wrong
Los Angeles County is moving ahead with a bail reform pilot program, despite warnings from criminal justice reform advocates that the program's reliance on computerized risk assessment tools will perpetuate racial discrimination against defendants.
There are some 7,500 inmates in L.A.'s jails on any given day waiting for their trials. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved the $17 million pre-trial release program, which seeks to increase the number of inmates who can safely be released before trial.
We remain committed to the leadership of our family who’s coming home. Senior Advocacy Lead James Nelson helped run another powerful session with our Forever Rooted members. #CareNotCages
For All Incarcerated People, Their Families, and Communities,
