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John,
At Color Of Change, we often talk about how district attorneys, while incredibly powerful actors in the criminal justice system, are also relatively obscure, flying under the radar and operating away from public scrutiny.
That’s why we launched one of our biggest research projects Winning Justice, a first of its kind directory of each prosecutor in all 2,400+ counties across the country. Winning Justice brings greater visibility to the power of the DA’s office by featuring critical information about every prosecutor including their political party, race, gender, how long they’ve been in office, and where they stand on our 6 demands.1
While this information has enormous potential for our organizing work, it also poses an enormous task in keeping it up to date.
To meet that need, Color Of Change is hosting our first ever Sip & Search event this month in Washington, DC!2 We’ll be sharing some background on our prosecutor work and then delivering a free training on super effective research skills that our members can use to learn about their elected officials. For the rest of the evening, we will work together to start uncovering information about local prosecutors that will be featured on Winning Justice.
Our Sip & Search will give our members the tools they need to learn about their elected prosecutors, while also keeping Winning Justice up to date and accurate. These events are such an exciting opportunity to meet this crucial need while also sharing research skills with our amazing members-- but to execute events like this, we need your support.
Will you chip in $4 to help fund our research trainings?
Prosecutor races occur every 4 years but they are not held uniformly across the country. Last year, over 1,000 counties in 25 states held prosecutor races and this year, counties in another 5 states held their own. That means that every year there are results from both primary and general elections and a new batch of candidates that must be reflected on Winning Justice so that it remains accurate.
Without research on what elections are occurring each year, Winning Justice can quickly fall into disrepair and hold information that’s out of date. That makes the website not just ineffective but potentially harmful for organizers that rely on its information to hold their prosecutors accountable.
These trainings present an opportunity to build out a squad of researchers to join us in maintaining this site— and that starts with our first Sip & Search this month and the 4 we hope to host throughout 2020.
Opportunities like this are new ways that Color Of Change is bringing together our members and sharing the tools needed for them to build power alongside one another and us. Making sure these events can remain free and as robust as possible is a huge part of how you too, can be a part of this movement to shine a light on these powerful actors in the criminal justice system and hold them accountable.
John, will you help support us in training a new squad of researchers?
Until Justice is Real,
-- Erika, Rashad, Arisha, Scott, Tamar, Clarise, Madison, Leonard, Marena, Marybeth, and the rest of the Color Of Change team
References:
- "Our 6 Demands," WinningJustice.org, https://act.colorofchange.org/go/57041?t=10&akid=39120%2E4731121%2E-TLLlz
- "Color Of Change Invited You to Sip & Search," https://act.colorofchange.org/survey/sip-search-2019/?t=12&akid=39120%2E4731121%2E-TLLlz
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