Causes: Civil Rights, Intergroup & Race Relations, Minority Rights, Race
Mission: Katal works to strengthen the people, policies, institutions and movements that advance equity, health and justice for everyone. We are focused on three big, inter-related goals:-Advancing evidence-based solutions to achieve healthier, safer, more equitable communities. -Building leadership and organizing capacity of neighborhood residents, as well as organizers, advocates, and community groups, to effectively drive and shape real change. -Ending mass criminalization, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs.
Results: Since our launch in 2016, Katal has played a leadership role in ending mass incarceration and building a movement for justice in Connecticut and New York. This work includes campaigns to close jails and prisons; decarceration and reducing the number of people incarcerated entering the criminal legal system; ending wealth-based detention; reforming parole and probation practices; expanding alternatives to incarceration; dismantling systemic racism; and strengthening the capacity of directly impacted people and communities to drive these urgently needed reforms. Our campaigns produce results. Katal co-founded the #CLOSErikers campaign, and co-led the campaign from 2015 - 2017.We passed critical bail reforms in New York, reducing the statewide jail populations by more than 40%. And in response to the pandemic, we launched two campaigns—#FreeThemNowCT and #FreeThemNowNY—to demand the release of people from jails and prisons in the face of COVID-19.We organized thousands of people to take action with us online and in person (socially distanced); testified before state legislatures; and with our partners statewide helped secure the release of nearly 1,000 people from jails in New York. These are just some examples of our work. Our experience teaches us that through effective community organizing, informed by an analysis of systemic racism, we can take on critical problems like mass criminalization and poverty and reshape them into winnable issues.
Target demographics: To build leadership and organizing capacity of neighborhood residents, as well as organizers, advocates and community groups, to effectively drive and shape change; ending mass criminalization, mass incarceration and the war on drugs; and advancing solutions to promote and secure health, equity and justice.
Direct beneficiaries per year: We secured big wins for racial justice and decarceration! In New York, we won a major victory when Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Less is More Act into law — the most significant parole reform measure yet passed in the country. This groundbreaking new law will restrict the use of incarceration for non-criminal technical violations of parole, and responsibly reduce jail and prison populations—while improving public safety. On the day it was signed, nearly 200 people, detained at Rikers on non-criminal technical violations, were released. We are now hard at work on its implementation. In Connecticut, we launched our CUTSHUTINVEST# campaign and with our partners and allies were successful in pushing the state legislature to close two prisons this year — one of which, Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, is the state’s only supermax prison. We are going into 2022 to close more.
Geographic areas served: Connecticut and New York
Programs: Community organizing, policy advocacy, trainings to build leadership and organizing capacity, public education, research, and more. We combine harm reduction and grassroots organizing to build community power and public will for systemic change.
Mission: Katal works to strengthen the people, policies, institutions and movements that advance equity, health and justice for everyone. We are focused on three big, inter-related goals:-Advancing evidence-based solutions to achieve healthier, safer, more equitable communities. -Building leadership and organizing capacity of neighborhood residents, as well as organizers, advocates, and community groups, to effectively drive and shape real change. -Ending mass criminalization, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs.
Results: Since our launch in 2016, Katal has played a leadership role in ending mass incarceration and building a movement for justice in Connecticut and New York. This work includes campaigns to close jails and prisons; decarceration and reducing the number of people incarcerated entering the criminal legal system; ending wealth-based detention; reforming parole and probation practices; expanding alternatives to incarceration; dismantling systemic racism; and strengthening the capacity of directly impacted people and communities to drive these urgently needed reforms. Our campaigns produce results. Katal co-founded the #CLOSErikers campaign, and co-led the campaign from 2015 - 2017.We passed critical bail reforms in New York, reducing the statewide jail populations by more than 40%. And in response to the pandemic, we launched two campaigns—#FreeThemNowCT and #FreeThemNowNY—to demand the release of people from jails and prisons in the face of COVID-19.We organized thousands of people to take action with us online and in person (socially distanced); testified before state legislatures; and with our partners statewide helped secure the release of nearly 1,000 people from jails in New York. These are just some examples of our work. Our experience teaches us that through effective community organizing, informed by an analysis of systemic racism, we can take on critical problems like mass criminalization and poverty and reshape them into winnable issues.
Target demographics: To build leadership and organizing capacity of neighborhood residents, as well as organizers, advocates and community groups, to effectively drive and shape change; ending mass criminalization, mass incarceration and the war on drugs; and advancing solutions to promote and secure health, equity and justice.
Direct beneficiaries per year: We secured big wins for racial justice and decarceration! In New York, we won a major victory when Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Less is More Act into law — the most significant parole reform measure yet passed in the country. This groundbreaking new law will restrict the use of incarceration for non-criminal technical violations of parole, and responsibly reduce jail and prison populations—while improving public safety. On the day it was signed, nearly 200 people, detained at Rikers on non-criminal technical violations, were released. We are now hard at work on its implementation. In Connecticut, we launched our CUTSHUTINVEST# campaign and with our partners and allies were successful in pushing the state legislature to close two prisons this year — one of which, Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, is the state’s only supermax prison. We are going into 2022 to close more.
Geographic areas served: Connecticut and New York
Programs: Community organizing, policy advocacy, trainings to build leadership and organizing capacity, public education, research, and more. We combine harm reduction and grassroots organizing to build community power and public will for systemic change.
Civil Rights
Hartford
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