Seeking Community Members to Join the Community, Diversity, and Equity Strategy Area of the Police Treatment and Community Collaborative

Seeking Community Members to Join the Community, Diversity, and Equity Strategy Area of the Police Treatment and Community Collaborative

We are seeking community members to join our Community, Diversity, and Equity Strategy Area (work group). Work group members can play a key role in shaping PTACC and in promoting strategies for pre-arrest diversion that prioritization community engagement, diversity, and equity. Members are expected to attend a monthly telephone conference call and to work on tasks between calls for a couple hours a month. It’s a small commitment with a big impact!

The role of this work group is to advance strategies that promote:

• Meaningful and equitable engagement of community members in planning, implementation, oversight, and evaluation of pre-arrest diversion programs and in PTACC itself;
• Equitable access to pre-arrest diversion programs so they reflect the demographics of people in the justice system;
• Design and operation of diversion programs that equitably and respectfully serve marginalized populations;
• Use of diversion programs to reduce racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in local justice systems; and
• Expansive diversity within the membership and leadership of PTACC.

We want to ensure the activities of this work group are grounded in the lived experiences of those who have been most harmed by mass incarceration and other institutional injustices. To do that, we need a membership that includes community members with diverse backgrounds.

We are explicitly seeking:

• Community members with lived experience of the criminal justice system,
• Community members who have lived experience of substance use and/or mental illness,
• Community members who have participated in pre-arrest diversion programs, and
• Community members with expertise in bringing an equity framework to criminal justice or criminal justice reform.

In PTACC, when we say Community we mean:

1) Residents, neighbors, family members, and business people in the neighborhood(s) where diversion is occurring, and organizations that represent them – such as neighborhood groups, community advocacy groups, faith groups, local business groups, and

2) Direct recipients of proposed services, including individuals with lived experience of substance use and/or mental illness and/or involvement in the criminal justice system in connection with substance use or mental illness. Also, organizations that represent these individuals, including but not limited to harm reduction groups, recovery, and re-entry groups.

Help us spread the word to people who may be interested in making a commitment to this work group! Please contact Peria Duncan at [email protected] with any questions or to join this group.