Community, Diversity, and Equity Strategy Area

Community, Diversity, and Equity Strategy Area

This strategy area co-chair is Peria Duncan.

Members of PTACC’s Community, Diversity, and Equity Workgroup seek 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.

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.

By Diversity, we mean:

Engaging in PTACC and in the work of this strategy area a broad range of people from diverse demographics including but not limited to race, ethnicity, national origin, gender or gender identity, age, ability and disability, sexual orientation, health status, and socioeconomic status.

By Equity, we mean:

Fair opportunity and access to participate in a pre-arrest diversion program, whether as an enrollee or an equal partner in planning and operations, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender or gender identity, age, ability and disability, sexual orientation, health status, and socioeconomic status. Improving equity requires understanding root causes of inequities and eliminating barriers that prevent full engagement. View our Three Action Items to Advance Equity in Deflection here.

Our current activities include:

  • Recruiting people with diverse backgrounds to work on this strategy area, especially those with lived experience or expertise in bringing an equity framework to criminal justice or criminal justice reform,
  • Developing recommendations for how all of PTACC can more fully incorporate people from diverse backgrounds, especially those who populations that have been most harmed by mass incarceration and other institutional injustices,
  • Recommending speakers and topics for the 2019 PTACC conference, and
  • Informing how PTAC can support pre-arrest diversion initiatives to improve meaningful community engagement, and diversity, and equity in all pre-arrest diversion operations. This may include:
    • Creating informational handouts
    • Distributing existing handouts from other organizations
    • Submitting items for the PTAC ticker newsletter
    • Developing or sharing existing principles, metrics, or data collection strategies
    • Creating outreach materials

We are seeking community members to join our Community, Diversity, and Equity Workgroup. Please click here to read more about this and what participation entails.