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Impact
Report
Highlighting our
impact on families
and communities
across Oregon.
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Executive Director
The difficult and often painful experiences of the past year have focused our attention on many of the most pressing issues of our time. Life across Oregon and the nation has been profoundly changed by the racial justice uprisings to protest the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many others.
We face political divisiveness that endangers our democracy, the threat of widespread wildfires and the climate change they portend, plus the continuing impacts of COVID-19 on community health and safety. These conditions have again exposed the stark racial disparities that hold us back as a people and signal an urgent need for transformative change and a new valuation of humanity and the world in which we live.
Executive Director
We are constantly reminded of and grateful for PSJ’s community of supporters. This work is sustained by our shared vision for a society that no longer inflicts suffering and injustice when responding to harm caused by individuals to others. We know that Oregon, our nation, and humanity can do better.
Executive Director
Together, we will advance this vision for public safety – one that truly values Black lives, recognizes that justice does not exist unless extended to everyone, and understands that defaulting to jails, prisons, and other forms of control causes unnecessary and avoidable harm. We are confident that our society can do better by investing in communities and individuals in ways that provide lasting solutions.
For the PSJ community, achieving that vision is our work and fundamental commitment.
Together with the Latino Network, POIC, Red Lodge Transition Services, and other partners, we shined a light on the complex needs and barriers to healing that many survivors of violence in communities of color face in Oregon. We released the groundbreaking report, When We Tell Our Stories, which sounds the alarm on the stark racial disparities in Oregon’s victim support system and the need to invest in culturally specific services for survivors of color.
These protections are vital for our communities, particularly for many survivors of violence who are made even more vulnerable to abuse and sexual assault when displaced from their homes.
Partnership for Safety & Justice has been committed to this fight since our founding and with supporters like you, we have made significant strides to divest from mass incarceration and reinvest in community safety.
Our ongoing advocacy also mounted pressure on Oregon’s governor to begin closing two state prisons over the next year. These closures are expected to save the state more than $44 million and reflect a dramatic shift away from incarceration.
We also advocated for over $47 million of prison savings to be reinvested into victim services, mental health treatment, and other local programs that promote community safety. We helped pass a new law to ensure that these resources are more equitably invested in programs that serve Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people.
End the War on Drugs.
In partnership with local allies and the Drug Policy Alliance, we established a milestone reform that brings Oregon and our nation closer to ending a half-century of failed and destructive drug policies. We helped lead passage of Measure 110, a historic ballot measure that made Oregon the first state in the nation to end criminal penalties for the low-level personal possession of all drugs.
As a result of the new law, racial disparities in drug arrests are expected to plummet by 94%, dramatically reducing the harm inflicted by law enforcement on Black and brown Oregonians. Measure 110 also dramatically expands funding for addiction treatment, harm reduction programs, and other vital services that rightly address drug use as a public health rather than criminal justice issue.
VETERAN AND PEER SUPPORT SPECIALIST
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTION ASSOCIATION OF OREGON
DIRECTOR OF PORTLAND OFFICE OF YOUTH VIOLENCE PREVENTION
Emergency Response.
Stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the virus have also exposed survivors of domestic violence to greater risk of further abuse and violence. And with children learning remotely, fewer interactions with mandatory reporters means that children are more vulnerable to abuse that is both underreported and more extreme.
Emergency Response.
We worked with organizations like Disability Rights Oregon, Beyond These Walls, Oregon Justice Resource Center, and ACLU of Oregon to push for the safe and early release of medically vulnerable people in our state prisons and jails. We were encouraged to see county jails move quickly, with some reducing their populations by more than 50 percent.
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This is meaningful progress, but our work is far from over. We will continue to advocate for a reduction in Oregon’s prison population to allow
for physical distancing. We will also work to ensure that people leaving prison have access to re-entry services and the support they need to be successful when they return to their communities.
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The pandemic has required us to be physically distant, but it has not stopped us from coming together in support of safety and healing.
Since the onset of COVID-19, we have organized virtual gatherings to share timely information, take action, and build community with each other.
Our Numbers.
Ways to Give.
Strengthen our movement for change by investing in Partnership for Safety & Justice today. Your generosity moves us closer to our vision for public safety – one that values Black lives, invests in communities over prisons, and prioritizes healing over punishment.
