Leading Oregon’s Reform Movement
Partnership for Safety and Justice is transforming our response to harm and violence with innovative solutions that create safer communities and better outcomes for survivors of crime, people convicted of crime, and the families of both.
We’re leading Oregon’s reform movement in three areas of work:
- Building power
- Transforming the system
- Changing the narrative on what builds true public safety
Building Power
Leadership From Grassroots to Grasstops
Coalition Building
Movement Building
The Advocacy Institute for Safety and Justice is a leadership program for survivors of violence and people impacted by the criminal justice system. We create opportunities for learning and self-advocacy in collaboration with partner organizations throughout the state. The aim is to develop, support, and empower advocates on their journeys wherever their passion for reform leads them.
Transforming the System
Advancing and Implementing State and Local Reforms
The policies we advance are reforming our punitive system into one that centers accountability, racial equity, and healing. We’re guided by a shrink-and-invest model of reform: The policies we advanced have significantly reduced prison and jail use; at the same time, our work has invested nearly $500 million into services for crime survivors, treatment, and restoration.
But passing policies isn’t enough. We’re equally committed to making sure that the reform laws we support are being implemented. Our team consults with stakeholders, analyzing impact and innovating ways to make improvements as needed.
Changing the narrative
Stories and Voices Leading the Way
The policies we pass and implement are vital, but “culture eats policy for lunch.” This means we also need to shift how we think and talk about safety, justice, and healing.
That’s why we’re changing the narrative on community safety. We uplift the stories of those most harmed and least helped by the criminal justice system, and we share voices of the reform leaders with decades of experience in the fields. By elevating these perspectives, we reshape our communities’ understanding of trauma, restoration, and accountability.
Perspectives That Inspire
Healing victims heals the system
Listening to survivors of color
“When We Tell Our Stories” is a collaborative project that began by creating safe spaces for crime victims of color to talk about their trauma from both the people to hurt them, and the systems that added to their pain. Survivors’ share their stories of invisibility, strength, distress, resilience, unhealed trauma, and determination.
Read these voices of people who have been the most harmed and least helped by the public safety system. From those shared experiences, the report identifies four gaps and four recommendations that are vital to serving victims of color.
Harm reduction
Lessons from a t-shirt
Executive Director Andy Ko has spent over three decades leading state and national work on ending the drug war. So it makes sense that under his leadership, Partnership for Safety and Justice helped make Oregon the first state in the country to change our response to drug addiction from punishment to healing.
It also makes sense that Andy has an “I love drug users” t-shirt, and that he has a lot to say about it. Read Andy’s column on harm reduction and the work we must do to destigmatize drug use.
Transforming Supervision
From Punitive Scrutiny to Rewarding Success
Historically, people who have completed a prison sentence have been subjected to years of oversight that’s better at punishing trivial infractions than celebrating success. We changed this system in 2023 by passing Senate Bill 581.
Billy Anfield was one of the community leaders who worked to pass the new law that allows up to 5,000 people to earn time off their supervision. In the article, he talks about how post-prison scrutiny crushes people’s potential, and why all of us are safer when people are celebrated for meeting their goals.
Our Work In Action
Discover more articles, reports, and stories in the Resource Center.