The prison population grows each day, and each day that passes little is being done to combat the issue of overcrowding/overpopulation. Including issues of human rights violations, inmates having little to none important necessities, lack of programs, straying away from rehabilitation and focusing on retribution, etc. A large number of people have committed offenses that were non-violent and a large number of people in prison have been wrongly convicted, this is part of the issue I mentioned in the beginning. What is the criminal justice system doing? The increase in incarceration in America has its own effects in society, hurts communities and families, and it will become a reality that’ll leave little room for change. To be frank, I do not want to live in that reality, where husbands and fathers receive extreme sentencing for drug charges. In my opinion, we have a racially biased justice system, so race plays an even larger role in sentencing. However, despite all the negatives, many people across America have been working to change our criminal justice system. There are organizations that work to keep fewer Americans out of prison without impacting public safety. 

I have researched many organizations, the ones that interested me the most include: The Center for Young Women’s Development, Books Through Bars, and Innocence Project. Many of these organizations continue to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system. 

1. The Center for Young Women’s Development was founded in 1993, and is a leadership and advocacy organization. YWFC’s included on their page the issue of poverty and how poverty is a key driver of incarceration and recidivism. Also, YWFC strives to provide economic opportunities for formerly incarcerated and systems-impacted people. Through this organization, they intend to break the  cycles of poverty, exploitation, and incarceration. 
2. Books Through Bars is an all-volunteer non-profit organization. Books Through Bars believes that  “systemic social, educational, and economic inequality leads to relentless cycles of crime and mass incarceration.” Their work aims to reverse the effects of injustice and incarceration on individuals. BTB offers free books and educational material to prisoners who ask for these books. 
3. The Innocence Project was  founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck. This organization strives to “exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.” 

In recent events, rapper Meek Mill’s criminal justice reform group is donating “100,000 face masks to some of the nation’s most notorious jails and prisons.” Meek Mill has backed an organization that I discovered a couple days ago, the organization is called REFORM Alliance. REFORM Alliance’s mission  is to dramatically reduce the number of people who are unjustly under the control of the criminal justice system. The reason behind this donation is because of the current global pandemic and its effects on prisoners/prisons. In my previous blog I mentioned the significance of what would happen if an outbreak happened. Hundreds and thousands of prisons are bound to become ill and correctional officers are at risk too. This donation would offer prisoners some form of protection against the virus. It is about time that celebrities use their platform to help society and communities who are affected by the criminal justice system.