We are a multi-pronged, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, abolition project with 501(c)(3) status. We emerged from the Human Rights Coalition, a volunteer-based abolitionist group started in 2001 by incarcerated people in long term solitary confinement in Pennsylvania.  

Our work challenges all aspects of the criminal punishment conveyor belt: policing, the courts, cash bail, jails, prisons, probation, parole, voter disenfranchisement schemes that restrict people’s access to the electoral process (e.g. prison gerrymandering). We conduct advocacy and legal campaigns that weaken, erode, and/or ultimately dismantle pillars of the carceral state. And we contest state power in every arena open to us.

We fight to:

• free people from incarceration
• protect the rights and wellbeing of those who encounter the criminal punishment system at all points along its pipeline
• redistribute funds from the perpetrators of state violence to those who are impacted by it (via legal settlements)
• build power among, take our leadership from, and be accountable to people who are directly impacted by capitalism, state violence, and mass incarceration
• and completely dismantle these racist, classist systems and in their place create and/or support the building of alternative models of addressing harm and creating wellness in our communities

We employ a multitude of strategies aimed at many points simultaneously, to antagonize and stress the institutions that are part of the mass incarceration and criminal punishment systems.

We agitate against these institutions relentlessly, create and exploit fissures and vulnerabilities, and utilize a variety of modes and means of attack. We pressure politicians across the political spectrum and of every background and identity (not just those who endorse mass incarceration) to hold the line of “‘no’ to mandatory minimums and ‘yes’ to decarceration.”

And we wield many tools in our fight to transform how society prevents and responds to harm, and creates freedom, justice, equity, safety, and wellbeing for all, including:

• class action, impact, and accompaniment litigation
• community organizing and grassroots base building
• data collection, analysis, and dissemination
• courtwatching
• mutual aid/community-based participatory defense and advocacy
• organizational alliance building
• policy advocacy and legislative lobbying
• political education including training in lobbying and advocacy
• strategic communications including media production and narrative creation/change work

Along with the uniquely broad scope of our work, we have many distinctions from other groups working in the criminal punishment reform/abolition space, including: the lived experiences of our staff and Board members; our long-standing, personal relationships with people inside (prisons); our deep roots in the communities most impacted by state violence; the depth of our organizing experience; the volume and quality of our communications, reporting, and media output; our grounding in movements for liberation; and our commitment to bringing a political analysis to all aspects of our project.

• ALC is a BIPOC-led organization employing an intersectional, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-partriarchal lens that centers the experiences and needs of the most vulnerable (i.e. incarcerated and adjacent people who are Black and Brown, poor, queer, trans, disabled, and of other marginalized identities), supports their collective and democratic self-determination and agency, and contributes to a culture of liberation.

• There are multiple individuals on ALC’s staff and Board who were formerly incarcerated: 

  Prior to his release in 2018 after a Supreme Court ruling gave him and other juvenile lifers a chance for freedom, ALC and SA executive director, Robert Saleem Holbrook, served 27 years of a life without parole sentence (including around a decade in solitary confinement) for an offense he was involved in as a 16-year-old child.
  
  Other ALC staff and Board members were also incarcerated for decades and experienced solitary confinement and other forms of severe abuse and repression during their time inside. And many of our formerly incarcerated staff were involved with organizing for their liberation and the liberation of others, during their time inside.

• ALC staff and Board members are diverse racially, ethnically, and age-wise; come from urban, suburban, and rural communities; have varying educational, professional, and socio-economic backgrounds; and self-identify as people with a range of gender identities and sexual orientations, faith traditions and belief systems, and abilities/disabilities.
  

• We’ve developed a particular strength and expertise at addressing solitary confinement and other extreme and abusive control measures; excessive and long-term sentencing including Death by Incarceration (DBI) (life without the possibility of parole); and jails’ and prisons’ failure to protect the mental and physical health of those whom they cage.

• We have deep movement roots in Pennsylvania. Our executive director is a co-founder of the most significant and impacted decarceral organizations on the ground in the state: the Human Rights Coalition, Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration, DecarceratePA, and Free The Ballot Incarcerated Voter Family Network. He also was involved in the founding of the Amistad Law Project.

Through years of work on our issues, we’ve developed authentic connections and credibility with a vast network of impacted people, grassroots volunteers, allied organizations, funders, policy makers, elected officials, journalists, and others, whom we can mobilize for different opportunities.

By actively nurturing these alliances while building a formidable track record of results over time, we’ve positioned ourselves as a source of expertise, advice, and support for other movement groups around issues related to policing and mass incarceration, and as policy and issue experts for the media.

ALC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, public interest law firm and community organizing project. It was founded in 2013 by two activists turned attorneys working in close collaboration with incarcerated people in the PA state prison system (and their families and support networks) whose agency, ideas, and self-determination were then, and remain today, central drivers of the project.

Currently ALC has an operating budget of around $1.7 million/year; offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia; and staff working on class action, impact, and accompaniment litigation; court watching; grassroots organizing and coalition building inside prisons and in impacted communities on the outside; participatory defense advocacy; communications; development; and operations.

ALC has used innovative and groundbreaking legal strategies to sue police departments, jails, prisons, and the PA Department of Corrections to address police brutality, excessive sentencing, conditions of confinement including the use of restraint chairs and solitary confinement, Americans with Disabilities Act violations, medical neglect of incarcerated people, toxic and dangerous environmental conditions in prisons and jails, and more.

Broadly speaking, our work benefits all residents of Pennsylvania in that it enhances public safety, wellness, and equity, and creates a more just and healthy society. But on a more immediate level, our work largely benefits vulnerable populations (people who are poor, Black and Brown, queer or trans, disabled, or mentally ill) who are disproportionately targeted and harmed by policing, the criminal court system, and mass incarceration.

Our work results in fewer and less discriminatory arrests and less police violence; fewer people becoming incarcerated; shorter stays for those who do end up behind bars; and safer and more humane conditions for people while they are incarcerated.

ALC is extremely well positioned to lead the movement to transform the criminal punishment system in the state of Pennsylvania and beyond.

In the long term, our vision and goal is total abolition of the current policing and carceral system and the establishment instead of community-driven, equitable, and holistic transformative justice systems.

In the short term, we seek to:

• Decarcerate (reduce the number of people in) existing jails and prisons and discourage the building of new ones.
• Prevent, disrupt, and obstruct a return to mandatory minimums and the policies of the 1990’s that birthed mass incarceration on steroids.
• Defund and defang the police.
• Shift harm reduction and harm response away from the current criminal punishment systems, to systems designed and controlled by communities who experience the most harm and inequity.
• Divert people (especially those with mental health and substance use disorders) from the criminal courts, jails, and prisons into other systems that can better address the needs and challenges facing those populations.
• Enforce constitutionally mandated protections for those who do experience incarceration