Join SPARC (Stanford Prison Abolition and Resource Coalition) and NLG (National Lawyers Guild) for a conversation with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Critical Resistance Oakland on building community power and safety while shifting resources away from prisons.

Based in Oakland, CA, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights organizes with Black, Brown, and low-income people to shift resources away from prisons and punishment and towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong.

Critical Resistance (CR) is a national grassroots organization working to abolish the prison industrial complex (PIC). Through community organizing and political education, CR builds strategies to dismantle systems of policing, imprisonment, and surveillance while strengthening movements for self-determination and genuine safety. Anastasia Franco coordinates CR’s Prisoner Correspondence Program, ensuring that imprisoned people have access to political education and organizing resources. She also leads efforts to develop infrastructure for inside-outside communication and strengthen prisoner solidarity within abolitionist organizations outside of cages.