The Structural Racism Remedies Repository

This a repository of policy-based recommendations for addressing structural and systemic racism or advancing racial equity drawn from a vast array of published material. A complete list of sources is provided in an index at the bottom of this page, with a short-hand acronym for identifying the source in the repository. An overview of this project, including selection criteria and main findings is available here. Please note that the recommendations in this repository do not necessarily reflect that of the authors or the Institute.

This repository was constructed by Eliza Brooks, Claire Parker, Nahlee Lin, Natalie Spievack, Amrutha Dorai, Sommer Iqbal, and Lara Schiffrin-Sands, under the direction of Stephen Menendian, with additional input from Perfecta Oxholm.

Last updated: May 16, 2024

Policing

Race-Targeted/Specific

Profiling

• End profiling, criminalization, police, and prison violence against Black trans and gender nonconforming people. (MBL2020)
• Track race and other disparities in officer use of force and develop strategies to eliminate avoidable disparities. (DoJFR)
• Stop overpolicing and racial profiling and reform municipal courts. (PLAIC)
• Lawmakers should pass laws that explicitly ban racial profiling by all law enforcement agencies and officers across a broad range of investigatory activities, including all forms of stop and frisk in public and private transportation, immigration enforcement, and surveillance practices. These laws should also require law enforcement agencies to collect and report data on racial profiling and provide a complaint process and legal remedies for violations. (HROI)

Surveillance

• Analyze race and other disparities shown in stop, search, ticketing, and arrest practices to determine whether disparities can be reduced consistent with public safety goals. (DoJFR)
• Elimination of surveillance of targeted communities, including people accessing public benefits, hospitals, and services, disabled people, people in the sex trades, people seeking and providing information about self-managed abortion, political activists, Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian people and communities, and people on probation or parole. (MBL2020)
• End surveillance processes and replace them with humanization and care (p. 203) (CWSBH)

Race-Conscious

Diversity

Law enforcement agencies should strive to create a workforce that contains a broad range of diversity including race, gender, language, life experience, and cultural background to improve understanding and effectiveness in dealing with all communities. (21CTF).
 All federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies should report and make available to the public census data regarding the composition of their departments including race, gender, age, and other relevant demographic data. (21CTF)

Improve Police Training

Anti-Bias Training

• Police officers should be required to participate in a training curriculum that focuses on implicit bias, cultural responsiveness, fair and impartial policing, identifying and effectively responding to people facing mental illness or drug addiction, and the  prevention of sexual misconduct. This training should send a clear message that biased policing is prohibited. (FC, 21CTF, DP, DoJFR, RIPA, CRTF)
• Train supervisors and commanders  to detect and respond to discriminatory policing. (DoJFR)
•  Include community members and advocacy groups that represent the viewpoints of communities that have been historically marginalized by law enforcement (Black, LGBTQ, Muslim, Arab, South Asian, immigrant and non-English speaking groups) in training. (FC, 21CTF, DP, DoJFR)
• To ensure that each individual officer is practicing anti-bias training and culturally responsive policing, POST should conduct a periodic officer certification process every two years. (21CTF)
• Police departments must implement strategies to identify and reduce racial bias. (HROI)
• All trainings and the principles they teach should be incorporated into periodic performance reviews and promotion criteria and translated into policy, general orders, and protocols for which officers can be held accountable. (HROI)
• The legal section of trainings should more explicitly state that the RIPA statute recognizes that racial and identity profiling is prohibited. It should acknowledge that the law recognizes the harm caused by profiling and the need for affirmative steps to prevent it.  (RIPA)
• Anti-bias course definitions should discuss racism and racial profiling and how they intersect and should not characterize racial profiling as controversial. (RIPA)
• Anti-bias courses should refer to racial and identity profiling throughout the training, rather than focusing only on racial profiling. (RIPA)
• Lessons should include greater content regarding the history of policing in the USA, and include more contemporary events to ensure that cadets are aware of how historical events can impact community perspectives today. (RIPA)
• POST should publish specific guidelines for racial and identity profiling-related courses on the POST website, apart from publication in the curricula. (RIPA)
• Measure course effectiveness by examining data outcomes and official reports to infer behavioral changes. POST should measure effectiveness by measuring not just the pass rate of class but actual behavior changes and outcomes related to specific behavioral change goals. (RIPA)
• Include individual officer and supervisor accountability and reporting as a required training topic in all racial and identity profiling courses. Racial identity and accountability should be integrated into most POST courses implemented in field training and as a reminder in daily roll call. (RIPA)

Community engagement in police training

• Adopt a process and publish timelines for Board and community review that will engage community and stakeholder input on how to improve trainings. POST should center community engagement in officer training; integrate the community in decision-making roles; adopt processes to ensure community feedback is considered and assess responsiveness to community recommendations and provide corrective action. (RIPA)
• Allow time for meaningful feedback throughout curriculum updates and development. (RIPA)

Improve training for Dispatchers 

• Create a bias training for dispatchers that must be attended by all dispatchers at least once a year. Mandate participation in bias training to be repeated, sustained and reinforced as further research supports. (RIPA)
• Offer guidance to local law enforcement agencies regarding social media investigations or inquiries in the hiring of dispatchers. (RIPA)

Training in Mental Health or Medical Emergencies

• Police officers should be trained to identify and respond to mental health crises (Crisis Intervention Training) and common medical emergencies. (DoJFR, 21CTF)
• Require that, wherever possible, at least one officer with enhanced crisis intervention training respond to any situation concerning individuals in mental health crisis or with intellectual disability. (DoJFR)
• Establish crisis care systems that eliminate the involvement of law enforcement in responses to behavioral health emergencies except in special circumstances. This requires: (RIPA)
  • Regional crisis call centers that dispatch the appropriate care teams and route individuals to the appropriate facilities
  • Regional crisis mobile response teams
  • Receiving centers and stabilization facilities, distinct from emergency rooms in hospitals.
• Improving collaborative response programs between law enforcement and mental health providers: (RIPA)
  • Train police officers to understand how disabilities may affect compliance with orders and impact other behaviors
  • Train police officers to understand that youth experiencing mental health crises are not inherently dangerous
  • Include people with mental illness in police mental health collaboration program trainings to dispel the stereotypes that people experiencing mental illness are dangerous.
  • Train police officers on using conversation instead of force.
  • Encourage municipalities to implement protocols that use  mental health works as first responders when emergency services are request for youth in mental health crisis; limit use of force against children during mental health calls’ train law enforcement personnel who respond to youth in mental health crisis on effective de-escalation; allocate resources to historically underfunded communities to break the cycle of poverty and criminalization
  • Encourage law enforcement agencies to adopt policies that prohibit the use of force except when necessary to prevent injury or harm to the individual or officer. 
  • Train dispatch and call centers to practice active engagement with callers to ensure they gather accurate information about the behavior of the person in crisis and the circumstances that triggered the call so that the least invasive 

Improve Training through Research

• The federal government should invest in research and the development of technology and tactics that enhance anti-biased policing and organizational procedural justice (21CTF).
• The federal government should establish national training standards and partner with training facilities across the country to promote consistent standards for high quality training. (21CTF)
• Develop a national postgraduate of policing for senior executives with a standardized curriculum preparing them to lead agencies in the 21st century under the US Department of Justice (21CTF)
• Implement a systematic approach to identify training needs and revise in-service training curriculum on an annual basis. (CPATF)
• Reinvigorate the Field Training Officer program. (CPATF)

Training to Preserve the Constitutional Rights of Americans

• Develop and implement policy and training regarding appropriate police response to activities protected by the First Amendment, including the right to observe, record, and protest police action; (DoJFR)
• Provide initial and regularly recurring training on Fourth Amendment constraints on police action, as well as responsibility within FPD to constrain action beyond what Fourth Amendment requires in interest of public safety and community trust; (DoJFR)
• Provide an annual 40-hour in-service training for all sworn personnel, including periodic refresher classes on procedural justice. (CPATF)

Address the Issue of Excessive Use of Force

Standards

• All states and localities should raise the legal standard on use of force to authorize only the minimal amount of force necessary that preserves a citizens constitutional and human rights, that is proportional to the incident, and preserves the safety of the citizen and the officer. Prohibit use of deadly force to prevent escape unless the office has probable cause to believe that the person will pose a threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others (DP, 21CTF, FC, SM)
• Train officers on proper use of failure to comply charge (DoJFR)
• Train and require officers to use de-escalation techniques wherever possible (DoJFR)
• Promote technology and weaponry that  utilize the least amount of force necessary so as to reduce the number of fatal police interventions; (FC)
• Retrain officers in use of ECWs to ensure they view and use ECWs as a tool of necessity, not convenience. (DoJFR)
• Require and train officers to avoid deploying a canine when the facts suggest the suspect is unarmed and lower level of force can be used to secure a suspect. If deploying a canine is necessary, officers must receive supervisory approval before doing so. (DoJFR)
• Implement procedures to ensure that sworn personnel remain informed on all directives and policies. (CPATF)

Improving the Response to Demonstrations (Protests) + Disorder

• Provide training for the prevention of disorder/riots (KC)
• Establish an intelligence system to provide police and other public officials with reliable information that may help to pre­vent the outbreak of a disorder and to institute effective control measures in the event a riot erupts. (KC)
• Assign seasoned, well-trained policemen and supervisory officers to patrol ghetto areas, and to respond to disturbances. (KC)
• Create Effective Policies for Policing Demonstrations: Law enforcement agencies should create policies and procedures for policing mass demonstrations that employ a continuum of managed tactical resources that are designed to minimize the appearance of a military operation and avoid using provocative tactics and equipment that undermine civilian trust. Prioritize de-escalation and a guardian mindset. (21CTF, FC, KC)
• Establish Communication Protocol for Demonstrations (FC, KC)
• Accountability for Police Conduct During Demonstrations: The Federal Government should create a mechanism for investigating complaints and issuing sanctions regarding the inappropriate use of equipment and tactics during mass demonstrations (21CTF)

Reporting, Review, and Accountability for Excessive Use of Force

• Assign Attorney General As Special Prosecutor in Use of Force Cases  (FC)
• Create an independent federal agency charged with investigating police shootings and setting national best practices for policing (B2F)
• System for Use of Force Reporting: Develop an improved system for use-of-force reporting that requires the officer using force to complete a narrative, separate from the offense report, describing the force used with particularity (such as lethal force, canine deployment, ECWS), and the context that required the level of force used, including the reason for the initial stop or other enforcement action. (DoJFR)
• Review Each Use of Force: Law enforcement supervisors should be required to review each use of force, including evidence (such as statements individuals against whom force is used and civilian witnesses) to determine the context and its consistency with the law; (DoJFR)
• Re: Involved Supervisors: Exclude supervisors from reviewing activities in which they participated or directed; (DoJFR)
• Consequences for Failure to Report: Discipline officers who fail to report force and supervisors who fail to conduct adequate force investigations; (DoJFR)
• Accountability: Hold officers accountable for excessive use of force, and implement system of zero tolerance for use of force as punishment or retaliation rather than as necessary, proportionate response to counter a threat; (DoJFR) immediately fire police officers who have excessive force complaints; withhold pensions of officers who have used excessive force; and, suspend paid administrative leave for officers under investigation (#8toA)
• Ensure that complete use-of-force reporting and review/investigation files—including all offense reports, witness statements, and medical, audio/video, and other evidence—are kept together in a centralized location (DoJFR)
• Hold police accountable: Prosecutors must do their jobs-- prosecuting police officers when they break the law. (COC)
• Restore and expand DoJ role in investigating police departments for systemic civil rights violations (p. 215) (CWSBH)
• Ensure safe and just policing practices and increase accountability. (PLAIC)
• Increase the number of sergeants on patrol to supervise patrol officers. (CPATF)
• Implement monthly meetings of all sergeants in a District to ensure the sharing of officer performance, to provide mentoring opportunities to newer sergeants, and provide a forum for best-practice sharing to prevent officer misconduct. (CPATF)

Restructure Police Funding

• Prioritize funding to people, not law enforcement (#8toA).
• Abolish asset forfeiture programs and laws (#8toA).
• Fully cut funding for public relations and reject any proposed expansion to police budgets (#8toA).
• Reduce existing police budgets by reallocating residual funds to the people’s vision of public safety (BYP100; Next50)

Police Hiring Process and Background Checks

• Screen Officers for Bias Before Hiring: All officers should undergo 1) a full psychological screening and bias screening (by a county-approved psychiatrist/psychologists, 2) a full background check, and 3) review of license status and any known disciplinary history before making an offer of employment. (FC)
• Implement a hiring freeze of new officers and replacements of fired or resigned officers. (#8toA)

Policing Practices

Organization

• As regional policing is more responsive to community  needs than fragmented police forces across metro areas, the US Department of Justice should provide technical assistance and incentive funding to jurisdictions with small police agencies that take steps towards shared services, regional training, and consolidation (21CTF)
• Redefine the police department’s mission by removing problematic, overly broad, and archaic language and incorporating racial equity goals. (NYRJC)
• Restructure multiple public safety agencies under one central Department of Public Safety and reframe their missions using a public health lens. The Department of Public Safety would provide oversight and shift away from deploying police as a default response to emergencies. (NYRJC)

Stops, Searches, and Arrests

• Reduce officer discretion in stops and searches. (GSR; SC)
• Focus on traffic safety aimed at enforcing the rules of the road and eliminate investigatory stops. (SC)
• Respect: Law enforcement agencies should adopt policies directing officers to speak to individuals with respect (21CTF, KC)
• Require Identification: Law enforcement agencies should be required to identify themselves by their full name, rank, and command (as applicable) and provide that information in writing to individuals they have stopped. (21CTF, FC)
•  Identification Procedures: Law enforcement agencies are encouraged to adopt identification procedures that implement scientifically supported practices that eliminate or minimize presenter bias or influence. (21CTF)
• Adopt internal policies that prohibit arrest and filing of charges against individuals If the alleged resisting stems from a disability. (RIPA)
• Reason for Stop: Officers should be required  to state the reason for the stop and the reason for the search if one is conducted. (21CTF)
• Publicly mandate officers that officers receive an individual’s written consent (instead of verbal permission) before conducting a consent search; form must explicitly state the citizen’s absolute right to withhold consent. (SC)
• Search and Seizure Related to LGBTQ: Law enforcement agencies should establish search and seizure procedures related to LGBTQ and transgender populations and cease using the possession of condoms as the sole evidence of vice. (21CTF)
• Wanted and Stop Orders: Discontinue use of “wanteds” or “stop orders” and prohibit officers from conducting stops, searches, or arrests on the basis of “wanteds” or “stop orders” issued by other agencies. (DoJFR)
• Pat-Downs and Searches: Require that applicable legal standards are met before officers conduct pat-downs or vehicle searches. (DoJFR)
• Searches Based on Consent: Prohibit searches based on consent for the foreseeable future; (DoJFR)
• Prohibit Profiling and Discrimination: Law enforcement agencies should adopt and enforce policies prohibiting profiling and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, gender, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability, housing status, occupation, or language fluency. (21CTF)
• Ensure all residents are protected from discrimination, have access to services, and can engage in city affairs. (PLAIC)
• Fix-It Tickets: Develop system of correctable violation, or “fix-it” tickets, and require officers to issue fix-it tickets wherever possible and absent contrary supervisory instruction (DoJFR)
• End Quotas: Law enforcement agencies should be required to end practices that require officers to issue a predetermined number of tickets, citations, arrests, or summonses, or to initiate investigative contacts with citizens for reasons not directly related to improving public safety, such as generating revenue. (21CTF; DoJFR)

Additional measures to address pretextual traffic stops 

• Improve infrastructure to improve infrastructure by creating road features that naturally slow traffic and discourage traffic violations. (RIPA)
• Reduce fines and fees to allow members to make needed repairs to their vehicles instead of imposing fines that may reduce a person’s financial ability to make the repairs. (RIPA)
• Identifying and taking action to limit enforcement of traffic laws and minor offenses that pose a low risk to public safety and show significant disparities in the rate of enforcement (RIPA)
• Limiting armed law enforcement responses to traffic enforcement, allowing for stops only if there is a concern for public safety (RIPA)
• Prohibiting certain searches, such as consent searches and supervision searches
• Eliminating all pretextual stops and subsequent searches and ensuring that a stop or search is based on reasonable suspicion or probable cause, respectively. (RIPA)
• Prohibit pretextual traffic and pedestrian stops, probation inquiries and consent-only searches (CRTF)

Supervisory Approval Before Certain Actions

• Require documented supervisory approval prior to issuing any citation/summons that includes more than two charges; (DoJFR)
• Require documented supervisory approval prior to making an arrest on the charge of failure to obey/ comply (DoJFR)
• Require documented supervisory approval prior to making an arrest on the charge of resisting arrest; (DoJFR, RIPA)
• Require documented supervisory approval prior to making an arrest on the charge of disorderly Conduct/Disturbing the Peace; (DoJFR)
•  Require documented supervisory approval prior to making an arrest on the charge of obstruction of Governmental Operations; (DoJFR)
• Require documented supervisory approval prior to arresting or ticketing an individual who sought police aid, or who is cooperating with police in an investigation; (DoJFR)
• Require documented supervisory approval prior to arresting on a municipal warrant or wanted; (DoJFR)
• Police officers should be required to obtain written acknowledgement that they have sought consent to a search in these circumstances (when there is no warrant or probable cause). (DoJFR)
• Adopt internal policies that prohibit district attorneys from filing and law enforcement agencies from submitting to the DAs office misdemeanor criminal filings on standalone resisting arrest charges if it is the sole charge listed at the time of arrest and is not accompanied by other citable offenses. (RIPA)
• Explore internal policies that limit district attorneys from filing standalone misdemeanor resisting arrest charges. (RIPA)
• Develop policies to require officers to notify supervisors prior to making an arrest for resisting arrest and have supervisors review any case where resisting arrest is alleged in a report. (RIPA)
   

Data Collection and Tracking

• Fund state and national data collection systems that track police stops, use of force data, crimes, sentences imposed, diversions, etc, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and disability (B2F)
• Analyze Demographic Data: Law enforcement agencies should develop and implement  a system for collecting, maintaining, and reviewing data (including location and demographic information) on all detentions  (stops, frisks, searches, summons, and arrests) at a supervisory and agency level. This data should be disaggregated by school and non-school contacts. This data should be reviewed regularly to detect problematic trends and ensure consistency with public safety goals(DoJFR, 21CTF)
• Law enforcement officers should report data on use of force, including all officer-involved shootings and any in-custody death. Using this data, the federal government should establish a database both documenting use of force and tracking officers who are fired from their duties, and develop corresponding accountability practices for police use of force (21CTF, DP)
• The Bureau of Justice Statistics should add questions concerning sexual harassment of and misconduct toward community members, and in particular LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming people, by law enforcement officers to the Police Public Contact Survey. (21CTF)
• The Centers for Disease Control should add questions concerning sexual harassment of and misconduct toward community members, and in particular LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming people, by law enforcement officers to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (21CTF)
• The U.S. Department of Justice should promote and disseminate guidance to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies on documenting, preventing, and addressing sexual harassment and misconduct by local law enforcement agents, consistent with the recommendations of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. (21CTF)
• Require law enforcement agencies to comply with standard gain-classification database practices (DoJFR)
• Eliminate Gang Databases: Elimination of gang databases and related information sharing, and provisions giving individuals placed on gang databases with notice and an opportunity to seek removal (MBL2020)

Accountability and Transparency to the Public

Transparency

• Make all police contract negotiations public. (#8toA)
• Prohibit city candidates from taking money from police unions and stop accepting union funds.
• Report on Police-Civilian Interactions: Require that officers report in writing all stops, searches and arrests, including pedestrian stops, and that their reports articulate the legal authority for the law enforcement action and sufficient description of facts to support that authority; (DoJFR)
• Update and Report Police Policies:  Each municipality should publicly post and make  available online and regularly update a complete set of police policies. (DoJFR, FC, 21CTF)
• Provide Public Reports on Police-Civilian Interactions: Provide regular and specific public reports on police stop, summons search, arrest, ticketing, force, and community engagement activities, and allegations of misconduct (including the nature of complaint and resolution).  (DoJFR, 21CTF, KC)
• Civilian Review Boards: Establish Civilian Review Boards at the state and local level to identify issues that need to be addressed in light of incidents that may occur.  (FC, DP)
• Specialized Agency for Civilian Review: A specialized agency should be created separate from other municipal agencies, to handle, investigate, and make recommendations on citizens complaints. (KC)
• Facilitate the Complaint Process: Make it easier for citizens to file complaints about  police conduct, including providing complaint forms online and in various locations throughout municipalities and allowing for complaints to be submitted online and by third parties or anonymously; (DoJFR)
• Require All Complaints Be Addressed: Require that all complaints be logged and investigated; (DoJFR)
• Keep Complaints Organized: Document in a central location all misconduct complaints and investigations, including the nature of the complaint, the name of the officer, and the disposition of the investigation (DoJFR)

Accountability

• Develop and implement a fair and consistent system of discipline for officer misconduct. (FC)
• Eliminate law enforcement officers’ “Bill of Rights” legislation that protects police from the transparency and oversight required for accountability (B2F)
• Procedural Justice for Internal Discipline: Law enforcement agency leadership should examine opportunities to incorporate procedural justice into the internal discipline process (21CTF)
•  Terminate Untruthful Officers: Terminate officers found to have been materially untruthful in performance of their duties, including in completing reports or during internal affairs investigations;(DoJFR)
• Community Mediation: Develop and implement a community-centered mediation program to resolve, as appropriate, allegations of officer misconduct. (DoJFR)
• Require police, not cities, to be liable for misconduct and violence settlements (#8toA)
• Eliminate legal protections for peace officers who violate civil or constitutional rights (CRTF)
• Recommend abolition of the qualified immunity doctrine to allow access to justice for victims of police violence (CRTF)

Civilian complaints

• Legislature should add a uniform definition of “civilian complaint”
• Agencies should work to make the complaint investigation procedure as objective as possible: all law enforcement agencies should review all related video footage in each complaint investigation. (RIPA)
• Law enforcement agencies should approach civilian complaints from a broader perspective, to not only address allegations of individual misconduct but also learn from past events to prevent future misconduct. (RIPA)
• Law Enforcement agencies should incorporate root cause analysis into the civilian complaint process, in parallel to the allegations of the complaint. Formally established criteria should determine when it is necessary to conduct a root cause analysis.  (RIPA)

Improve Police-Community Relationships and Invest in Community Self-Governance

• End the militarization of Black and brown neighborhoods by ending broken windows policing, “precision policing,” community policies, and all iterations of quality of life policing programs (e.g., neighborhood policing, “gang” policing, “repeat offender” policing, etc…) (#8toA).
• Remove police officers from hospitals and prohibit law enforcement from accessing private patient information. (#8toA)
• Remove police officers from all re-entry and shelter institutions. (#8toA)
• Community Forums: Law enforcement agencies shall schedule regular forums and meetings where all community members can interact with police and influence programs and policies. Integrate citizen input into departmental operations (FC, 21CTF)
• Collaboration with the Community: Develop community/citizen advisory committees  to assist in developing crime prevention strategies and agency policies as well as provide input and oversight on policing issues.  (21CTF, KC; Next50, B2F) Promote neighborhood councils as representative bodies with municipal decision making. (#8toA)
• Invest in multilingual resources for immigrant and asylum-seeking communities (#8toA)
• Assess community needs and invest in community-based resources, including groups from tenant unions to local shop-owners and street vendors, prioritizing those from marginalized groups (#8toA).
• Support existing legislation to divest taxpayer dollars away from punishment and invest in a new vision of public safety, including the BREATHE Act, the Community Emergency Response Act, the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act, and the Anti-Racism in Public Health Act. (Policy Link 2021)
• Support a People’s Process—run by the People’s Coalition for Safety and Freedom—that engages organizers and activists directly impacted by the ’94 Crime Bill to create a new vision for safety. (Policy Link 2021)
• Foster Positive Police-Community Interactions in Schools: Law enforcement agencies statewide shall create opportunities in schools and communities for positive non-enforcement interactions with police. Further, they should publicize the beneficial outcomes and images of positive, trust-building partnerships and initiatives (FC, 21CTF)
• Evaluation based on Positive Relationships: Law enforcement agencies should evaluate officers on their efforts to engage members of the community and the partnerships they build. (21CTF)
• Make Time for Positive Relationships:  Law enforcement agencies should evaluate their departmental practices and revise their policies in order to ensure time and capacity for more positive police-community interactions, social service experience for officers and required community-building field time. (FC, KC, 21CTF)
• Rebuilding Trust: Law enforcement agencies should consider and review their policies towards vulnerable populations in an effort to rebuild trust and legitimacy. (21CTF)
• Least Harm Resolutions: Law enforcement should adopt preferences for seeking “least harm” resolutions, such as diversion programs or warnings and citations in lieu of arrest for minor infractions. (21CTF)

Law Enforcement: Research and Policy Improvement

Technology: De-Militarizing the Police

• End the transfer of military equipment to federal, state, and local police, and campus law enforcement agencies (MBL2020)
• Disarm law enforcement officers, including police and private security, and ban the use of military equipment by any law enforcement agency, including Customs and Border Patrol, in all circumstances (#8toA; MBL2020)
• Disclosure of all military equipment transferred and acquired and its intended use by federal, state, and local governments. (MBL2020)
• Withdraw participation in police militarization programs and refuse federal grants that entangle municipal police entities with the Department of Homeland Security, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and FBI. (#8toA)
• Prohibit training exchanges between law enforcement and global military and policing entities. (#8toA)
• Place more stringent limits on use of ECWs, including limitations on multiple ECW cycles and detailed justification for using more than one cycle; (21CTF)
• The Federal Government should support the development of new “less than lethal” technology to help control combative suspects. (21CTF)
• Withdraw participation in police militarization programs and refuse federal grants that entagle municipal police entities with Department of Homeland Security, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and FBI. (#8toA)

Technology: Research and Development

• Best Practices Research: The US Department of Justice should support research into best-practices that can be replicated in other communities (21CTF)
• The National Institute of Justice should establish national standards for the research and development of new technology, addressing compatibility and civil and human rights.  (21CTF)

Technology: Training

• The Federal Government should support training to help law enforcement agencies learn, acquire, and implement technology tools and tactics that are consistent with the best practices of 21st century policing. (21CTF)

Technology: Community Engagement

• Technology should be developed and implemented with consideration of both local needs and national standards. Agencies should encourage public engagement and collaboration when developing and assessing the use of a new technology. (21CTF)
• Law enforcement agencies should adopt model policies and best practices for technology-based community engagement that increases community trust and access. (21CTF)
• Engage Community Advisory Boards for Technology Policy. (FC)
• Evaluate Effectiveness of Technology: Get input from all levels of  the law enforcement agency as well as the community. (FC)

Technology: Other Best Practices

• Prohibit private-public innovation schemes that profit from temporary technological fixes to systemic problems of police abuse and violence (#8toA)
• Body Cameras: Increase funding for body-worn cameras and develop a national analytics process for public safety processes and results (DP)
• Continue rolling out and evaluating body cameras with the ultimate goal of providing body cameras to every police officer who regularly comes into contact with civilians. (CPATF)
• Reduce the use of surveillance technologies (e.g., CCTV, face printing, DNA and biometric databases, etc…) and terminate police, military, and immigration contracts with private companies that provide surveillance technologies. (#8toA)
• Dismantle fusion centers, county crime analysis centers, real time crime centers, gun and gang violance intelligence centers, and purge attendant databases (#8toA).
• Policies for Working With Special Needs and Disabled Populations: Law enforcement agencies shall develop policies for the use of new technologies that will help them better serve people with special needs or disabilities. (FC)
• Ensure Adequate Bandwidth for Use of Technology Law: to allow for instantaneous communication, video transmission from body-worn cameras (BWCs), and other technology applications (FC)
• Create Technology Clearinghouse: Create clearinghouse with information and resources about the constitutional use of multiple forms of innovative technology, in collaboration with a national model set by the U.S. Department of Justice. (FC)
• Best Practices for Data: The U.S. Department of Justice should develop best practices that can be adopted by state legislative bodies to govern the acquisition, use, retention, and dissemination of auditory, visual, and biometric data by law enforcement. (21CTF)
• The U.S. Department of Justice, through the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, should partner with the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST) to expand its National Decertification Index to serve as the National Register of Decertified Officers with the goal of covering all agencies within the United States and its territories. (21CTF)

Addressing White Nationalism

Make Black people powerful in our society by rejecting the toxic culture of white nationalism by calling it out at every opportunity and in front of every audience (B2F):

• Combat white nationalist terrorism
• Enforce all civil statutes consistently and comprehensively

Strengthen the Office of Civil Rights by requiring greater transparency, data collection, and reporting (B2F)

Provide stricter guidelines around surveillance funding and ensure that budgets approved to protect civil rights are not reallocated in ways that thwart them (B2F) 

Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement 

• Police departments conduct a third-party social media screen for existing and new officers and fire officers who have ties to white nationalist groups and/or who have posted racist content online. (BTH)
• Establish clear policies regarding participation in white supremacist organizations and other far-right militant groups, and on overt and explicit expressions of racism — with specificity regarding tattoos, patches, and insignia as well as social media postings. These policies should be properly vetted by legal counsel to ensure compliance with constitutional rights, state and local laws, and collective bargaining agreements, and they must be clearly explained to staff. (BC)
• Hire a diverse workforce to more accurately reflect the demographic makeup of the communities the agency serves, and promote them fairly through the ranks. (BC)
• Establish mitigation plans when biased police officers are detected. Mitigation plans could include referrals to internal affairs, local prosecutors, or the DOJ for investigation and prosecution; termination or other disciplinary action; limitations of assignments to reduce potentially problematic contact with the public; retraining; and intensified supervision and auditing. (BC)
• Establish reporting mechanisms to ensure evidence of overtly racist behavior by a police officer is provided to prosecutors and employ Brady lists or similar reporting mechanisms to ensure defendants receive notice. (BC)
• Encourage whistleblowing and protect whistleblowers. (BC)

Federal Level

• Immediately establish a working group to examine law enforcement associations with white supremacist and other far-right militant groups to assess the scope and nature of the problem in a report to Congress. (BC)
• Develop an evidence-based national strategy based on this review, designed to protect the security and civil liberties of communities policed by law enforcement officers who are active in white supremacist or far-right militant organizations. A national strategy will ensure U.S. attorneys and FBI offices across the country properly prioritize these investigations and harmonize their tactics to guarantee equal justice for all. The national strategy should include data and metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of the methodologies it employs. (BC)
• Require the FBI to survey its domestic terrorism investigations involving white supremacists and other overtly racist or fascist militant groups to document and report to the DOJ all indications of active links between these groups and law enforcement officials. This would both inform the department’s assessment and national strategy and, where evidence of potential civil rights violations or other criminal activities by these law enforcement officers exists, allow investigations to be initiated. (BC)
• Require the FBI to determine whether any law enforcement officials it investigates for civil rights violations or other criminal matters have connections to violent white supremacist organizations or other far-right militant groups, have a record of discriminatory behavior, or have a history of posting explicitly racist commentary in public or on social media platforms. This information should be provided to FBI agents assigned to domestic terrorism matters for investigative and intelligence purposes, and to federal, state, and local prosecutors to consider their inclusion on Brady lists. (BC)
• Require the FBI to report any federal, state, or local official assigned to a federal task force who is discovered during initial screenings or periodic background investigations to have active links to any white supremacist or other militant groups, to have engaged in racist behavior, or to have posted overtly racist commentary to on social media to the DOJ and to their departments. Where appropriate based on available evidence, the Justice Department should bar these officials from further participation with federal task forces and report the information to appropriate departmental heads and state and local prosecutors for potential inclusion on Brady lists. (BC)
• Analyze the data collected by the FBI in its law enforcement use of force database to assist in developing the national strategy. The FBI should evaluate each use of force complaint for indications that racial or ethnic bias motivated the violence. Where evidence reasonably indicates a violation of federal, state, or local laws, cases should be referred for prosecution. (BC)
• Require data collection and regular reporting by the FBI on the true breadth of white nationalist domestic terrorism, monitoring and police tactics, and efforts to disrupt these systems. (B2F)
• Establish a formal mitigation plan to implement when evidence indicates that an identified law enforcement officer poses a public security threat or a risk of harm to any protected class or community. Such a plan could include federal, state, or local investigations and prosecutions; civil rights lawsuits and consent decrees; reporting information identifying the officer to other federal, state, or local authorities for appropriate employment action; and placement of identified officers on Brady lists maintained by federal, state, and local prosecutors to ensure that defendants in criminal cases and plaintiffs in civil actions against these officers have appropriate impeachment evidence available. (BC)
• Establish a public hotline for reporting racist activity by law enforcement officials and strengthen whistleblower protections for federal law enforcement agents. (BC)

Race-Conscious

Court Organization

• In order to promote operational and economic efficiency, Consolidate municipal courts  (FC)
• Municipalities should schedule regular reviews of outstanding arrest warrants, to effectively address cases where such warrants have become especially numerous (FC)
• Eliminate Sharing of Municipal Files to limit the inappropriate sharing of information  (FC)
• Conduct Annual Municipal Court Audits  (FC)
• Formalize and Standardize Court Documenting Procedures  (FC)
• Ensure Staffing of Annual Court Audits  (FC)
• Change Rules for Municipalities Holding Defendants for Other Municipalities: A municipality shall not hold a defendant for another municipality for longer than 4 hours for a non-violent offense.  (FC)
• The municipal court should: DoJFR
  • Strictly limit those offenses requiring in-person court appearance for resolution to those for which state law requires the defendant to make an initial appearance in court; (DoJFR)
  • Establish a process by which a person may seek a continuance of a court date, whether or not represented by counsel;  (DoJFR)
  • Continue to implement its online payment system, and expand it to allow late payments, payment plan installments, bond payments, and other court payments to be made online; (DoJFR)
  • Continue to develop and transition to an electronic records management system for court records to ensure all case information and events are tracked and accessible to court officials (DoJFR)
  • Ensure that the municipal court office is consistently staffed during posted business hours. Accept partial payments from individuals, and provide clear information to individuals about payment plan options. (DoJFR)
• Access to justice: Eliminate barriers for African American prospective attorneys by funding legal education and ending discriminatory gatekeeping at the state bar (CRTF)

Addressing Court Fees/Fines and Debts

• States should mandate reductions in court fines and fees that disproportionately impact low-income people and communities of color. (PLBTC)
• States should reduce or eliminate court fines and fees that disproportionately impact low-income people and communities of color. (PLBTC, B2F)
• States and the federal government should repeal existing requirements for low-income parents to reimburse the state or federal government beyond the actual amount needed to support the child. (PLBTC)
• Any collected reimbursements to the state and/or federal programs should be used for purposes that enhance financial security for the children such as savings accounts, universal pre-K, and financial education programs. (PLBTC)
• States and localities should replace fines for minor crimes and misdemeanors as well as administrative fees for probationers and parolees with debt collection practices that account for one’s ability to pay. (HRR)
• Make municipal or court fees owed transparent in their basis and amount and easily accessible, on their website or elsewhere. (DoJFR)
• End all fines and fees associated with the criminal legal process, including ticketing, cash bail, court costs,and parole and probation fees. (#8toA)
  • Eliminate criminal punishment fees and fines (FC)
  • End to Pretrial Detention and Money Bail (MBL2020, DP)
• Pass federal legislation like the Pretrial Integrity & Safety Act, which would require the Department of Justice to make grants allowing jurisdictions to replace bail systems that use the payment of money as a condition of pretrial release and implement a National Pretrial Reporting Program (B2F)
• Prohibit cash bail and mandate that those who are acquitted or exonerated be reimbursed by the entity at fault (CRTF)
• Develop and implement consistent written criteria for conducting an assessment of an individual’s ability to pay (based on financial resources and other documented fines owed to other courts) prior to the assessment of any fine, and upon any increase in the fine or related court costs and fees. (DoJFR)
• Improve current procedures for collecting and tracking data regarding fine amounts imposed. Track initial fines imposed as an independent figure separate from any additional charges imposed during a case; (DoJFR)
• Regularly conduct internal reviews of data regarding fine assessments. This review should include an analysis of fines imposed for the same offenses, including by race of the defendant, to ensure fine assessments for like offenses are set appropriately. (DoJFR)
• Payment Plans: Develop and implement a specific process by which a person can enroll in a payment plan that requires reasonable periodic payments.(DoJFR)
• Cease practice of automatically issuing a warrant when a person on a payment plan misses a payment, and adopt procedures that provide for appropriate warnings following a missed payment, consistent with recommendation eight set forth below; (DoJFR)
• Work with community organizations and other regional groups to develop alternative penalty options besides fines, including expanding community service options. Make all individuals eligible for community service. (DoJFR)
• Enforce Fees through alternative means including:
  • Assessment of reasonable late fees; (DoJFR)
  • Expanding options for payment through community service; (DoJFR)
  • Modified payment plans with reasonable amounts due and payment procedures; (DoJFR)
  • A show cause hearing on why a warrant should not issue, including an assessment of ability to pay, where requested. (DoJFR)
  • Personal service on the individual of the Order to Show Cause Motion that provides notice of the above information regarding right to counsel and the consequences of non-appearance; (DoJFR)
• Collect Municipal Court Debts Like Civil Debts (FC)
• Create Community Justice Systems to operate in conjunction with municipal courts for individuals charged with minor violations who are unable to pay or are otherwise in need. Could include case management and social work services and could coordinate community service alternatives. (FC)
• Determine Defendants' Ability to Pay at first court hearing (FC)
• Consider Payment Plans and Fine Revocation where defendants’ nonpayment of fines was due to inability to pay, not intention refusal to pay or failure to make a good faith effort payment (FC)
• Develop and implement a process by which individuals can appear in court to seek proportioning of preset fines to their financial ability to pay. (DoJFR)
• End money bail: Prosecutors must end the pointless and racially biased practice of money bail. (COC, B2F)
• End immigration bonds (B2F)

Failure to Appear

• Eliminate “failure to appear” warrants (FC)
• Remove all Failure to Appear related charges, fines, and fees from current cases (DoJFR)
• Close all cases in which only a Failure to Appear charge, fine, or fee or bond forfeiture remains pending; (DoJFR)
• Close all municipal cases in which the individual has paid fines equal or greater to the amount of the fine assessed for the original municipal code violation—through Failure to Appear fines and fees or forfeited bond payments—and clear all associated warrants; (DoJFR)
• Assess Ability to Pay at Nonpayment Hearings (FC)

Reducing and/or Eliminating Sentences

• Localities and states should eliminate the practice of jailing defendants for inability to pay debt and offer opportunities for nonviolent offenders to reduce their debt from court-ordered fines. (PLBTC)
• Call on Mayors to grant clemencies to criminalized survivors of violence and repeal local ordinances that criminalize the occupation of public spaces--particularly for people experiencing homelessness--under statues against loitering, loitering for the purpose of sex work, fare beating, panhandling, soliciting, camping, sleeping, and public urination and defecation.  (#8toA)
• Urge state legislatures to end mandatory arrest and failure to protect laws that lead to the criminalization of survivors of gendered violence; repeal local laws that criminalize people involved in the sex trades, drug trades, and street economies; and, decriminalize all misdemeanor offenses, which currently account for 80% of total court dockets.  (#8toA)
• Permanently close local jails. (#8toA)
• Reject alternatives to incarceration that are carceral in nature, including problem-solving courts and electronic monitoring and coercive restorative justice programs. (#8toA)
• Eliminate incarceration for minor, non-violent offenses (FC)
• Establish alternatives to jail time, fines, and fees for violations of municipal ordinances, including payment plans and community service. (FC)
• Treat Nonviolent Offenses as Civil Violations (FC)
• Expunge Old Convictions of Non-Repeat Offenders: (FC)
• Allow all individuals to seek warrant recall in writing or via telephone, whether represented by an attorney or not. (DoJFR)
• Amend the people code to shift public disorder infractions and low level crimes outside of law enforcement jurisdiction (CRTF)
• Amend the penal code to clarify and confirm decriminalization of transit and other public disorder offenses (CRTF)

Eliminating Conflicts of Interest

• Prohibit municipal judges from engaging in municipal court practice in the county in which they serve as a municipal judge and ensure these rules are applied universally. (FC)
• Prohibit municipal from representing criminal defendants in municipal courts within the county in which they serve as a prosecutor and ensure these rules are applied universally. (FC)
• Require principal actors in the entire system of municipal governance (municipal officials, police officers, prosecutors, municipal court judges) to sign an annual code of ethics that prohibits targeting or collusion. (FC)

Transparency: Ensure Citizens are Aware of Their Rights

• Clearly Define Municipal Court Procedures  (FC)
• Train Municipal Court, Jail, and City Government Employees in Constitutional Rights  (FC)
• Municipal courts shall inform all defendants of their right to counsel and must obtain an informed waiver if defendants choose to proceed pro se  (FC)
• Create a Municipal Courts “Bill of Rights” that is drafted, established, and approved by the applicable circuit court and delivered with every ticket and via signage posted at each location where municipal court meetings are held  (FC)
• Communicate Rights  to Defendants in Person at all  at all court appearances and prior to adjudication of their cases.  (FC)
• Municipal courts shall provide all defendants with written notice of court hearing details. If the court reschedules or relocates the hearing, it must provide written notice  at least 14 days prior to the original court date.  (FC)
• Provide broadly available information to individuals regarding low-cost or cost-free legal assistance;  (DoJFR)
• Create, adopt, and make public written procedures for all court operations; (DoJFR)
• Provide information to a participating individual at the time of the warrant recall, including the number of charges pending, the fine amount due if a charge has been assessed, the options available to pay assessed fines, the deadlines for doing so, and the requirements, if any, for appearing in court.
• Ensure all FPD citations, summonses, and arrests are accompanied by sufficient, detailed information about the recipient’s rights and responsibilities, including:
  • The specific municipal violation charged;
  • A person’s options for addressing the charge, including whether in-person appearance is required or if alternative methods, including online payment, are available, and information regarding all pending deadlines;
  • A person’s right to challenge the charge in court;
  • The exact date and time of the court session at which the person receiving the charge must or may appear;
  • Information about how to seek a continuance for a court date;
  •  The specific fine imposed, if the offense has a preset fine;
  • The processes available to seek a fine reduction for financial incapacity, consistent with recommendation four set forth below;
  •  The penalties for failing to meet court requirements.
  • Develop and implement a secure online system for individuals to be able to access specific details about their case, including fines owed, payments made, and pending requirements and deadlines.

Transparency: Make Court Policies and Proceedings Accessible to the Public

• Make Municipal Court Sessions open to the public (FC)
• Make public all court-related fines, fees, and bond amounts, as well as description of the municipal court payment process, including court dates, payment options, and potential consequences for non-payment or missed court dates; (DoJFR)
• Collect all orders currently in effect and make those orders accessible to the public, including by posting any such materials on the City, police, and municipal court web pages. (DoJFR)
• Make public all new court orders and directives as they are issued;  (DoJFR)
• Plan comprehensive measures by which the criminal justice sys­tem may be supplemented during civil disorders so that its deliberative functions are protected, and the quality of justice is maintained. (KC)
• Initiate a public education campaign to ensure individuals can have an accurate and complete understanding municipal court operates, including that appearance in court without ability to pay an owed fine will not result in arrest; (DoJFR)
• End the secrecy: Prosecutors must practice transparency and share information about their offices. (COC)

Reform: Driving Related

• Consistently Provide “Compliance Letters” Necessary for Driver’s License Reinstatement After a Person Makes an Appearance Following a License Suspension, and immediately Immediately provide compliance letters so that license suspensions are lifted for all individuals whose cases are closed (FC)
• Reform laws that require the suspension of individuals driving licenses in certain cases where they  do not appear or timely pay traffic charges involving moving violations (FC)
• Eliminate Punitive Impounding of Vehicles (FC)

Increase enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act throughout the legal system, ensuring that people have access to reasonable accommodations as witnesses, victims, and perpetrators (B2F) 

Criminal Legal System: Incarceration, Probation and Parole

Race-Conscious

Incarceration

• The government should divest from for-profit prison systems and invest in such things as public education, higher education, and community policing. (HRR)
• Ensure the cost of fundamental services and programs is not the financial responsibility of people who are incarcerated or their family members–including adequate nutrition, phone calls to family members, doctor visits, money transfers, and access to public defenders, probation, parole, and incarceration itself. (DP)
• Restore Pell Grant access to people who are incarcerated and increase Title I funding from the federal government for states that commit to supporting K-12 education of justice-system-involved people. Broadly support educational opportunities for incarcerated people (DP)
• Staff jail with at least two correctional officers at all times to ensure safety. Train correctional officers in de-escalation techniques with specific instruction and training on minimizing force when dealing with intoxicated and combative prisoners, as well as with passive resistance and noncompliance. DoJFR
• Remove the Medicaid exception for Incarcerated People (DP)
• Develop and Implement an Operating Plan to provide medical services, including mental health services, for people in custody (FC)
• End the use of solitary confinement. (MBL2020, DP)
• Abolish the death penalty, life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), and death by incarceration. (MBL2020, DP, CRTF)
• Make Black people powerful in the legal system by ending the use of incarceration to solve the problems of migration, poverty, and disinvestment and returning millions of us back to our families and communities (B2F):
  • Invest in community safety, prevention, and justice rather than the penal system
  • Hold police officers accountable for misconduct and use of force
  • Stop criminalizing poverty
  • Decriminalize marijuana
  • Forbid employers from asking job applicants to disclose criminal records
• End mass incarceration (p. 204) (CWSBH)
• Protect the rights of those who are justice-involved and incarcerated and agencies that violate their rights should face consequences. (NYRJC)
• Emphasize the “Rehabilitation” in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CRTF)
• Require Payment of Fair Market Value for Labor Provided by Incarcerated Persons (CRTF)
• Prohibit Private Prisons from Benefiting from Contracts with CDCR to Provide Reentry Services to Incarcerated or Paroled Individuals (CRTF)
• Amend the CA constitution to Prohibit Involuntary Servitude (CRTF)
• Accelerate scheduled closures of identified California state prisons and close ten prisons over the next five years, with financial savings redirected to the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency (CRTF)

Probation and Parole

• Abolish all fines in the penal system and administrative fees for probationers and parolees (BYP100)
• Release all people on parole violations (#8toA)
• Incentivize states to improve probation and parole practices, including implementing a presumption of release on parole and eliminating discretionary violations of terms of release or supervision (DP)

After Repaying Civil Debts

• Reduce the use of supervised release on the federal level by limiting it to two years (DP)
• Expand Ban the Box Initiatives (DP); (MBL2020, B2F)
• Pass the REDEEM Act to automatically seal juvenile records, enable adults convicted of nonviolent crimes to petition to have their criminal records sealed, and improve the accuracy of the FBI background check system (B2F)
• Pass the Fair Chance Act, which prohibits federal government and federal contractors from requesting a job applicant’s arrest or conviction record until after a conditional employment offer has been made (B2F)
• Increase the availability of tax credits and bond insurance for employers who hire formerly incarcerated people. (DP)
• Lift barriers that prevent formerly incarcerated people from accessing public benefits, including housing credits and SNAP. Repeal federal, state, and local bans on receipt of social assistance based on prior convictions. Support re-entry through certificate programs, sealing or expunging certain records (SM, DP, MBL202020)
• Restore the right to vote for all formerly incarcerated people immediately upon release from confinement–not contingent on any payment of fines or fees and not contingent on the completion of supervised release
• Provide Funding to Empower States to provide better opportunities for individuals to prepare for life after incarceration. Model: South Carolina’s Second Chance Program (DP)
• Better understand the living conditions of formerly incarcerated people. (MHH)
• Aim our gaze at the everyday routines of arrest, incarceration, and release and at what it takes to piece together a life after being branded ex-convict, ex-offender, or ex-felon. (MHH)

Reducing the Incarcerated Population and Towards Abolition

• Make a concentrated effort to reduce our prison population, at least in part by decriminalizing drugs and also by bringing U.S. sentencing practices more in line with those of other nations. (HRR)
• Repeal three strikes sentencing (CRTF)
• The federal government should provide grants to incentivize and support states with reducing the number of incarcerated people: criminal justice reform, pretrial reforms, decarceration, expansion of alternative to incarceration programs, drug rehabilitation, affordable housing, subsidized transportation (DP)
• Fund violence reduction programs that reduce police contact (B2F)
• Fund community driven solutions to decrease community violence at the family, school and neighborhood levels in African American communities, through grants to programs that address violence in African American communities. (CRTF)
• Pass gun violence prevention measures aimed at reducing the number of guns in civil hands, including comprehensive background checks (B2F)
• Divest public and higher education funds from the prison-industrial complex (BYP100)
• End mandatory minimums (DPSM, B2F)
• Establish an independent clemency commission to streamline clemency process (DP)
• Eliminate risk assessments (MBL2020)
• Decriminalize non-violent drug offenses. Eliminate incarceration for drug possession, reduce sentences for other drug offenses and apply these reductions retroactively, legalize marijuana and expunge past convictions. (DP, MBL2020, B2F)
• End pretrial detention, civil commitment, and involuntary confinement, including but not limited to jails, prisons, immigrant detention centers, psychiatric wards, and nursing homes, starting with vulnerable populations such as those who are aging, disabled, immunocompromised, held on bail, held for parole violations, and survivors. (#8toA)
• Immediate release of anyone who is at elevated risk of contracting Covid-19 and/or anyone who does not pose a tangible, known risk to the community, including all elders, people in comas, on life support, or in end of life care in prisons and jails. (Policy Link, 2021; MBL2020)
• Provide resources to help state and local jurisdictions to support successful reentry of previously incarcerated persons into communities (Policy Link, 2021).
• Increase funding and oversight of reentry programs (B2F) 
• Immediate release of all political prisoners (MBL2020)
• An end to all jails, prisons, immigration and youth detention, and civil commitment facilities.(MBL2020)
• Invest in community-based drug treatment, transformative violence prevention and intervention strategies, that offer support for criminalized populations ((MBL2020)
• Decommission all prisons, jails, and immigration and youth detention centers not currently imprisoning people, followed by demolition or repurposing for non-­punitive purposes. (MBL2020)
• Retroactive elimination of sentences of life without parole (LWOP) and sentences that will result in death by incarceration. (MBL2020)
• A moratorium on all prison, jail, immigrant and youth detention construction, without an accompanying expansion of home arrest or GPS monitoring or other forms of e-carceration. (MBL2020)
• Stop using government funding, incentives, and other public resources to open new jails and prisons (B2F)
• Ban private prisons and detention centers, and forbid companies and the government from profiting off of mass incarceration (B2F, CRTF)
• Eliminate arrests and incarceration as punishment for failure to pay legal financial obligations
• Cut funding to prosecutor offices. (#8toA)
• Make all communication to and from prisoners free (#8toA)
• End immigration detention, family separation, and let undocumented community members come home. (#8toA)
• Stop unnecessary prosecutions: Prosecutors must stop unwarranted and unhelpful prosecutions of low-level offenses. (COC)
• Stop anti-immigrant prosecutions: Prosecutors must stop separating families and removing people from their communities. (COC)

Criminal Justice Debts

• End practices that create additional economic burdens, such as suspending driver’s licenses for failing to pay criminal justice debts
• End all fines for minor and petty crimes and misdemeanors (BYP100)

Race-Targeted

School-Discipline

• End school zero-tolerance disciplinary policies and prohibit surveillance of Black and brown students by all school staff and officials. (#8toA)
• Eliminate policies that require registration and surveillance of students that have received mental health care as part of their K-12 school enrollment (B2F)
• Require schools to stop using restraints and seclusion on students with disabilities (B2F)
• Reform School Discipline Policies: pertaining to disproportionality of behavior referrals, suspensions, expulsions, special education, advanced courses, etc. and ensure multi-tiered levels of support are in place to prevent disprortionality and systems are created to monitor and create accountability. (FC)
• Collect and report school discipline data, including referrals to law enforcement and school-based arrests, disaggregated by offense, age, gender, grade, race, ethnicity, disability, school, teacher/school staff, and disposition. (AP)
• Additionally, cultural competency training should be made mandatory where racial disparities in school discipline exist. (AP)

Legislative Approaches

• City lawmakers can create more opportunities for Black youth to be heard by creating internships, meeting with students in schools, inviting students to testify at rule-making and agency oversight hearings, and engaging youth in campaign debates. (HROI)
• Require lawmakers to provide a “racial impact statement” before they pass any new law or regulation to figure out whether a law will disproportionately affect Black youth. (HROI)
• Elected officials should abandon gang designations and gang databases that label Black youth as gang involved for doing what most kids do– dressing alike and hanging out with their friends. (HROI)

Federal funding should incentivize data collection on racial disparities in school discipline and law enforcement and improve outcomes for all youth in the juvenile legal system. (HROI)

Race-Conscious

Youth Involved with Criminal Legal System

• Assign Public Defenders for Criminally-Charged Minors  (FC)
• Close Records of Non-Violent Offenses by Minors  (FC)
• Notify Parents of Detained Minors: A parent, guardian, or caretaker of a minor placed in detention must be notified within 4 hours of their child being placed in detention  (FC)
• Treat kids like kids: Prosecutors must stop putting children in adult jails and prisons. (COC)
• Prosecutors should decline to prosecute youth for low-level, nonviolent offenses, especially stemming from school-based incidents where there is a pattern of unnecessary arrests and court referrals for Black youth. (HROI)
• Prosecutors should refuse to charge youth for minor street offenses like loitering and disorderly conduct. (HROI)
• Prosecutors should minimize the use of felony charges when less serious offenses or noncriminal interventions more appropriately reflect the adolescent nature of the child’s behavior. (HROI)
• Prosecutors should never prosecute children as adults or ask for lengthy punitive sentences when rehabilitative alternatives would be more effective and equitable across race and class. (HROI)
• Prosecutors should be trained in adolescent development and racial bias and track their own charging decisions by race, age, gender, and any other demographic that may lead to disparities. (HROI)

School Discipline

Legal approaches

• Litigators should pursue education-rights-based impact litigation in coordination with grassroots and legislative advocates (SPP)
• Strengthen anti-discrimination protections for children of color, ELL students, undocumented students, homeless youth, children in foster care, and students with disabilities (SPP)

Type and Extent of Discipline

• Urge states to repeal truancy laws. (#8toA)
• Prohibit the use of corporal punishment and electronic control devices. (21CTF)
• Reducing the Use of Expulsions, Referrals, Out-of-School Suspensions, and School-Based Arrests: Limit the use of expulsions, referrals to alternative schools, out-of-school suspensions, referrals to law enforcement, and school-based arrests to conduct that poses a serious, ongoing threat to the safety of students and staff. Hold schools accountable for reducing the use of these measures by including such indicators in their evaluations. Implement alternatives to these measures such as restorative justice, diversion, counseling, and family intervention. (21CTF, AP, MBL2020)
• Legal challenges to suspensions and expulsions utilizing procedural due process, substantive due process, void-for-vagueness, and First Amendment protections. (SPP)
• Legal strategies for securing the right to alternative education for suspended and expelled youth, while ensuring that the education provided is of high quality. (SPP)
• School safety requires a developmentally appropriate approach to behavior management and school discipline. Effective frameworks for behavior management include positive behavior interventions and support, restorative justice, and social emotional learning. (HROI)
• Implement systematic review of school discipline data (CRTF)

School Resource Officers and Law Enforcement at Schools

• Remove police, both public and private, from all schools (#8toA, RIPA)
• The Legislature should repeal the part of the Education Code section 38000 authorizing school districts to operate their own police departments. (RIPA)
• Schools should reduce the number of officers on campus, eliminate police uniforms, and move officers from the main school buildings to satellite offices to reduce the teachers’ and administrators’ reliance on the police. (HROI, RIPA)
• Limit the involvement of law enforcement and school security personnel in schools to felony conduct that poses a serious, ongoing threat to the safety of students or staff (AP, RIPA)
• Require School Resource Officers and other school-based law enforcement on child and adolescent development, conflict resolution, and restorative justice, anti-bias, and cultural responsiveness (FC, AP, RIPA)
• Divert funding used for law enforcement and security infrastructure to proven prevention and intervention programs such as restorative justice, additional school-based social support personnel (counselors. Psychologists, and social workers), youth courts, and peer interventions. (21CTF, AP, MBL2020, RIPA)
• Remove surveillance technology and metal detectors from all schools (#8toA).
• Law enforcement agencies and schools should establish memorandum of agreement for the placement of School Resource Officers that limit police involvement in student discipline. (21CTF, AP)
• The Legislature should more clearly define how suspected offenses related to fighting, assault, and battery without injury or threats of assault and battery and drug possession by students should be treated by school staff and whether or not they should be referred to police. (RIPA)
• Every state or city with police in schools should require schools to establish a clear memorandum of understanding (MOU), limiting the officers’ authority within the school to serious violent offenses and clearly excluding school resource officers from routine school discipline. (HROI, RIPA)
  • MOUs should include minimum training requirements and detail how legal issues, such as searches, seizures, and interrogations, will be handled. (HROI)
  • MOUs should be periodically reassessed to determine if the relationship or goals should be redefined, and school districts should provide students and community members with an opportunity to annually review the school resource program and develop a process for families to complain about abuses by school resource officers. (HROI)
• School districts should be included in the recruitment and selection of school resource officers and engage the community in the oversight of those officers. (HROI)
• Law Enforcement agencies should implement practices to ensure the accurate and complete reporting of RIPA stop data among primary and secondary school-aged children and youth. (RIPA)
• Incorporating data, disaggregated by identity groups, about all law enforcement stops of students, and the outcomes of these stops should be incorporated into existing school accountability systems as indicators of school climate. (RIPA)
• The Legislature should develop due process protections for student threat assessment processes and mandate that incidents involving only self-harm may not be assessed as threats. (RIPA)
• Researchers should study threat assessment outcomes to evaluate whether they are consistent, align with program guidelines, and effective at reducing violence. (RIPA)
• The legislature should require schools to inform parents and students of threat assessment processes on an annual basis by including information in the school’s policies and orientation materials and on its websites. (RIPA)
• Work with school staff, parents, and community members to address school discipline.  SROs should focus on  developing positive relationships with youth in support of maintaining a learning environment without unnecessarily treating disciplinary issues as criminal matters or resulting in the routine imposition of lengthy suspensions;  (DoJFR)
• Evaluate SRO performance on student engagement and prevention of disturbances, rather than on student arrests or removals. Regularly review and evaluate incidents in which SROs are involved to ensure they meet the particular goals of the SRO program; to identify any disparate impact or treatment by race or other protected basis; and to identify any policy, training, or equipment concerns. (DoJFR)
• The Legislature should prohibit law enforcement officers and school security personnel from using electronic control weapons against students. (RIPA)
• The legislature should prohibit the use of all chemical agents, including, but not limited to OC spray against students. (RIPA)
• The legislature should mandate that any law enforcement officer who is working an assignment that may require responding to a school receive training provided by POST. (RIPA)

Community and Parent Engagement with the School

• Provide resources for the formation of local councils composed of parents, youth, and representatives from school systems, juvenile courts, law enforcement agencies, social service agencies, and non-profit community organizations that would be charged with developing comprehensive strategies for addressing the school-to-prison pipeline in particular communities. The councils should consider whether reallocation of resources across agencies and programs would help reduce the over-criminalization and pushout of youth. (AP, 21CTF)
• Emphasize the protection of parents’/guardians’ and students’ due process rights during disciplinary proceedings, especially around parental notification, disciplinary hearings, and appeals processes. (AP)
• Law enforcement agencies  should collaborate with school personnel, students, families, and community members to create and monitor developmentally appropriate and proportional consequences for addressing ongoing and escalating student misbehavior (21CTF)        
• Law enforcement agencies should work with communities to play a role in programs and procedures to reintegrate juveniles back into their communities as they leave the juvenile justice system. (21CTF)

Teacher Training

• Expand teacher training and professional development on implicit bias, classroom management, conflict resolution, disciplinary alternatives, and student engagement through challenging and culturally relevant curricula (AP)

Accountability for Schools and Law Enforcement Agencies

• Hold law enforcement officials accountable for reducing the use of school-based arrests for school disciplinary matters, such as by making funding for school based law enforcement contingent on reductions in arrests.(AP)
•  Hold law enforcement officials accountable for eliminating racial disparities in school-based arrests, such as by making funding for school-based law enforcement contingent on the reduction of racial disparities. (AP)
• Raise affirmative challenges to school-specific statutes and ordinances frequently used to criminalize school misconduct and increase accountability for law enforcement officers’ conduct in public schools (SPP)
• Impact-litigation challenges to the initial referral or arrest of children to the juvenile justice system (SPP)
• School boards and police departments must adopt rules and standards that lay the foundation for accountability for police abuse. (HROI)
  • Interagency rules should explicitly limit the types of force officers may use with youth and require officers to give a clear warning, attempt to de-escalate the encounter, and exhaust all alternatives before using force. (HROI)
  • When force is used, school officials must notify the youth’s parent or guardian as soon as possible and establish clear and accessible procedures for submitting, resolving, and tracking complaints against the officers. (HROI)
• Lawmakers and judges should make it easier for young people to hold officers accountable in civil lawsuits. (HROI).
  • Eliminate the qualified immunity doctrine altogether or identify constitutional violations and articulate clear standards of reasonableness in police encounters with youth in future cases. (HROI)

Regulating Police Contact with Youth

• Lawmakers should decriminalize normal adolescent behaviors and write laws that set limits on what police can and cannot do to children. (HROI)
• Lawmakers should excuse teenagers from criminal responsibility for offenses like disorderly conduct, trespass, simple drug possession, disregard of police commands, disturbing schools, petty thefts, fare evasion or “turnstile jumping” on public transportation, curfew violations, sagging pants, school fights that do not involve serious injuries to others, and adolescent aggressive speech, including profanity and threats. (HROI)
• Lawmakers should prohibit strip searches, Tasers, chokeholds, police dogs, body slams, and other physical maneuvers on children. (HROI)
• Lawmakers should prohibit police officers from handcuffing the youngest children. (HROI)
• Laws should prohibit officers from relying on a child’s purported “consent” for a search, and instead require police to have specific reasons to believe a child is committing or has committed a crime before conducting any search or frisk. (HROI)
• Lawmakers should write laws that prohibit officers from considering a child’s “flight” from the police as a reason for a stop and prohibit officers from interrogating children without a lawyer. (HROI)
• Laws should require the police to call a child’s parents immediately after arrest with detailed information about the child’s health and location. (HROI)

The Federal Government should assess and evaluate zero tolerance strategies and examine the role of reasonable discretion when dealing with adolescents in consideration of their stages of maturation or development. (21CTF)

Eliminate zero tolerance policies and limit the presence of police in schools (B2F)

The federal government should reallocate funds from the COPS in Schools programs to mental health services, counselors, and other alternatives to policing. (HROI)

Law Enforcement: Community Engagement with Youth

• Engage youth and communities in joint training with law enforcement (FC)
• Reform Juvenile Disciplinary Procedures and Practices to address the needs of youth most at risk for crime and violence and eliminate aggressive law enforcement tactics that marginalize youth (FC, 21CTF)
• Build trust among youth and police by creating projects and programs  for positive, consistent, and sustained interactions between youth and police. (FC, 21CTF)
• Establish a "Community Service Officer" program to attract ghetto youths between the ages of 17 and 21 to police work. Within these programs, junior officers would perform duties within ghetto neighborhoods, but would not have full police authority. The federal government should provide support equal to 90 percent of the costs of employing CSOs on the basis of one for every ten regular officers. (KC)

Race-Targeted

• Revise state curricula to incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy so as to highlight the history, culture, and contribution of minority groups to American civilization, while also addressing the political, economic, and social impacts of settler colonialism and slavery. (KC, M4BL2020)
• Diversify the teaching profession by using Title II funds to invest in recruiting, training and supporting the next generation of teachers of color (DP)
• Promote racial residential and school integration (p. 207) (CWSBH)
• Schools can help students develop healthy adolescent identities by incorporating and affirming race history in the curriculum. (HROI)
• Adopt a k-12 Black studies curriculum (CRTF)
• Introduce or, advance the timeline for ethnic studies classes (CRTF)
• Adopt the freedom school summer program (CRTF)
• Reduce racial disparities in the STEM fields for African American students (CRTF)

Race-Conscious

Early Childhood

• Invest in home visits to ensure parents have the knowledge they need to promote infant and child health, foster educational development and school readiness, and prevent child abuse and neglect. (RDH)
• Universal Pre-K (RE;JB, AP, TSTI, PLBTC)
• Change the Compulsory attendance age to 5 years old (FC)
• Universal child care and renewed investment in quality public schools (BYP100, SM)
• Provide federal early care and education policymakers and staff with training on issues related to equity. (CT)
• Collect and disaggregate data to better understand and target inequities in federal early care and education policies. Use data to develop equity strategies with accountability standards. (CT)
• Add flexibility to Head Start policies to promote equity for Black Americans. (CT)
• Develop strategies for Head Start and Child Care policymakers to intentionally explore implicit and explicit biases when crafting federal policy. (CT)
• Embed equity in monitoring and accountability systems for early care and education (ECE) policy. (CEP)
• Address ECE workforce equity. (CEP)
• Embed equity in ECE workforce preparation and development. (CEP)
• Explicitly include equity in the definition of “quality” and across Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). (CEP)
• Ensure high-quality curriculum and pedagogy are accessible and culturally responsive. (CEP)
• Ensure global classroom quality measurement explicitly assesses equitable experiences. (CEP)
• Eliminate harsh discipline, which includes expulsion, suspension, corporal punishment, seclusion, and inappropriate restraint. (CEP)
• Address equity in early intervention and special education access, identification, and inclusion. (CEP)
• Implement a data-driven continuous equity quality improvement cycle. (CEP)
• Center family child care. (CEP)
• Equitably expand access to dual language immersion approaches for dual language learners in early care and education settings. (CEP)

Child Wellness

• Address student health including mental, physical, and reproductive health through means such as full-service school health centers/clinics (AP, FC)
• Parents, especially those with low levels of education, should be offered access to proven programs on how to create a healthy pregnancy and postnatal home life (RREM)
  • Low-cost interventions such as book-giving programs and text-messaging reminders
• Improve the quality of students’ out-of-school time by increasing investments in community schools and other after-school and summer programs (AP)
• Schools need to hire medical personnel, clinicians, social workers, and other mental health providers who have been trained in antibias, anti-oppressive, and gender equity practices and who can address the unique needs of Black students. (HROI)
• Schools need to collaborate with community-based mental health treatment providers, child welfare departments, and health insurers to supplement school-based services. (HROI)

College Readiness

• Automatically enroll kindergartners in college savings programs. (PLBTC)
• Provide students and parents access to information about college and career options. (PLBTC)
• Ensure College Counseling for All High School Students. Ensure counselors have the training needed to not only address social or psychological problems in schools, but also to provide high quality career guidances, especially in a dynamic labor market (FC)
• Ensure Equitable Access to Rigorous High School Courses: Ensure all high school students have access to rigorous courses with quality instruction. (FC)
• Children with greater natural ability for certain fields should be given opportunities to develop those talents at the expense of other areas, and parents should be free to have authority over the educational and cultural development of their children (RREM)
• School districts should allow students to take career and technically focused classes at a state-of-the-art community college (RREM)
• Expand Upward Bound and Establish Special 1-year Post graduate College Preparatory School. (KC)
• Create School-Based Early Warning Systems: Invest, at the school level, in a quarterly, early warning and coordinated community response system capable of tracking and responding to all students’ successes and challenges. (FC)
• Coordinate Support Efforts: Develop a shared vision, community scorecard and system for coordinating important but fragmented efforts while valuing diversity, inclusion and transparency (FC)
• Individualized instruction through extensive use of nonprofessional personnel. (KC)
• Create Annual Reporting Process: Create a data driven and annual reporting process capable of accounting for how regional services are provided and how dollars are spent to meet the needs of children and youth. (FC)

Equitable School Funding and Educational Access

• Invest in K-12 education (B2F)
• Enact strict guidelines requiring that education funding at federal, state, and local levels flow equitably to school districts (B2F, CRTF)
• Reform education finance system by giving the federal government greater responsibility for education finance and accountability. (Next50)
• Disseminate public funds equitably in ways that consider historical and current marginalization. (CEP)
• Provide high-quality education for low-income children from preschool through career and prevent school pushout. (PLAIC)
• Provide comprehensive supports and integrated services to help public school students and their families succeed. (PLAIC)
• Federal Aid/Title I
  • Increase resources for Title I and Modify Title I to provide a greater concentration of aid to school districts having the greatest proportion of disadvantaged students (DP, KC, FC)
  • Education Finance Reform: Limit the reliance on local property taxes as a source of education funding, and shift responsibility to the federal government. Expand the federal government’s role in providing guidance and holding states accountable for using both appropriate standards and proven educational strategy, ensuring desegregation. (KC)
  • The federal government should provide funding to schools serving disadvantaged children for  year-round com­pensatory education programs, improved teaching, and expanded experimentation and research. (KC)
  • Provision of supplementary services in the schools for the severely disadvantaged or disturbed students. (KC)
  • Incentivize progress for meeting federal accountability standards. (CT)
  • Provide increased financial resources to states that match subsidy reimbursement rates with market rates for child care. (CT)
  • Triple funding for Title I schools. (p. 213) (CWSBH)

Desegregation

• Sharply increased efforts to eliminate de facto segregation in our schools through substantial federal aid to school systems seeking to desegregate either within the system or in cooperation with neighboring school systems. (KC)
• Move toward holistic, strengths-based, and authentic integration of children, staff, leaders, curriculum, and pedagogy. (CEP)
• Create policies that incentivize and allow school districts to achieve better racial balance among and within schools, with the goal of ending the extreme race- and class-based isolation. (HRR)
  • These include everything from more support for “voluntary transfers” and stronger district school assignment policies to more equitable housing policy. (HRR)

State aid formulas

• Revision of state aid formulas to assure more per student aid to districts having a high proportion of disadvantaged school-age children. (KC)

Vouchers

• Vouchers could be reserved for students in special circumstances (RREM)

Innovation

• Local governments should create  an “innovative education center/hub”: capable of building an inclusive, collaborative, and multi-disciplined education environment focused on leading each region into the 21st Century from early childhood to post-secondary (FC)
• Implement  Opportunity to Learn Commissions at the local level that would be charged with identifying and presenting recommendations to address policies and practices that are leading to inequitable educational opportunities for students, These commissions would include parents, students, teachers, and other stakeholders in the community. These commissions (AP)

Community Engagement with Schools

• Encourage community participation in schools through democratic school boards and community control of curriculum, hiring, firing and discipline policies. (MBL2020, KC)
• Results of Achievement and Other Tests should be made public, and disaggregated by race, on a regular basis. (KC)
• Expand family leadership and engagement efforts. (CEP)

Teacher Support and Professional Development

• Reduction in maximum class size. (KC)
• Financial support for validated teacher and principal training or certification programs would enhance teacher quality  (RREM)
• Create a school leader and teacher cohort model that promotes well-being by building connectivity and support among peers, facilitates lifelong learning and idea exchange and a ensures a personal experience within an environment of trust, respect and confidentiality (FC)
•  Fund research on effective methods of teaching disadvantaged children in schools segregated by race and class. (KC)
• Use local residents as teachers aides and tutors (KC)
• Incentivize highly qualified teachers to work in under-resourced rural and urban schools. (KC, RDH)
• Employ proven strategies to recruit African American teachers (CRTF)
• Adopt mandatory curriculum for teacher credentialing and trainings for school personnel and grants for teachers (CRTF)

Race-Targeted/Specific

• Protect, Defend, and Expand Affirmative Action: Defend existing race-conscious admissions policies that consider race as a factor (e.g. Harvard, UT-Austin, Michigan, etc.) as one of many considerations in university and graduate admissions.
  • Roll-back anti-affirmative action policies and law that prohibit consideration of race as a factor (i.e. Prop 209). (CRTF)
• Reparations for Black Students Within Higher Education
  • Provide reparations to Black people for systemic denial of access to high quality educational opportunities in the form of:
  • Providing free access and open admissions to public community colleges and universities, educational support programs, and technical education: technology, trade, and agricultural (M4BL2020)
  • Establish a national scholarship fund for Black students to be paid by colleges and universities that benefited directly from slave labor (BYP100)
• Invest in Black Students in STEM: Increase federal investments and incentivize state and local investments in middle school, high school, and college programs to increase readiness and competitiveness for Black women and men in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and fields of growing employment opportunities, especially health professions, software, finance, and alternative energy. (BYP100)
• Invest in Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Increase funding by $25 billion for HBCUs and Minority-Serving Institutions (BYP100)
• Invest in capacity-building and institutional development of HBCUs (B2F)

Race-Conscious

Reform Admissions Policy

• Where race-conscious admissions is not permitted or difficult to achieve, expand to consider access to low-income communities, rather than basing it on race (CPNR)
• End legacy admissions. (RDH)
• Eliminate standardized testing for admission to graduate programs in the University of California and California State University Systems (CRTF)

College Affordability and Debt Reduction

• Increase college affordability by establishing debt-free public colleges and universities, including by increasing access to need-based financial aid and guaranteeing that tuition costs will not increase what working families can reasonably afford. (B2F)
• No-cost community college, GED programs, job training, and connection to actual jobs, healthcare, including mental health and drug treatment if needed. (p. 211) (CWSBH)
• Make tuition-free community college available to all students. (PLBTC, CRTF)
• Make public college tuition free for low-income students (DP, CRTF)
• Increase funding for the Pell Grant program to ensure low income students can cover living costs without taking on student debt. (DP, KC, TSTI)
• Instead of utilizing public money to help affluent parents financially prepare for their children’s college education, we should use public resources to help lower-income families by strengthening and broadening the American Opportunity Tax Credit: a partly refundable credit for educational spending that is reduced for joining filers with incomes over $160,000 and unavailable to those with incomes of $180,000 or more. (RDH)
• Expand funding for public colleges that serve disadvantaged students (BYP100)
• Allow state-supported higher education institutions to charge DACA students resident tuition rates (FC).
• Ensure DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students are eligible for all public financial aid and public benefits afforded to all lawfully present citizens. (FC)
• Provide loan forgiveness for student loans, including debt for college and for-profit programs (KC, M4BL2020, RE;JB, FC, B2F)
  • Eliminate student debt for households making $50,000 or below (TSTI)
• Expand the refundable portion for the American Opportunity Tax Credit to broaden access to low-income households. Allow low- to moderate-income families to access the credit before they are required to pay for college expenses (TSTI)
• The current system for managing student debt should be scrapped in favor of a federally administered system (through the IRS)  that would base repayment levels on income (RDH)
• Provide financial support for lifetime learning programs (M4BL2020)
•  Remove Financial Barriers to Higher Education by providing grant assistance and other financial assistance commensurate with need/demand (KC)
• Extend student financial aid to cover internship opportunities to ensure that all students have equitable access to unpaid internships. (RDH)

Adult Education and Literacy Support

• Elimination of illiteracy through greater federal support for adult basic education. (KC)
• Provide a year round program to improve verbal skills of people in low income areas by scaling up federal literacy programs. (KC)
•  Fully fund programs to motivate students to stay in school. (KC)
• All school systems should consider service in economically and culturally deprived rural area schools as a condition for advancement to administrative positions. (KC)
• Invest more in vocational postsecondary education. (RDH)

General

Race-Targeted

• Acknowledge the cost of federally backed discriminatory policies (HRR)
  • Congress should pass H.R. 40, which calls for a commission to study proposals for reparations (HRR, B2F)
  • Fund and conduct a study to calculate the overall racial wealth gap in California (CRTF)
  • Encourage the federal government to use the national racial wealth gap to determine federal level reparations (CRTF)
• Make racial equity a priority—and develop systems to track and measure progress. (PLRWF)
• Advocate for the federal government to formally study and make recommendations for a national reparations program and use a reparative frame in making decisions around resources at the local level. (NYRJC)

Race-Conscious

• Localities, states, and the federal government should support and replicate promising local innovations that achieve the following:
  • Expand access to financial capability supports. (PLBTC)
  • Build credit scores. (PLBTC)
  • Increase access to affordable financial products for vulnerable households. (PLBTC)
• Enact a domestic Marshall Plan in which the federal government would invest at least $200 billion a year over ten years in areas with the highest levels of concentrated poverty. (HRR)
  • It is critically important that this plan focus on building infrastructure for long-term economic growth as well as direct job creation. (HRR)
  • Infrastructure that provides greater transportation access to low-income people, who tend to live far from job centers, would increase access to the labor market. (HRR)
  • Investment in affordable municipal broadband is not only a critical way to increase access to jobs and income but also important in addressing the deep digital divide that cuts through our country. (HRR)
  • Prevent wealth stripping and support financial security and asset building. (PLAIC)
  • Direct public investments and resources toward building opportunity in high-need, distressed communities. (PLAIC)

Employment

Race-Targeted

• The government should facilitate federal and state job programs that specifically target the most economically marginalized Black people, and compensation for those involved in the care economy.  These jobs provide a living wage, support collective bargaining, and Black-owned businesses. (MBL2020)
• Make Black people powerful in the economy by removing policies that lock us out of good jobs and investing in the health and wealth of our communities (B2F):
  • Examine the impact of slavery in the US and develop reparation proposals to repair the harm to all diasporic descendants of enslaved people
  • Raise job standards
• Corporations and colleges should collect and publish race data. (BWOW)
• Provide guaranteed income program for descendants of enslaved people (CRTF)

Race-Conscious

• Consolidating and concentrating employment efforts.
  •  Every city should establish an agency with authority to direct the coordination of all manpower programs, including employment service, community action agencies, and other local groups.(KC)
  •  Provide tax and other incentives to investment in rural as well as urban poverty areas in order to offer to the rural poor an alternative to migration to urban centers. (KC)
  • Design programs and partnerships to address inequities in the social determinants of work. (PLRWF)
  • Engage employers to commit to systems change in employment practices and culture. (PLRWF)
• Open the existing job structure (KC)
  •  Federal, state and local efforts to ensure equal opportunity should be strengthened by:
    • Including all government employers under Title VII’s antidiscrimination purview
    • Granting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cease and desist power
    • Increasing technical and other assistance now provided through the EEOC to state and local commissions.
    •  Undertaking industry wide enforcement not based upon individual complaints, but employer and union reports showing broad patterns of discrimination in employment and promotion.
    •  Substantially increasing the staff and other resources of the EEOC.
• Launch an Employer Grading System for Economic Mobility: Endorse the Better Business Bureau-like consumer – facing rating system proposed by the Commission in the area of Racial Equity and Reconciliation and add to it economic mobility factors that should be monitored (e.g. employability, opportunity for promotion, promotability, presence of career path, income) (FC)
• Direct strategies to grow high-road, inclusive businesses and good jobs for workers without college degrees. (PLAIC)
• Transform low-wage jobs into good jobs by setting high standards for job quality. (PLAIC)
• Increase access to good jobs through local, targeted, and fair hiring. (PLAIC)
• Dismantle barriers to employment and services for the formerly incarcerated and other disadvantaged workers. (PLAIC, NYRJC)
• Implement workforce strategies that connect un- and underemployed workers to good jobs and careers in growing industries. (PLAIC)
• Eliminate barriers to licensure for people with criminal records (CRTF)
• Transform the minimum wage back into a living wage (CRTF)
• Advance pay equity through employment transparency and equity in hiring and promotion (CRTF)

Job Training

Race-Targeted

• Ensure people of color and low-income residents are prepared to enter and succeed in the labor market. (PLRWF)
• Invest in innovative training and credentialing models. (PLRWF)
• Increase Black Membership in Apprenticeship Programs: Efforts of the Dept of Labor to obtain commitments from unions to encourage negro membership in apprenticeship programs… should be intensified. (KC)
• Use Title VI forms for Job Training:Title VI [should be used to enforce] recruitment for federally assisted job training in hospitals, universities, colleges, and schools. (KC)
• Recruit more Disadvantaged Workers Into the Federal Government:The Federal government, through the Civil Service Commission and other agencies, should undertake programs of recruitment, hiring, and on-the-job training of the disadvantaged and should re-examine and revalidate it’s minimum employment and promotion standards. (FC, KC)

Race-Conscious

• Preferentially Fund Job Training Programs that Show Impact (FC, Next50)
• Promote policies aimed at fostering full employment. (HRR)
• Job guarantees: Provide a federal job guarantee of a job to any job seeker who wants one, wages above the federal minimum wage, some benefit provision, and full-time or part-time status to suit the job seeker’s needs. (Next50)
• Industry organizations should implement more work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities. Barriers to vocational programs should be eliminated. And follow-up support and assistance should be provided. (FC, KC)
• Provide on-the-job training by both public and private employers with reimbursement to private employers for the extra costs of training the hard-core unemployed, by contract or by tax credits. (KC, RDH)
• Better link vocational training programs to job opportunities by combining formal instruction and on-the-job training. Cooperation of the business community needed. Increased training to meet demand in professional, semi-professional and technical fields (KC)
• Modify Procurements Systems to Encourage Hiring of Targeted Employees: Amend the existing state and local contract procurement scoring systems to create a preference for employers offering new employment for targeted employees (e.g.,the hard-to-employ). (FC)
• Create Pathways for Lower Skilled Employees: Modify incentive programs for employers to prioritize those that have internal career ladders creating clear pathways to higher skilled jobs for lower skilled employees. (FC)
• Launch Best Practice-Driven Job Training Programs: Expand and incentivize transitional job programs containing confirmed critical attributes to be identified by a designated task force appointed by the Department of Economic Development’s Workforce Development Division to serve a greater number of employment-ready individuals including those who are TANF recipients, long-term unemployed, and at-risk youth. (FC)
• Support career mentorship, employee resource groups, and peer support programs and initiatives across multiple industries and occupation (DP)
• Implement a State Section 3 Hiring Program: Create a state complement to the Federal Section 3 hiring program, which requires developers to make employment available to low and very-low income residents of the community in which the development is located. (FC)
• Implement Jobs-Plus programming: designed to saturate public housing complexes with training and child care services while also providing rent-based incentives to work. (SSIP)
• Build a Poverty-to-Professional Model for Youth Serving Organizations (FC)
•  Evaluate Job Training Success and Award Funding Accordingly (FC)
• Incorporate the number of disconnected youth enrolled and graduated from job training programs with significant success in job placement and earnings as a metric in the performance evaluations of youth-serving organizations receiving public dollars and grant funds from local foundations in the St. Louis metropolitan region. (FC)
• Prioritize Tax Incentives for Youth-Serving Job Programs: Modify existing tax credit contribution programs to prioritize paid stipend programs aimed at connecting at risk, disconnected youth (those under the age of 25 who are neither employed nor in school but who are ready for employment) with internships, apprenticeships, or mentoring programs with private business. (FC)
• Integrate financial education and financial literacy training into school curricula and youth summer employment. (PLBTC)
• Create or fund apprenticeship grant programs (CRTF)

Taxes & Incentives

Race-Conscious

• Make taxes fair and invest in economic mobility. (B2F)
• Make the Savers Credit refundable so that it can support retirement savings by lower income working families. (PLBTC)
  • Update the “Saver’s Credit” to make retirement savings incentives accessible. (PLBETC)
• Make tax code-based benefits more accessible to low-income households by turning deductions into credits, preferably refundable credits that are accessible to lower-income families with little or no tax liability. (PLBTC)
• Make the temporary improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit expansions permanent and extend the benefits of the EITC to lower-income workers without children and younger workers, who are currently excluded. (PLBTC)
• Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit that supplements wages and helps offset payroll and income taxes for low and moderate income workers (B2F)
• Provide low-income households with tax incentives to encourage flexible savings. (PLBTC)
• Boost public investment by ensuring corporations pay their fair share of taxes and boost private investment by reining in short-termism on Wall Street. (HRR)
• Roll back corporate tax cuts and close tax loopholes (B2F)
• Offer lower-income households a refundable tax credit (similar to the EITC) if they deposit their tax refund into an eligible savings account. (PLBETC)
• Assess tax incentives to ensure that they serve the intended population state, and local incentives shall be analyzed to ensure that they are ultimately serving the intended target population. (FC)
• The recommendations of the Tax Credit Accountability Review Commission (a body of private citizens selected to make recommendations to the legislature) shall be reviewed and given consideration. (FC)
• Implement Earned Income and Child Tax Credits: Implement a refundable state earned income tax credit (EITC) and child tax credit (CTC), set at a proportion of the federal credit. (FC)
• Make the American Opportunity Tax Credit 100 percent refundable and permanent to better assist low- income students in obtaining a post-secondary degree.
  • Make savings incentives simple and automatic (PLBTC):
  • Create a child savings account at birth for every child in the country. (PLBTC)
  • Provide all workers access to an employer-based, portable, individual retirement savings account (auto-IRA) into which they contribute savings through automatic deductions from their paychecks. (PLBTC)
  • Continue to expand and strengthen the federal “my RA” program, which grants workers access to a retirement account and supports their saving through automatic payroll deductions. (PLBTC)

Workers Rights

Race-Conscious

• Research and pilot a universal basic income program. (NFHA)
• Increase the federal  minimum wage. Indexing the minimum wage by geographic location/ cost  of living, to ensure that all workers can earn a living wage regardless of education or experience (BYP100, FC, KC, DP, RE;BS, TSTI, B2F)
• Increase the minimum wage to least $15 nationally (B2F)
• Ensure high standards of job quality for all workers. (PLRWF)
• Proactively implement automation resiliency approaches that prioritize vulnerable workers. (PLRWF)
• Turn low-wage service jobs into middle class work (SSIP)
• All workers should have access to provisions for parental leave (BYP100)
• All workers should have paid sick leave (BYP100)
• All workers should have the right to form a union and/or body for the purposes of collective bargaining for benefits, wage adjustments, sexual harassment, grievances, and workplace safety (BYP100, FC)
• All workers should have protections against discrimination based on perceived or self-identified gender presentation and sexual orientation (BYP100)
• All workers should have protections against discrimination based on past drug offenses or incarceration (BYP100)
• All gender-based and race-based pay gaps should be eliminated in public and private places of employment (BYP100)
• Federal Job Guarantee: would entitle people looking for jobs or with less than thirty-five hours per week of paid employment to perform work of public benefit at an enhanced minimum wage  (BYP100, TSTI)
• All people have a right to a guaranteed living income regardless of employment status (BYP100)
• The right for workers to organize in public and private sectors especially in “On Demand Economy” jobs.  (MBL2020)
• Protections for workers in industries that are not appropriately regulated including domestic workers, farm workers, and tipped workers, and for workers who have been exploited and remain unprotected, including extension of worker protections to incarcerated people (MBL2020).
• Immediate passage at the Federal and state level of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights (MBL2020, B2F)
• Pass the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act, which, among other things, increases the amount of compensation available to victims of wage theft and increases civil fines for offenders (B2F)
• Eliminate the sub-minimum wage loophole in the Fair Labor Standards Act, thus preventing employers from paying people with disabilities less than minimum wage (B2F)
• Establish wage and standards boards to facilitate worker organizing and raise labor standards (B2F)
• End the Landrum-Griffin Act restrictions on the ability of unions to hire some formerly incarcerated people (B2F)
• All trade agreements to prioritize the interests of workers and communities (MBL2020)
• Move beyond the traditional National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) definitions of “bargaining unit,” “employer,” and “secondary action” to increase scope for bargaining in the new economy (HRR)
• Set the standard for fair pay and benefits for fair labor practices through government employment and government contracts (HRR)
• Strengthen the capacity of public sector workers to unionize by reducing contracting out of federal government services, requiring businesses receiving federal contracts to adhere to certain labor standards, and supporting public sector employees’ right to organize even in states and localities where workers lack these rights (B2F)
• Strengthen the capacity of private sector workers to unionize by appointing pro-worker candidates to the NLRB, increasing penalties for businesses that violate labor laws, supporting efforts to develop sectoral bargaining mechanisms, and supporting efforts to end misclassification of workers as independent contractors (B2F)
• Increase funding for enforcement and penalties for violation of existing labor law. (HRR)
• Increase Social Security Benefits with a focus on economically insecure beneficiaries who do not have the necessary savings or income to get by in retirement or in the event of a family member’s disability or early death (TSTI)
• Eliminate Social Security asset limits that cost people with disabilities thousands of dollars (B2F)
• Adopt UBI like Stockton (p. 210) (CWSBH)

Banking

Race-Targeted

• Through tax incentives, loans and other government directed resources, support the development of cooperative or social economy networks to help facilitate trade across and in Black communities globally. (MBL2020)
• Financial support of Black alternative institutions including policy that subsidizes and offers low-interest, interest-free or federally guaranteed low-interest loans to promote the development of cooperatives (food, residential, etc.), land trusts and culturally responsive health infrastructures that serve the collective needs of our communities. (M4BL2020, CRTF)
• Supports Native Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to fill the gaps in access to capital. (RE;EW)
• Policy or private-sector support is likely need to address the declining number of African American minority depository institutions (TBI2)
• Leverage community development banks to improve the credit records and access to credit for households in segregated communities (MTI)

Race-Conscious

• A public option for banking run through the postal service can reach communities, both urban and rural, from which banks have withdrawn. (HRR)
  • It can also use its scale to provide baseline services to the 33.3 percent of Americans who are unbanked or underbanked. (HRR)
• Strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act: Regulators shall strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was designed to help financial institutions meet the credit needs of their community. See Ferguson Report p. 133 (FC)
• Build the Capacity of CDFIs: Banks shall strengthen and secure additional funding to build the capacity of Community Development Fund Institutions (CDFIs) to remove barriers keeping many individuals from engaging with traditional banking infrastructure (e.g., no credit check or lowered credit check standards for account openings; second chance checking; credit-builder products; lower minimum balance requirements, etc.). (FC)
• Incentivize CDFIs to fund “smart block investments” by partnering with real estate developers that seek to revitalize disenfranchised and depressed urban areas by ​​creating comprehensive commercial corridors designed to meet communities’ needs, incubate and finance businesses, validate the community’s identity, and add value to devalued property. (PKYP)
• Invest in high functioning Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to support community-based investments, financial literacy, increased banking, and access to financial tools designed to promote economic mobility. Fund financial education initiatives through Public Neighborhood Assistance Program (NAP), Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs), municipal grants, etc; Private: Corporate grants, innovation and technological hubs, volunteers, etc.; Philanthropic: Foundation grants, individual giving, volunteers, etc. (FC, DP)
• Strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act to require banks and other financial institutions meet needs of creditworthy low and moderate income borrowers and a $25 billion Capital Magnet Fund to finance economic development and community-based childcare facilities, workforce development center and health clinics in low-income neighborhoods (RE;EW;NCRC)
• Restore the Glass-Steagall Act to break up the large banks, and call for the National Credit Union Administration and the US Department of the Treasury to change policies and practices around regulation, reporting and consolidation to allow for the continuation and creation of black banks, small and community development credit unions, insurance companies and other financial institutions.  (MBL2020)
  • Embed Public Banking Models into Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs): Lending to banks with better practices of equitable investing; Subsidizing interest rates for small businesses, students, and homebuyers; Providing local business with greater access to credit; Augmenting the lending capacity of private banks (FC)
• Create Individual and Family Development Accounts  (FC)
• Concentrate Financial Services through Empowerment Sites: Identify empowerment sites throughout municipalities to concentrate financial services that provide community development banking and multigenerational financial education (e.g., Prosperity Connection) (FC)
• Start with your people, your organization: CDFIs should consider “anti-racism professional development” just as important as underwriting training or other technical skills. (IFF)
• Stop extracting wealth: A CDFI’s process for interrupting racism must begin with interrogating the tools we have adopted from the financial services industry. Examples include non-refundable application fees, risk-based pricing, and subprime lending. (IFF)
• Interrogate products, services, and practices: To become anti-racist, CDFIs must shed or significantly change all tools that are extractive or heighten inequity. This starts by systematically interrogating our practices, products, and services. (IFF)
• Engage (and invest) in a continuum of CDFI activities: If we can’t change a practice that results in inequity, we must do something else to help the borrower overcome that inequity – that’s where technical assistance, capacity-building programs, and other common CDFI activities come into play. (IFF)
• Refuse to ask for permission to be anti-racist: CDFIs will never become anti-racist if we continue to be obsessed with what our investors think about our interruptions. Stop defining every challenge in debilitating binary options (either/or thinking). CDFIs can be concerned about their investors and change how our products and practices conspire against communities of color. (IFF)
• A more granular approach to banking supervision may be needed (TBI2)

Investing in Children

Race-Conscious

• Baby Bonds: Provide all newborns with a publicly funded endowment ranging from $500 to $60,000, 13 with a baby born into a wealth-poor household receiving a substantially higher endowment than one born into a wealthy family. (U50, BYP100, TSTI; Next50)
• Create Universal Child Development Accounts Expand the current scope of the MOST 529 Matching Grant Program so it is used as a platform for progressive universal Child Development Accounts that are: statewide and automatic (opt-out). (FC)
• Support child savings by creating a savings account for every child born in America that would provide federal funds for an initial deposit and matching funds for lower-income children. (PLBETC)
• Raise Awareness of Development Accounts drawing on best practices that leverages schools, social services systems, and other well-positioned partners in order to encourage the multigenerational impact of development accounts (FC)
• Expand upon the Harlem Children’s Zone program to other states and municipalities. (SSIP)
• Aim for a Solidarity Dividend (cross-racial solidarity) and move away from a zero-sum economic model. (MSOU)

Repairing the pathologization and destruction of the African American Family

• Reduce and seek to eliminate racial disparities in the removal of African American children from their homes and families  (CRTF)
• Reduce the placement of African American children in foster care and increase kinship placements for African American children (CRTF)
• Establish and fund early intervention programs that address intimate partner violence within the African American community (CRTF)
• Eliminate interest on past-due child support and eliminate black child support debt (CRTF)
• Eliminate or reduce charges for phone calls from detention facilities located within the state of California (CRTF)
• Address disproportionate homelessness among African American Californians  (CRTF)
• End the under-protection of African American women and girls  (CRTF)

Income-Based Reparations

Race-Targeted

• To eliminate the racial wealth gap, congress should vote for a substantive program of black reparations and establish a congressional commission to investigate slavery, the history of racial injustice in the U.S., and its multigenerational effects (BYP 100; DM).  A fund should be established to distribute approximately $10.7 trillion to 40 million eligible black desendants of American slavery over time. (DM)
• Provide reparations to all Black people for economic exploitation in the form of guaranteed minimum livable income, with clearly articulated corporate regulations  (M4BL2020)
• Pass HR40 (BYP100, B2F)
• Establish a tax credit as compensation for the historical, legal racism that was perpetuated well into the twentieth century and that has resulted in continued downward mobility for today’s Black families. (BWOW)

Race-Conscious

• Publish tax data by race, the way the IRS does for gender and age. (BWOW)
• Return to a progressive income taxation system with no exclusions, a single deduction, and no reduced or preferential rates. (BWOW)

Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship

Race-Targeted

• Implement a Statewide M/WBE Program with  outcomes measures that incorporate capacity building, mentoring, and education with respect to the state and local procurement system. (FC)
• The executive branch (Walker-Lewis Entrepreneurship Fund) should invest in entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds.Additionally, there would be corresponding investments in increasing access to capital, entrepreneur training and development, and rigorous measurement and data tracking. (DP)
• The federal government should award 25% of federal contracting dollars to small business owners from underserved communities in urban and rural areas, including minority-owned firms (currently nearly 10%) and women-owned firms (currently at 5%) (DP)
• The executive branch should create a commission to secure additional private sector commitments to increase minority entrepreneurship. (DP)
• Leverage purchasing power to help entrepreneurs of color and triple-bottom-line businesses grow and create more good jobs. (PLAIC)
• Invest in programs that support Black entrepreneurs and business owners (B2F)

Race-Conscious

• Create a Rating System Create a Better Business Bureau-like consumer facing rating system as a regional benchmark for diversity. The purpose is to provide public accountability, consumer knowledge and goal-setting for regional institutions, organizations and corporations. (FC)
• Develop and Implement an Economic Inclusion Infrastructure: Create and implement an economic inclusion infrastructure in industries that supports business’ growth strategies and aids them in attaining their profit goals by promoting workforce inclusion (e.g. Construction, Manufacturing, and others). (FC)
• The federal government should introduce the Walker-Lewis Debt-for-Jobs Plan to help students start businesses. Every student who was eligible for Pell Grants while in school will have his or her college loans deferred and forgiven over a five-year period if they start and maintain a business employing at least three people within five years of leaving school. (DP)

Welfare

Race-Conscious

• Require that all states receiving federal welfare contributions participate in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children ­Unemployed Parents program (AFDC-UP) that permits assist­ance to families with both father and mother in the home, thus aiding the family while it is still intact (KC)
• Reform the existing welfare system to bear a substantially greater portion of all welfare costs-at least 90 percent of total payments. (KC)
• Enact universal family care social insurance policies that assure paid leave and access to affordable care, including childcare and long-term care due to aging, illness, or disability (B2F)
•  Increase incentives for seeking employment and job training, but remove restrictions recently enacted by the Congress that would compel mothers of young children to work (KC)
•  Provide more adequate social services through neighborhood centers and family-planning programs (KC)
• Remove the freeze placed by the 1967 welfare amendments on the percentage of children in a state that can be covered by federal assistance. (KC)
• Eliminate residence requirements (KC)
• Develop a national system of income supplementation to provide a basic floor of economic and social security for all Americans.
• Implement a negative income tax, which essentially returns money to the poor so that they cover their basic needs, designed to encourage work (SSIP)
• New Hope Program: requires eligible participants to work at least 30 hours a week In return for proof payment, people will  earn supplements above the poverty line and subsidized child care and housing. Provide temporary community service employment for those who are seeking employment. (SSIP)
• SNAP and WIC
  • Expand SNAP and WIC: Increase capacity by increasing positions in Family Services DIvision and creating an online enrollment system and implement presumptive eligibility into SNAP for all children on free and reduced (FC)
  • Coordinate and expand summer food programs to facilitate food security for school-aged children (FC)

Increasing Diversity in Economic Innovation

• Congress should pass the IDEA Act and demographic data on patentees should be collected annually by the USPTO at the time of patent applications.
• Increase diversity of the applicant pool for flagship innovation programs by promoting increased diversity among those reviewing applications for programs, informing information about the pool of prospective R&D partners available, and introducing virtual mentoring programs to connect applicants with national labs. (HP)
• Extend California's Women on Boards law to all states and include similar targets for underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. (HP)
• Require public reporting of employer pay and promotion data by race and gender to provide greater transparency of employer pay practice. (HP)
• Require employer reporting of steps taken to address pay and promotion discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, and other factors in SEC filings, including eliminating forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases; implementing anti-African American and antisexist bias training for all levels of staff, especially leadership, managers, and supervisors; and increasing funding for enforcement to ensure compliance with equal pay protections and to undertake targeted efforts to examine the prevalence of race and gender bias in pay discrimination cases. (HP)

Race-Targeted

• Deliver a COVID-19 relief package to remedy the housing insecurity of people of color. (NFHA)
• Establish Presidential Commission on reparations to Black people for centuries of racist housing policies, including principal reduction and zero-interest loans to Black, Indigenous, and other people-of-color communities impacted by racist housing and land policies. (Policy Link 2021; NFHA)
• Close the racial wealth gap by making homeownership more accessible for low-income/ wealth-poor Black communities through land grant, mortgage credit programs, tax abatement for low-income homeowners, and programs that  provide down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. (COM, BYP100, TBI1)
• Local, state, and federal resources should be used to support communities who have faced discriminatory practices by creating programs to protect Black families from foreclosure and rectify the credit scores for those who have faced foreclosure (BYP100)
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should investigate mortgage practices in Black communities and hold lenders accountable for significant compensatory damages if misconduct is found. (BYP100)
• Create new regulations to remove racial bias in credit reporting and add new rules on the use of alternative data to establish credit scores (NFHA, TBI1).
• Invest in and "greenline" Black neighborhoods (Page 203) (CWSBH)
• Invest in parks and neighborhoods that offer recreation and human services in poor Black neighborhoods (p. 211) (CWSBH)
• Increase diversity in the home appraisal profession  (TBI1)
• Mobility grants: provide subsidies to both renters and homeowners to make “pro-integrative moves” in the form of an interest-rate subsidy, with no income or race restrictions (MTI)
• Policymakers should consider developing stronger, more specific site selection criteria that encourage the following: (1) racial and economic diversity in National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) sites, while specifically avoiding areas of high poverty and racial segregation; (2) site location in areas of high opportunity, as measured by proximity to high-performing schools, overall neighborhood safety, and the presence of beneficial neighborhood assets like grocery stores or community centers, and accessible transit networks; and (3) a requirement for a meaningful CCRP if sites are located in lower-income neighborhoods. (PRRAC1)
• Build diversity incentives into the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule through opportunity housing bonuses for local governments, funneled through a formula-altered community development block grant program or some other vehicle. Encourage homeowner constituent political support for such a policy through a modified Internal Revenue Service rule that could permit enhanced deductions of local property taxes and/or mortgage interest payments on residents’ federal taxes if their community met its “fair share” of assisted housing sites or made progress through neighborhood diversification. (GMON)
• Achieve a stable integrative process (SIP) in targeted neighborhoods to desegregate racially homogeneous neighborhoods and promote integration through a variety of policies listed below. (GMON)
  • Enhance fair housing enforcement by empowering private and governmental fair housing agencies to conduct ongoing enforcement testing programs that employ pairs of match investigators who pose as housing or mortgage seekers. This would provide an ongoing presence in areas rendered suspicious or in areas randomly located in the market. (GMON)
  • Use an affirmative market approach to increase the attractiveness of households, properties, or neighborhoods whose representation is vital for achieving SIP. (GMON)
  • Local jurisdictions or nonprofit organizations should sponsor agencies designed to provide real estate counseling services to prospective renters and homebuyers about communities in which their racial group is underrepresented. (GMON)
  • Local jurisdictions should institute a variety of financial incentives to encourage households to move into neighborhoods where their actions would promote SIP, such as low-interest mortgage loans for first-time, low-income homebuyers, a repair grant program for landlords of rental buildings who have achieved SIP. and grants or tax credits aimed at defraying moving costs when households move into neighborhoods in order to increase its racial diversity. (GMON)
  • Ancillary community activities should reinforce a pro-diverse strategy. Such activities include community organizing, building interracial networks, maintaining and enhancing the quality of infrastructure in the neighborhood, and adjusting the boundaries of school catchment areas to avoid the creation of predominantly white and predominantly minority schools. (GMON)
• Provide financial assistance to increase home ownership among African  Americans, especially descendants, through shared appreciation loans and subsidized down payments, mortgages and homeowner’s insurance (CRTF)
• Require state review and approval of all residential land use ordinances enacted by historically and currently segregated cities and counties (CRTF)
• Provide property tax relief to African Americans especially descendants, living in formerly redlined neighborhoods, who purchase or construct a new home (CRTF)
• Provide a right to Return for displaced African American Californians (CRTF)
• Provide restitution for racially motivated takings (CRTF)

Race-Conscious

• States should uniformly prioritize areas of high opportunity for NHTF grants. (PRRAC1)
• Federal regulations should explicitly block local approval requirements for affordable housing developments rather than being silent on the issue. (PRRAC1)
• States should include flexibility for applicants for NHTF funds facing community opposition, such as allowing for flexibility in meeting local zoning requirements. (PRRAC1)
• Policymakers should consider modifying federal and state affirmative marketing regulations to reflect research on the most effective affirmative marketing strategies for reaching historically marginalized groups. (PRRAC1)
  • The federal regulation should mandate certain affirmative marketing practices that positively contribute to diversity across multiple contexts. (PRRAC1)
  • Greater specificity should be provided in defining those tenants “least likely to apply,” and how to conduct targeted outreach. (PRRAC1)
  • Affirmative marketing strategies must include community engagement provisions. These practices would include: (1) addressing residents’ concerns through specific information; (2) sponsored community visits to discuss the housing program; (3) the engagement of local groups; (4) recruiting applicants from public housing authority waitlists; and (5) coordination among developers in the same area so that they jointly reach out to those “least likely to apply.” (PRRAC1)
• Policymakers should consider providing for stronger NHTF regulations and guidance related to screening procedures, residency preferences, and waitlist policies. (PRRAC1)
  • Federal requirements should be revised to advise against the use of screening mechanisms with demonstrated discriminatory effects, such as FICO scores and criminal background checks without the accompanying considerations of mitigating circumstances. (PRRAC1)
  • Federal rules or state requirements should prohibit preferences for local residency. (PRRAC1)
  • Federal and state tenant selection requirements should include stronger waitlist notification procedures to ensure that disadvantaged tenants are reached and given sufficient time to respond. (PRRAC1)
• Federal or state program NHTF requirements should include guidelines for allocating funds among construction, rehabilitation and acquisition projects. (PRRAC1)
  •  For projects in areas of high poverty, NHTF funds should be directed towards preservation and rehabilitation of existing housing rather than creating new housing in these areas. (PRRAC1)
• Federal NHTF regulations should require monitoring and reporting specifically related to fair housing. In the absence of federal monitoring, states should establish their own monitoring procedures. (PRRAC1)
• Reinstate the full authority of the CFPB to enforce fair housing and lending laws; increase the accuracy of credit reporting. (NFHA)
• Create a refundable renter’s tax credit (NFHA; PLBTC)
• Expand housing supply for low-income households through the Housing Trust Fund – with civil rights guardrails that ensure housing reaches high-resourced areas and does not further concentrate poverty. (PRRAC2)
• Give public housing a restart by creating new social housing in highly-resourced areas; and make our existing public housing safe and healthy. (PRRAC2)
• Bring civil rights to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, through key reforms. (PRRAC2)
  • This includes improved siting requirements and incentives, improved standards for community revitalization plans that include LIHTC support, demographic data reporting, and strong affirmative marketing requirements. (PRRAC2)
• Update HUD’s site selection criteria to effectively avoid poverty concentration and health risks (PRRAC2)
• Counterbalance the ways the housing finance system undergirds segregation. (PRRAC2)
• Restore the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Rule, and sharpen its implementation. (PRRAC2)
• Invigorate fair housing oversight, one of HUD’s central missions. (PRRAC2)
• Ensure public policies and investments foster healthy, economically-integrated neighborhoods. (PLAIC)
• Reduce the influence of Wall Street on housing
  • End government support for, and sales to, predatory corporations buying up homes and communities. (Policy Link, 2021)
  • Repeal or amend opportunity zones to facilitate community-driven public investment in affordable housing and other community needs. (Policy Link, 2021)
  • Enforce strong regulation, including transparency and fair taxation, of real-estate development and investment corporations. (Policy Link, 2021)
  • Provide funding and policy preference for nonprofit and cooperative ownership, community land trusts and other models that facilitate public and resident ownership. (Policy Link, 2021)
  • Limit the ability of banks to offer loans on property purchases that would require significant rent increases in order to meet mortgage obligations. (Policy Link, 2021)
• Transparency, Counseling, Financial Literacy
  • Information about mortgage loan rates offered to prospective homeowners including interest rate offers delineated by race, gender, ability status and sexuality should be made public. (BYP100)
  • Provide counseling, helping with moving cost, and offer incentives to landlords in good neighborhoods to accept low-income tenants COM
  • Local governments should fund nonprofits and community groups to teach about financial literacy. (BYP100)
• Equity
  • Convert the home mortgage deduction into a credit so households could claim even if the household does not itemized deductions. (PLBETC)
  • Make tax benefits of home ownership more accessible and equitable. (PLBTC)
  • Amend federal program formulas and guidelines to promote equitable housing outcomes.  
    • Tie funding to racial equity results that prioritize investment in regions most affected by economic crises and natural disasters, and in communities experiencing deep racial health, and economic disparities (Policy Link, 2021)
    • Amend guidelines for federal housing programs to prioritize capacity building and technical assistance to partnerships of local nonprofit providers and their jurisdictions; require public engagement and community governance over use of funds (Policy Link, 2021).
  • Ensure equitable public funding for public services rather than overinvest and hoarding for high opportunity places (p. 203) (CWSBH)
  • Congress should adopt spending formulas that guarantee that areas of persistent poverty receive their fair share of federal resources (p. 213) (CWSBH)
• Affordability
  • Pass the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, which increases housing affordability by controlling rent and home prices, incentivizing local governments to reduce land use restrictions, strengthening anti-discrimination laws, and improving the housing voucher program. (B2F)
  • Cancel rent without burden of repayment during COVID-19 (#8toA).
  • Expansion and modification of the rent supplement program to permit use of supplements for existing housing, thus greatly increasing the reach of the program. (KC)
  • Expansion and modification of the below-market interest rate program to enlarge the interest subsidy to all sponsors and provide interest-free loans to nonprofit sponsors to cover pre-construction costs, and permit sale of projects to nonprofit corporations, cooperatives, or condominiums.  (KC)
  • Creation of an ownership supplement program similar to present rent supplements, to make home ownership possible for low-income families. (KC)
  • Federal writedown of interest rates on loans to private builders constructing moderate-rent housing. (KC)
  • Expansion of the public housing program, with emphasis on small units on scattered sites, and leasing and "turnkey" programs. (KC)
  • Expansion of the Model Cities program. (KC)
  • Expansion and reorientation of the urban renewal program to give priority to projects directly assisting low-income households to obtain adequate housing. (KC)
  • Reinstate the Home Affordable Modification Program- which reduced mortgage payments by adjusting interest rates, extending loan terms, and reducing or forbearing principal (TSTI)
  • Congress should condition federal infrastructure or other spending on measurable local progress in creating affordable housing in high-opportunity areas. (p. 213) (CWSBH)
  • Expand and preserve affordability through zoning, incentives, and development. (PLAIC)
  • Provide incentives to privately owned assisted housing developers to preserve the affordability of housing units after their affordability contract requirements expire. (GMON)
  • Preserve public housing in revitalizing neighborhoods to lock in affordability through the targeted use of Rental Assistance Demonstration, which offers more flexibility for Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) to use HUD funds in combination with other programs to support the renovation and redevelopment of public housing. (GMON)
• Density
  • Ban on zoning ordinances that prohibit multifamily housing or that require all single-family homes in a neighborhood to be built on large lots with high minimum requirements for square footage (RCOL)
  • Pass state constitutional laws that universally ban land-use density regulations  and police loopholes that would otherwise allow local governments to block market forces (RREM)
  • Provide state tax relief- perhaps in the form of property tax rates- to local governments that agree to open up their market by eliminating anti density restrictions, since density growth would likely result in greater per capita government expenses (RREM)
  • Local government should be prohibited from regulating the density of residential housing, with few exceptions (RREM)
  • Reduce regulatory barriers to multifamily housing (MTI)
• Access
  • Recirculate Obama administration guidance on the treatment of people with criminal records seeking access to federal housing assistance. (NFHA)
  • Ensure that survivors of gendered violence have access to alternative housing options in the event that their primary housing becomes unsafe. (#8toA)
  • Provide non-coercive housing options for young people experiencing abuse or family rejection of their queer or trans identities. (#8toA)
  • Repurpose empty buildings, houses, apartments, and hotels to house people experiencing homelessness (#8toA).
  • HUD should block or overturn proposed rule prohibiting “mixed status” households from living in public and HUD-assisted housing. (NFHA)
  • HUD should block or reverse proposed rule excluding trans people from federal homelessness programs. (NFHA)
  • Inclusionary Zoning and Fair Share - a positive effort to reduce concentrated areas of poverty and integrate low- and moderate-income families into middle class and affluent neighborhoods
    • Incentivize developers to set aside homes for low- income people into more affluent neighborhoods. (RCOL, KC, COM, TPOP, RDH, NCRC)
    • Fair Share Act (RCOL, TPOP)
      • Require every state to establish mechanisms to ensure that each of its suburban or municipal jurisdictions houses a representative share of the African American as well as low-moderate income population in its metropolitan area. (RCOL, TPOP)
      • Make municipalities responsible to market these housing choices to eligible populations in those very places where they are presently concentrated (RCOL, TPOP)
      • Counseling services for family (RCOL, TPOP)
      • Designate some fair share housing allocation to local schools to better accommodate the costs of additional students  (RCOL, TPOP)
    • Incentivize Fair Share of Low- and Moderate-Income Housing
      • Treasury Department should require states to distribute the Low-Income Housing Tax Credits to developers building in integrated high-opportunity neighborhoods.
      • The government should also amend the tax code to deny the mortgage interest deduction to property owners in suburbs that do not have or are not taking aggressive steps to attract their fair share of low- and moderate-income housing, both multi-unit and single family, whether for rental or sale (RCOL)
    • Repeal local zoning and permit density (CWSBH)
    • Disparate impact litigation on zoning (MTI)
    • Create quantifiable “fair share” guidelines with genuine incentives for jurisdictions to collaboratively develop a metropolitan approach to zoning and land use regulation (MTI)
  • Congress should require that local housing authorities establish a preference for tenants who volunteer to use their Section 8 benefits to find apartments in integrated, low-poverty neighborhoods (RCOL)
  • Stabilize Middle-Market Neighborhoods:  Develop a regional strategy that actively attempts to stabilize middle-market neighborhoods and that emphasizes the health and well-being of existing residents (e.g., Baltimore’s Healthy Neighborhoods program). (FC)
  • Revive and strengthen fair housing enforcement and reverse the attack on the Fair Housing Act (NFHA)
  • Restore and revise the Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH) rule to encourage communities to identify and reduce concentrated areas of poverty. (NCRC, CWSBH)
  • Increase the supply of public and subsidized housing and eliminate the backlog of repairs in existing public and subsidized housing. (NFHA)
  • The federal government should guarantee subsidized housing and/or adequate income supports as a right of all citizens and revenue sharing or community development block grants of such magnitude that they would equalize fiscal capacity across local jurisdictions. These two guarantees will eliminate economic motivations to have a concentrated low-quality housing submarket. (GMON)
  • Select foreclosed properties in targeted neighborhoods for rehabilitation and resale at below-market rates to first-time, low-income households, perhaps in combination with requirements on the new buyer for a sweat equity component, pre- and post-purchase counseling and financial management, a minimum stay in the dwelling, and shared home appreciation capture. (GMON)
  • Grant spatially non-specific homeownership assistance such as down-payment grants, counseling, case management aimed at improving and stabilizing income, and credit repair on the condition that a new home is purchased in a targeted neighborhood. (GMON)
• Housing Discrimination
  • Implement randomized, full-application testing in which the testing agency identifies actual people and households that are in the process of searching for housing and enrolls them in a panel testing process (MTI, PRRAC2)
  • Ban source-of-income discrimination (MTI)
  • Add source of income as a protected class in federal, state, and local fair housing law to change the behavior of landlords who deny lease requests by a voucher holder on the legal basis that they do not wish to participate in a housing assistance program. (GMON)
  • Provide anti-racism training to workers in the housing field (CRTF)
• Protect Residents from Displacement
  • Prohibit evictions. (#8toA)
  • Provide unequivocal support and resources to refugee and asylum seeking communities. (#8toA)
  • DHS should overturn the “Public Charge” rule, ensuring that immigrants have access to federal benefits without fear of deportation. (NFHA)
  • Housing trust funds: use tax-increment financing to dedicate a particular revenue stream to preserve affordability in gentrifying neighborhoods by purchasing neighborhood housing stock (MTI)
  • Strengthen the legal services sector to better protect and advance tenants’ rights from the ground up. (PRRAC2)
  • Secure vulnerable renters and prevent displacement through services, legal protections, and rent stabilization policies. (PLAIC)
• Vouchers
  • Give low-income people a housing voucher to support their rent (or lower their mortgage payment) wherever they choose to live. (RREM, COM, RDH, SSIP)
  • Fully fund Housing and Urban Development budgets for public housing and Section 8 / voucher housing (B2F)
  • Encourage locally relevant solutions such as expanded Section 8 and rent control/vouchers. (NCRC)
  • Small Area Fair Market Rent Program- boost the subsidy for higher cost neighborhoods and peg the subsidy to the zipcode,  allowing lower-income people to move into higher cost neighborhoods. (MTI, GMON, PRRAC2)
  • Provide for universal housing assistance through Housing Choice Vouchers. (PRRAC2)
  • Enact key reforms to the Housing Choice Voucher program. (PRRAC2, GMON)
    • Redesigning the administrative fee system to incentivize moves to higher-opportunity areas. (PRRAC2)
    • Eliminating barriers to moves by permitting use of voucher funds for security deposits and moving expenses. (PRRAC2)
    • Improving HUD annual assessments of public housing authorities to prioritize progress toward desegregation. (PRRAC2)
    • Providing routine funding support for housing mobility counseling programs to give families access to new housing possibilities throughout their regions. (PRRAC2, NFHA, PAP, MTI)
    • Local voucher providers should provide hands-on mobility counseling and relocation assistance in locating and inspecting apartments in opportunity neighborhoods. (GMON)
    • HUD affiliates and other social welfare agencies should provide housing choice voucher holders a wider set of supports such as subsidized daycare and a used automobile. (GMON)
    • Help voucher holders lease dwellings in high-opportunity areas more quickly and with less fear of expiration of the lease-up window, including through financial assistance for moving costs, furnishings, and apartment and utility security deposits; recruiting and communication with landlords to welcome HCV applicants; and extension of the lease-up period from sixty to ninety days. (GMON)
    • Change diversification incentives in HUD regulations governing PHAs to reward placing HCV holders in opportunity neighborhoods or punish them if they place HCV holders in disadvantaged neighborhoods. (GMON)
    • Provide extra financial assistance to PHAs who receive incoming HCV holders from outside their jurisdiction or to those PHAs where HCV holders originate. (GMON)
    • Expand the federal Housing Choice Voucher program to include incentives for landlords to accept low-income tenants. (NFHA, PAP, MTI)
•  Fair Lending, etc.
  • Ban Predatory Lending practices (FC, B2F)
  • Change repayment terms, underwriting standards, collection practices and cap the maximum APR at the rate of 36 percent (FC)
  • End Predatory Lending: End predatory lending by changing repayment terms, underwriting standards, collection practices and by capping the maximum APR at the rate of 36 percent (FC)
  • State and local governments should expand efforts to regulate and limit predatory lending. (PLBTC)
  • Congress should maintain the integrity of the Dodd- Frank consumer protections that regulate lenders and reject legislative attempts to weaken or dilute its provisions. (PLBTC)
  • Reform the Mortgage Interest Deduction by capping it at a level needed to afford a starter home in a region and prevent it from being applied to vacation homes or investment properties (TSTI)
  • Adjust the portfolio of public investments and pivot tax benefits that encourage wealth-building through home ownership among lower-income families. Options include:  homebuyer’s credit, refundable tax credit for property taxes paid, and an annual flat tax credit for homeowners TSTI
  • Support homeownership by expanding homebuyer programs and enacting federal grant assistance programs for historically redlined communities that assist homebuyers with down payments and closing costs (B2F)
  • 21st Century Homestead Act: create a government-backed, preferred-rate, thirty-year fixed mortgage, with preference given to families (as opposed to specualitve investors- purchasing home foreclosed due to proven mortgage fraud TSTI
  • Implement a federal renters tax credit TSTI
  • Modernize and expand access to data and other information for local communities on lending and investment in their area. (NCRC)
•  Community Landbanks
  • Allow Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) to be a community governed means of urban planning.  Make public housing accessible to everyone, repealing discriminatory laws barring people from accessing resources based on income, race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, or history of incarceration. (#8toA).
  • Implement community landbanks, where landed is deeded to the preservation of affordable land within areas ripe for gentrification (TPOP)
  • Support and promote the existence of community land trusts for Black and historically displaced communities. (#8toA)
  • Support and strengthen cooperative enterprises to promote shared decision-making power, shared ownership, and shared profits. (BYP100)
  • Create a municipal land bank with a dedicated source of revenue and authority to engage in strategic land reutilization including asset-based community development, transit-oriented development, and stakeholder engagement (KC)
  • Examine possible policies or local law changes to use public land in ways that maximize public benefit, such as through prioritizing community ownership models including community land trusts. (NYRJC)
• Equitable Development
  • Production of 600,000 low and moderate housing units next year and 6 million units over the next 5 years (KC)
  • Invest in affordable rental homes (B2F)
  • Regional Scaling can be accomplished by: merger or consolidation, a process that follows individual state laws that usually include consent by a majority of residents each municipality (POP)
  • Investments in renovation of old housing and the development of new housing would be more rational and efficient if zoning laws did not impede them (RREM)
  • Prioritize Transit-Oriented Development (KC)
  • Encourage community development cooperations to collaborate, or when possible and appropriate merge (KC)
  • Align Funding to Build Capacity of CDCs: Engage area funders, non-profits, financial institutions, and private sector entities to align resources and provide financial support to encourage collaboration between community development corporations (CDCs) and build their capacity (KC)
  • Launch a public trust that would purchase abandoned properties and provide them to eligible residents in pilot cities while simultaneously investing in the revitalization of surrounding communities. (DP)
  •  An expanded and modified below-market interest rate program. (KC)
  • An expanded and modified rent supplement program and an ownership supplement program. (KC)
  • Federal write-down of interest rates on loans to private builders.(KC)
  • An expanded and more diversified public housing program. (KC)
  •  An expanded Model Cities Program.
  •  A reoriented and expanded urban renewal program [careful to avoid the problems] (KC)
  •  Reform obsolete building codes. (KC)
  • Enactment of a national, comprehensive and enforceable open-occupancy [Fair Housing] law.
  • Re-orientation of Federal housing programs to place more low and moderate-income housing outside of ghetto areas. (KC)
  • Congress should ban exclusionary zoning. (p. 213) (CWSBH)
  • Local jurisdictions should implement strategic targeting that accounts for a neighborhood’s context, composition, and concentration as the guiding principle for developing neighborhood-supportive interventions. (GMON)
  • Local jurisdictions should provide positive and negative incentives to current property owners' reinvestment efforts in strategically targeted neighborhoods. Positive incentives include rehabilitation grants and/or low-interest or forgivable loans to targeted incumbent property owners. Negative incentives include targeted housing code enforcement with voluntary need-based grants or loans. (GMON)
  • Regional housing authorities should promulgate regulations for assisted households and developers that would limit the concentration and scale of assistant housing of various types in all types of neighborhoods, including:
    • Establishment of threshold concentrations of poverty and assisted housing past which further site- or tenant-based assistance would be ineligible. (GMON)
    • Establishment of racial-ethnic contingencies to encourage racial diversity. (GMON)
    • Restricting the type of neighborhoods that developers of scattered-site assisted housing can develop in, and the number of units they can develop within certain separations. (GMON)
  • Encourage the rehabilitation of structures as assisted housing. (GMON)
    • HUD should alter its expense reimbursement formulas for PHAs to encourage development through rehabilitation rather than new construction. (GMON)
    • States should alter scoring formulas for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) applications to better incentivize rehabilitation. (GMON)
    • Tenant-based assisted housing programs can recruit owners of deteriorated properties and offer incentives for the rehabilitation of those properties in exchange for long-term availability of units for HCV lease-up. (GMON)
  • Repeal credit bonuses for LIHTC development in qualified census tracts (QCT) with poverty rates greater than 25 percent. The bonus system should be reversed so that it incentivizes the development of LIHTC in high-opportunity neighborhoods with little affordable housing to prevent the concentration of poverty. (GMON)
• Transportation
  • Identify priority transportation projects and develop supported funding plans for public transit. (FC)
  • Promote the Use of Public Transportation by:
  • Implementing a ridership program that educates individuals on how to use the system for work or education trips and demonstrates the possibilities for job access and educational trips and potential personal cost savings; Improving bus tracking to enhance the ease with which bus transit can fit into one’s schedule;  Creating a reloadable transit card that obviates the need for exact change for each ride;  Enhancing the public transit amenities among current and future bus routes (e.g., bus shelters and benches). (FC)
  • Ensuring free, and more extensive, public transport, especially servicing marginalized and lower income communities. (#8toA)
  • Make bus lines in poorest neighborhoods free (p. 211) (CWSBH)

Race-Targeted

Healthcare

• Address the Underrepresentation of Black Americans in the health workforce
• Make Black people powerful in our families by challenging the policies and practices that leave us living sick and dying younger and delivering the care we need to live long and live well (B2F):
  • Establish universal care for all
  • Incentivize health and wellness over “sick care” and tackle health disparities
  • Ban discriminatory pricing and predatory marketing, and expand access to healthy foods
• Reduce the barriers that prevent Black youth from accessing mental health treatment and empower parents and caregivers with the resources they need to support children who have been directly and indirectly impacted by the criminalization of Black adolescence. (HROI)

Race-Conscious

Healthcare

• Ensure full access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care and eliminate discriminatory barriers to health care for all people, regardless of race, sexual orientation, or gender identity. (DP, BYP100, B2F)
• Establish universal health care (B2F)
• Increase enforcement of anti-discrimination protections for people with pre-existing conditions under the Affordable Care Act (B2F) 
• As unintended pregnancies and births have serious implications for poverty, inequality, public spending, housing, and healthcare provision, federal and state governments should support health practitioners in reducing unintended pregnancies by ensuring sufficient supplies in health clinics, simplifying billing procedures, and expanding Medicaid, which would allow more women to access family planning services. (RDH)
• Strengthen the family planning safety net – including Title X. (HRR)
• Pass federal reproductive health protections, such as the EACH Woman Act, which would overturn the Hyde Amendment and ensure abortion access regardless of a woman’s income. (HRR)
• Overturn – or prevent the passage of – Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider laws. (HRR).
• States should accept federal funds to expand Medicaid programs (or offer a similar alternative) to address the health coverage gap experienced by adults who earn below 100 percent of the federal poverty level. (PLBTC)
• Enact Universal Family Care social insurance policies such as the Family Act (B2F)
• Health-care providers should integrate financial services and support into existing health care services and interactions with clients. (PLBTC)
• The federal government should improve federal regulation of medical debt collectors and for-profit hospitals to protect vulnerable consumers. (PLBTC)
• Allocate city funding towards healthcare infrastructure (including non-coercive mental healthcare), wellness resources, neighborhood based trauma centers, non-coercive drug and alcohol treatment programming, peer support networks, and training for healthcare professionals. Make these services available for free to low-income residents. (#8toA)
• Designate and Fund Health Equity Zones to support the identification, development, implementation and monitoring of plans to help address local health inequities. (DP)
• Ensure funding for robust, high quality, long term services and support systems that allow people to live in their homes and not be forced into nursing homes (B2F)
• Increasing funding and availability of community-based, high quality, culturally competent mental health services (B2F)
• Train current health workforce to combat racial bias when treating patience, overall develop frameworks, systems, data collection and analysis, and protocols to ensure culturally competent health care (DP)
• Revitalize the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that frameworks are in place to address health inequities, promote equal access, and prohibit discrimination; that agencies explicitly consider racial impact in their regulatory decisions and rule-making; and that legal recourse and enforcement is readily available to people and communities in order to protect these basic human rights.
• Ease enrollment into Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by implementing “presumptive eligibility” into the school-based health center settings for all children on free and reduced lunch  (FC)
• Provide Gap Coverage: Until Medicaid is expanded, preserve and enhance funding for outpatient care and medications for individuals in the coverage gap  (FC)
• Increase ACA Marketplace Enrollment: Increase insurance coverage and access for everyone by enrolling more people in the ACA marketplace (FC)
• Replace current insurance model with group-practitioner membership model: lower healthcare costs by eliminating wasteful overhead associated with insurance payment processing and removing the incentives for physicians to overprescribe treatments and tests. Competition between groups to attract and retain patients would keep quality high (RREM)
• Govt could pay for some or all of membership fee for low income households or provide universal membership vouchers for the entire population (RREM)
• Move to a more efficient single payer system (RREM)
• Deliver Trauma-Informed Care: Design hospital-community partnerships to help heal young people impacted by violence with case management, mentorship, and evidenced-based trauma interventions. (FC)
• Incentivize doctors and hospitals to increase health outcomes (B2F)
• Include doula care in government-funded health care programs (B2F)
• Enact the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act to stabilize the cost of prescription drugs (B2F)
• Extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months in all states (UIMHP)
• Ensure that guidelines about postpartum care recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are reflected in practice (UIMHP) 
• Provide pregnant and postpartum patients and providers with knowledge about the breadth of care options, including midwifery (UIMHP)
• Diversify the maternal health care workforce by training more professionals from marginalized backgrounds (UIMHP)
• Permanently fund the California Medicine Scholars Program and create and fund equivalent pathway programs for students in the CSU and UC systems (CRTF)
• Train providers to develop compassionate care skills (UIMHP)
• Shift the maternal care model to a more holistic approach, including screening for social determinants of health, resource referrals, and multidisciplinary teams that include midwives or doulas (UIMHP)
• Improve health insurance coverage (CRTF)
  Evaluate the efficacy of health care laws, including recent enactments (CRTF)
• Improve diversity among clinical trial participants  (CRTF)
• Fix racially biased algorithms and medical artificial intelligence in healthcare (CRTF)
• Remedy disparities in oral health care (CRTF)
• Address disparities and discrimination associated with substance use recovery services (CRTF)
• Review and prevent racially biased disciplinary practices by the Medical Board of California (CRTF)
• Fix racially biased algorithms and medical artificial intelligence in health care (CRTF)

Mental Healthcare 

• Increasing funding and availability of community-based, high quality, culturally competent mental health services (B2F) 
• Fund research to study the mental health issues within California’s African American Youth population and address rising suicide rates among African American youth (CRTF)
• Expand the membership of the mental health services oversight and accountability commission to include an expert in reducing disparities in mental health care access and treatment (CRTF)
• Create and fund equivalents to the UC-PRIME-LEAD-ABC programs for psychologists, licensed professional counselors and licensed professional therapists. (CRTF)
• Implement procedures to address the over-diagnosis of emotional disturbance disorders, including conduct disorders, in African American children
• Disrupt the mental health crisis and county jail cycle in African American communities (CRTF)

Public Health and Environmental Justice

• Recommit the United States to global leadership in driving sustainable climate policy, and take responsibility for mitigating the harmful impact of the US around the world (B2F)
• Strengthen waste and emission regulations and penalties to hold corporations accountable for pollution and contamination crises (B2F)
• Adopt the Green New Deal to decarbonize our environment, make infrastructure investments, and guarantee federal jobs (B2F) 
• Expand enforcement of environmental protections and invest in solutions to environmental threats, particularly focusing on communities of color and working families who face disproportionate health effects from pollution, tainted water, and inadequate infrastructure. (DP)
• Require the EPA to consider environmental justice in all its regulatory decisions. (DP)
• Coordinate efforts among EPA, HUD, and CDC to address lead-based paint in aging housing stock. Increase investments  in a Lead Paint Mitigation Fund to ensure all communities have the resources required to address this health threat. (DP)
• Create a 21st-century public health data system that expands on existing environmental health tracking networks66 to provide an early warning system, down to the neighborhood level, of health threats–from the effects of climate change and other environmental changes to clusters of chronic and infectious disease. (DP)
• Build Safe Neighborhoods: Support sustained, citizen-led efforts to develop safe neighborhoods, particularly the efforts of parents and families impacted by violence, and clergy working to build community and keep watch. Support should include, but not be limited to, planning, coaching, funding and service provider coordination (FC)
• Invest in community-based food banks, grocery cooperatives, gardens, and farms. (#8toA)
• Enact penalties for corporations that predatorily market tobacco and alcohol to youth (B2F)
• Tighten FDA nutrition and labeling standards and ban the marketing of junk food to children (B2F)
• Allocate federal grants to supply fresh produce to retailers in “food deserts” and boost federal nutrition program funding to incentivize consumption of fresh foods (B2F)
• Make Black people powerful in our communities by acting on the climate crisis as a national priority before more of our communities are hit first and worst by disasters (B2F):
  • Mitigate the climate crisis and reduce pollution
• Increase federal emergency management funding and develop guidelines to deploy federal funds to help states with rapid response to climate emergencies (B2F)
• Pass the Real Emergency Access for Aging and Disability Inclusion for Disasters Act (REAADI) and The Disaster Relief Medicaid Act (DRMA, B2F)
• Environmental justice (EJ) research should make a more concerted effort to take history into consideration and move beyond the question of who lives beside what facilities to tackle the more difficult question of understanding what forces compel people to live beside such facilities. (TTC)
• EJ research has to pay more attention to the relative danger of facilities, the ownership structure of hazardous facilities, and the different impact that different types of facilities have on health, property values, jobs, host-community compensation, and so on. (TTC)
• EJ research should focus more on small facilities such as dry cleaners, gas stations, and garages that have impacts on nearby residents and to industrial sectors, such as agriculture. (TTC)
• EJ research should pay more attention to research conducted by the real estate industry and urban planning research. (TTC)
• EJ research should become more theoretically focused, and studies should have explicit theoretical frames that are tested. (TTC)
• EJ scholarship should adopt multimethod approaches that combine, for example, spatial, historical, economic, sociological, and planning techniques. (TTC)
• The organized environmental movement in the United States should broaden its base to include people-of-color, low-income, and working-class individuals and issues. (BDID)
• Organize neighborhoods (BDID):
  • L​​ink people-of-color, working-class, and middle-class environ­mental activists on issues that cut across geographic boundaries and political jurisdictions. (BDID)
  • Create environmental organizing channels that cut across the political spectrum. (BDID)
  • Develop leader-exchange programs designed to break down the legacy of mistrust and artificial barriers that separate people and hinder mobilization. (BDID)
  • Design training and leadership development programs for emergent grassroots environmental justice groups. (BDID)
  • Institute “adopt-a-community” programs at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and minority institutions around environmental justice and resource-allocation areas-- targeting communities of color threatened by environmental hazards. (BDID)
  • Develop new interorganizational linkages that cut across racial and class boundaries. (BDID)
• Fund and support community-led climate action plans that allow communities to develop their own infrastructure (B2F)
• Promote “energy democracy,” or community ownership of renewable energy generation to boost low-income communities and close racial wealth gaps (B2F)
• Enhance communication across environmental networks (BDID):
  • Disseminate information  that  highlights  the  community's strength  and  power  (potential)  base;  people-of-color  groups should not be timid or shy when it comes to the use of their power. (BDID)
  • Expose the impact of NIMBY by having policymakers deal with this phenomenon not as an exaggerated or irrational fear. (BDID)
  • Instill self-confidence in community leaders and residents.
  • Communicate environmentalism as a universal justice and eq­uity issue. (BDID)
  • Teach people when they have won—as a way of diminishing citizen victories, the opposition will seldom admit defeat. (BDID)
  • Get environmental organizations to accept social justice and urban  industrial  issues  as  legitimate  environmental-agenda items. (BDID)
  • Dispel prevailing myths and stereotypes on both sides (envi­ronmentalists and social justice activists) with interorganiza- tional communication. (BDID)
  • Help people of color, the working class, and the poor under­stand that they have a stake or vested interest in wilderness and conservation programs, while not jeopardizing their support and credibility on urban and industrial policy areas. (BDID)
• Get environmental justice information and training to the appropriate personnel (BDID):
  • Fund an Environmental Justice Working Group in Region IV to coordinate and follow up on problems, implementation strate­gies, and evaluation. (BDID)
  • Integrate principles  of environmental justice  (i.e.,  Executive Order 12898) into the EPA Region IV Waste Division's Strategic Plan. (BDID)
  • Produce an Annual Environmental Justice Progress Report that outlines the specific goals, projects, and accomplishments. (BDID)
  • Devise criteria for grant applications that incorporate community- based organization histories, track records, and accomplishments. (BDID)
  • Provide case studies, "success stories," "best practices," and community profiles that can be shared with environmental jus­tice leaders; solicit examples from the environmental justice community and distribute via fact sheets and electronic newslet­ters. (BDID)
  • Work with community-based organizations, networks, and en­vironmental justice centers to identify locations to house EPA public documents beyond the public library archive. (BDID)
  • Contract with environmental justice organizations and people- of-color institutions to conduct training, community outreach, and communication plans. (BDID)
• Climate adaptation plans should consider equity throughout different sectors and communities and apply equity considerations broadly. (PRRAC3)
• The climate planning process should involve strong input from vulnerable communities. (PRRAC3)
• Concrete equity metrics should be established that shape the development of a plan and track how equity is being integrated into the implementation of a plan. (PRRAC3)
• Equity goals should be used to inform specific action proposals. (PRRAC3)
• Climate planning should consider fair housing concerns, as housing will be seriously affected by a changing climate. (PRRAC3)
• ​​HUD can improve oversight of the siting of subsidized housing; provide housing choice away from environmental burdens through housing vouchers; offer funding to directly address household and community EJ needs; develop guidance, policies, and technical assistance regarding climate change and other EJ issues; and incentivize state and local EJ improvements through its spending power. (MH)
• Improve communication and coordination between HUD and EPA in order for each of these agencies to know when subsidized housing residents are living in contaminated areas and take concrete measures to respond. (MH)
• Institute structural interventions to the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens across neighborhoods and metropolitan regions. These include greater transparency in funding distribution schemes, ex ante mechanisms such as health impact assessments or environmental justice reviews, and consistent enforcement that addresses cumulative environmental impacts. (MH)
• Improve HUD implementation of its siting standards, reviews, and oversight. (MH)
• HUD and public housing authorities should improve performance in helping Housing Choice Voucher households access a broader range of housing options and neighborhoods. (MH)
• Ensure all neighborhoods provide access to healthy food, high-quality parks, clean air, and other elements of a healthy built environment. (PLAIC)
• Build infrastructure that increases health, livability, mobility, opportunity, and resilience for vulnerable communities. (PLAIC)
• Make appropriate investments and policy changes to close gaps in access to healthy foods in BIPOC neighborhoods, support urban farmers and gardeners and connecting them to food deserts and schools, and ensure that care workers who provide health and mental health care and who work in our food industries are paid fairly and justly. (NYJRC)
•  Increase greenspace access and recreation opportunities in African American communities (CRTF)
  • Test for and eliminate toxicity in descendant communities (CRTF)
  • Increase trees in redlined and descendant communities (CRTF)
  • Develop climate resilience hubs in redlined and descendant communities (CRTF)
  • Remove led in drinking water (CRTF)
  • Prevent highway expansion and mitigate transportation pollution (CRTF)
  • Address food injustice (CRTF)

Arts & Culture

Race-Targeted

• Increase funding to the National Endowment for the Arts and create targeting grant funding aimed to promote the ongoing documentation of Black history and promotion of Black culture in the United States (DP)
• Preserve cultural and historic sites documenting the history of Black people in the United States (DP)
• Provide funding to sup-port, build, preserve, and restore cultural assets and sacred sites to ensure the recognition and honoring of our collective struggles and triumphs (MBL2020)
• Foster truth and reconciliation  through legislation at the federal and state level that requires the United States to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery, establish and execute a plan to address those impacts. (M4BL2020)
• Prohibit discrimination based on natural and protective hair styles in all competitive sports (CRTF)
• Identify and remove monuments, plaques, state markers and memorials memorializing and preserving confederate culture; erect monuments, plaques and memorials memorializing and preserving the reconstruction era and the African American community (CRTF)
• Provide funding to the proposed California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, specifically for creative, cultural and intellectual life. (CRTF)
• Eliminate the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s practice of banning books (CRTF)

Race-Targeted

• Native American Voting Rights Act which pushes for language justice within Indigenous communities and she acknowledges that shifting the nation’s relationship with Indigenous communities “will require structural change.” (RE;EW)
• End the Criminalization of Black Political Activity (M4BL)
• Make Black people powerful in our democracy by confronting those who conspire to steal our votes and finally building the democracy that is promised to us all (B2F):
  • Restore voting rights and fight voter suppression
  • Require District-Based Voting and Independent Redistricting Commissions to safeguard against the dilution of the African American voting bloc (CRTF)
  • Include and empower immigrants, no matter their status, and young people in institutions and civic life by expanding voting rights. (NYRJC)
• Provide funding to NGOs whose work focuses on increasing civic engagement among African Americans (CRTF)

Race-Conscious

• Our Constitution must once and for all positively guarantee the right to vote for all Americans. (HRR)
  • This would include a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote for all and implementing a fully national system of universal voter registration, which should no longer be left up to states. (HRR)
  • Such an amendment would also prohibit policies that place an undue burden on exercising the right to vote, including the racially insidious permanent disenfranchisement of those with a criminal record. (HRR)
  • Remove the barrier of proving identity to vote (CRTF)
• Congress should also pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act, introduced in the House of Representatives in June 2015, which updates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (HRR, B2F)
• A system of proportional representation in our legislatures would guarantee fuller representation of minorities of all types, particularly racial, ethnic, and ideological minorities. (HRR)
  • Proportional representation systems eliminate partisan gerrymandering, which disempowers too many citizens; enable more robust political ideas and interests to have a voice in our democracy; and result in better gender representation in elected offices in democracies around the world. (HRR)
• Allow early voting and expand vote-by-mail (DP)
• Increase funding to support the California Department of Justice’s Enforcement of Voting Rights in California (CRTF)
• Make voting more convenient by enabling early voting, online voting, and online and same-day voter registration (B2F) 
• Make Election Day a  national holiday (DP)
• Setting and enforcing standards for poll workers and the distribution of voting machines. (DP)
• Restore the Voting Rights Act: Authorize a new preclearance procedure under the Voting Rights Act to enable the federal government to block racist voting laws before they take effect. (DP, M4BL))
• Create and enforce standards for voter roll maintenance to stop discriminatory voter purges, neutralize the effects of restrictive voter ID bills by allowing people to vote with a sworn written statement of identity, and increase and enforce criminal penalties for people who try to interfere with a person’s right to vote. (DP)
• Restore voting rights to all convicted felons (B2F)
• Increase jury participation of persons with felony convictions and discourage judges and attorneys from excluding potential jurors solely for having a prior felony conviction (CRTF, B2F)
• Increase accessibility of polling places and stop usage of the Americans with Disabilities Act as a tool of suppression in low-income and nonwhite communities (B2F)
• Fight voter suppression through state policies that ban unilateral voter purges and voter ID laws (B2F)
• Work with tech companies and develop policies that limit the spread of false information online.(DP)
• Replace the Electoral College with a National Popular vote (DP, M4BL))
• Give full Political representation to the people of Washington, D.C. (DP)
• Create a strong public financing system that matches small donors so average citizens can run for office funded by their communities, not big donors. (DP)
• Overturn Citizens United and Buckley vs. Valeo to stop wealthy interests from dominating our democracy. (DP)
• Ensure that Congressional redistricting is conducted by independent, statewide commissions using fair and non-discriminatory redistricting rules (DP)
• End prison gerrymandering: the U.S. Census Bureau should count incarcerated people as residents of their legal home addresses and not as residents of the correctional facilities. (PPI)
• States can correct the Census data by creating a special state-level census that collects the home addresses of people in prison and then adjusts the U.S. Census counts prior to redistricting. (PPI)
• In preparation for the 2030 Census, states can standardize the collection of home address information when people enter the custody of the Department of Corrections. (PPI)
• States can prohibit state, county and municipal legislative districts from using prison populations as padding. (PPI)
• The Census Bureau should, as part of their research and planning agenda for the 2030 Census, determine the best and most economical way to properly count incarcerated people as residents of their home communities. (PPI)
• Restore voting rights and end gerrymandering (p. 207) (CWSBH)
• Include and empower immigrants, no matter their status, and young people in institutions and civic life by expanding voting rights. (NYRJC)
• Enact Legislation Aligning with the Objectives of AB 2576 and Establish Separate Funding to Support Educational and Civic Engagement Activities (CRTF)
• Declare election day a paid state holiday and provide support to essential workers to increase access to the polls (CRTF)

Immigration

Race-Conscious

• Fix our broken immigration system. (B2F)
• Repeal the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (B2F) 
• Repeal of the 1996 crime and immigration bills, an end to all deportations, immigrant detention, immigration and custom enforcement (ICE) raids, and roving border patrols, and mandated legal representation in immigration court (MBL2020)
• Expand the availability of legal pathways to citizenship for immigrant workers (RREM, B2F)
• Fulfill promise to undocumented Dreamers and transform our immigration system. (p. 207) (CWSBH)
• End police and ICE collaboration (B2F)
• Establish a permanent independent commission on immigration to make humane policy recommendations to Congress and the President (B2F)

Operations: Administration, Implementation & Evaluation

• Create a 25-year Managed Fund: Create a 25-year managed fund to solely support regional racial equity infrastructure for all sectors. Funding for racial equity capacity, needs and training assessment, analysis, implementation, impact, sustained strategies and accountability. (FC)
• Utilize Shared Guidelines: Utilize a shared set of guidelines, language, and benchmarks for philanthropic organizations addressing key causes of systemic inequality (FC)
• Establish Regional Baselines: Establish a regional baseline on attitudes, experiences and perception regarding diversity and inclusion for use in consistently measuring regional progress at regular intervals. (e.g. Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State.)  (FC)
• Broadly Apply a Racial Equity Framework: Intentionally apply a racial equity framework to existing and new regional policies, initiatives, programs and projects in order to address and eliminate existing disparities for racial and ethnic populations. (FC)
• Embrace five guiding principles throughout the federal agency: (1) Understand the past, present, and your influence; (2) Consistently address root drivers; (3) Work in partnership with impact in relevant communities; (4) Adopt a continuous learning and adaptive approach; (5) Be transparent and accountable. (PL)
• Discuss the federal agency’s equity mission and roles, starting with agency leadership and then cascading throughout the organization. (PL)
• Disaggregate Data: Require data coming from public institutions to be disaggregated by race, gender, and ethnicity when reporting regional, local, public statistics to identify trends in disparities.  (FC)
• Pause programs that have significantly harmed people and begin to develop an equity action plan. (PL)
• Assess the preparedness of current agency knowledge and capabilities to do the work of racial equity and develop internal processes to address the gaps. (PL)
• Begin to establish feedback loops and channels to communicate with key stakeholders, including other federal agencies, Congress and the Judicial Branch, state and local governments, and communities. (PL)
• Create Region-wide Benchmarking Process: Complete a collective region-wide benchmarking process designed to publicly acknowledge challenges focused on awareness, accountability and healing. (Suggested model Jackson/Hardiman Social Identity Development.) (FC)
• Adopt laws requiring municipalities to conduct racial impact assessments for proposed policies (p. 208) (CWSBH)
• Collect data and track federal spending with a racial equity lens (p. 214) (CWSBH)
• Add a statement of values to guide government operations (NYRJC)
  • Include a preamble in a legal document, such as a constitution, charter, or statute that recognizes residents of the jurisdiction as a source of the jurisdiction’s legitimacy and power. (NYRJC)
  • Acknowledge the historical inequities that shaped the jurisdiction and the legacy of resistance and struggle for justice. (NYRJC)
  • State an intention and vision to create a more equitable future by remedying harms and reconstructing, revising, and reimagining the jurisdiction’s foundations, structures, institutions, and laws. (NYRJC)
• Establish a Racial Equity Office, Plan, and Commission to create a framework and foundation for implementing and operationalizing racial equity in the jurisdiction’s operations, (NYRJC)
• Develop a citywide racial equity plan to provide clear guidance and strategies for agencies, and intersect and align the plan in the jurisdiction’s budget process. (NYRJC)
• Develop a true cost of living measure that moves beyond calculations of poverty and estimates how much it actually costs to live and thrive in the jurisdiction, the racial wealth gap, and pay inequity to guide the jurisdiction’s wage rate for employees and contractors. (NYRJC)
• An agency should formally engage in reconciliation through deep engagement with communities, clear acknowledgment of harms both past and present, and through employing a reparative frame in decision-making processes whenever possible. (NYRJC)
• Strengthen existing government oversight bodies for greater government accountability. (NYRJC)
  • Allow all oversight bodies easier access to data or records from the agencies they oversee. Similarly create a general rule allowing all oversight entities overseeing implementation of a single law (e.g. CCHR, Conflict of Interests Board) to have the ability to require any City body to publish data regarding compliance with that law. (NYRJC)
  • Allow for the oversight body to investigate “pattern and practice” complaints. (NYRJC)
  • Allow for the oversight body to have final authority over police officer discipline. (NYRJC)
  • Empower the oversight body with the ability to bring administrative actions against the agency it oversees in an adjudicatory venue for violations of minimum standards. (NYRJC)
  • Provide a minimum secure budget and headcount for the oversight body. (NYRJC)
  • Require appointment of an expert in racial equity to independent budget boards or entities to align the jurisdiction’s budget to the jurisdiction’s equity plan. (NYRJC)
• Enhance accountability for racial equity by appointing an independent racial equity watchdog that will enforce the jurisdiction’s racial equity responsibilities and creating appropriate consequences for process failures and agency actions that directly exacerbate racial disparities. (NYRJC)
• Develop and implement tools to measure racial equity, such as racial equity impact assessment and impact statements for specific agencies or processes, budget scoring, collecting disaggregated data on wealth, assets, debt, and unemployment, and proactive investigation of discrimination. (NYRJC)
• Require Agency Transparency: the Legislature should direct the Civil Rights Department and Department of Education to collect anonymized data for all complaints transmitted, including demographic information on the complainant; the complaint made; action taken’ and disposition of complaints. (CRTF)
• Create and Fund the Californian American Freedman Affairs Agency, which shall be dedicated to the implementation and success of recommendations from the California Reparations Task Force. This agency will include offices to ensure the Agency’s performance. (CRTF)
• An formal apology issued by the California Legislature on its behalf, and on behalf of the state of California, on all the forms of harm and atrocities committed by California state actors who promoted, facilitated, enforced and permitted the institution of chattel slavery and its legacy of ongoing badges and incidents of slavery that form the systemic structures of discrimination. This must both be a “good apology” (i.e. made publicly; where the events occurred; acknowledge responsibility for the violations; in the presence of survivors and kin; involve the highest state authority; and disseminated fully) as well as  accompanied by material forms of reparations. (CRTF)
• Mandate Effective Racial Impact Analyses: making the racial impact of laws, policies and ordinances be identified and addressed prior to enactment at local and state levels. (CRTF)

Odds & Ends for Non-governmental Sectors

Corporations

• Create shared value by promoting racial equity at every point on the company’s value chain (PLCARE):
  • Reconceiving products and markets - Better serving existing markets, or accessing new ones by developing innovative products and services that reduce inequities and meet the needs of people of color. (PLCARE)
  • Redefining productivity in the value chain - Reducing cost, increasing quality, and improving productivity through a company’s operations by advancing racial equity. (PLCARE)
  • Strengthening the business context - Nurturing a reliable base of skilled human capital and external suppliers, increasing consumer demand, and improving the regulatory framework by creating opportunities for communities of color. (PLCARE)

Corporate Leadership

• Business leaders must develop a much deeper and more accurate understanding of why racial inequities exist. (PLCARE)
• Corporate leaders must translate understanding into action. (PLCARE)
  • Business executives must take a fresh look at every aspect of their business operations including product design and distribution, marketing and advertising practices, and hiring and personnel policies through the lens of an experience of a person of color. (PLCARE)
  • All companies that have segmented their customers and analyzed their employees on numerous dimensions must explicitly disaggregate their data by race to understand the opportunities inherent in advancing racial equity. (PLCARE)
  • More people of color are needed in senior leadership positions to bring such perspectives into the highest levels of corporate strategy. (PLCARE)
• CEO needs to champion racial equity—as a core business strategy—in order to inspire their staff and bring the vision to life. (PLCARE)

Media

• Create incentive programs for corporations, organizations, institutions, media, and governmental agencies to participate in accredited diversity and inclusion programming and initiatives that support learning and dialogue.  (FC)
• Provide Trauma-Informed & Anti-Bias: Develop statewide training, best practices and accountability measures for broadcasters, print and digital media outlets in the areas of Trauma Informed Newsrooms (Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma), bias and systemic context with specific focus on impoverished communities, people of color, and boys and men of color. (Race Forward #MediaOnFerguson brief).  (FC)
• Train Moderators FCC licensees with online comments sections must employ trained moderators or close comments  (FC)

Faith Based Organizations

• Create incentive programs for corporations, organizations, institutions, media, and governmental agencies to participate in accredited diversity and inclusion programming and initiatives that support learning and dialogue.  (FC)
• Provide Trauma-Informed & Anti-Bias: Develop statewide training, best practices and accountability measures for broadcasters, print and digital media outlets in the areas of Trauma Informed Newsrooms (Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma), bias and systemic context with specific focus on impoverished communities, people of color, and boys and men of color. (Race Forward #MediaOnFerguson brief).  (FC)
• Train Moderators FCC licensees with online comments sections must employ trained moderators or close comments  (FC)
• Engage the Faith Community in the Racial Equity Mission Faith communities and authorized faith leaders are called to directly engage in networks and tables of policy discussion across the region to shape how we work together and inform the conversation directly.Develop new and provide existing assets to the region with a multi-faith set of resources for racial equity and reconciliation informed by various theologies and accessible for use in diverse communities of faith. These may include statements of faith, liturgical resources, litanies, etc (FC)

Patent and Innovation

• Improve data collection at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and enhance the measurement of potential innovation. To that end,  Congress should pass the IDEA Act, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) should collect annual demographic data on patentees at the time of patent application. (THP)
• Make commercialization more inclusive by using the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. (THP)
  • Increase the diversity of the applicant pool for flagship innovation programs by promoting increased diversity among the people who review applications for the programs. (THP)
  • Increase the diversity of the applicant pool for flagship innovation programs by improving information about the pool of prospective Research and Development (R&D) partners available, thus facilitating matches between applicants and R&D partners. (THP)
  • Increase the diversity of the applicant pool for premier innovation programs by introducing virtual mentoring programs to connect applicants with national labs, thus reducing the barrier caused by geographic distances. (THP)
• Address issues related to workplace climate in the innovation economy. (THP)
  • Extend California’s Women on Boards law to all states and include similar targets for underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. (THP)
  • Require public reporting of employer pay and promotion data by race and gender to provide greater transparency of employer pay practices (and could include detailed data on domestic and foreign composition). (THP)
  • Require employer reporting of steps taken to address pay and promotion discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, and other factors in SEC filings, including eliminating forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases; implementing anti–African American and antisexist bias training for all levels of staff, especially leadership, managers, and supervisors; and increasing funding for enforcement to ensure compliance with equal pay protections and to undertake targeted efforts to examine the prevalence of race and gender bias in pay discrimination cases. (THP)
• Research needs
  •  Advance the study of the intergenerational, direct, and indirect impacts of racism. (CRTF)
  • Researcher should study threat assessment outcomes to evaluate whether they are consistent, align with program guidelines, and effective at reducing violence. (RIPA)
  • Fund and conduct a study to calculate the overall racial wealth gap in California (CRTF)
  • Fund research to study the mental health issues within California’s African American Youth population and address rising suicide rates among African American youth (CRTF)

Index of Materials Reviewed 

• Kerner Commission Report (KC)
• The Missouri Governor’s independent Ferguson Commission Report (FC)
• The Department of Justice’s Ferguson Report (DoJFR) 
• Movement for Black Lives Platform 2020 (MBL2020)
• Black Youth Project 100, Agenda to Build Black Futures (BYP100)
• 8toAbolition (#8toA)
• 21st Century Policing Task Force (21CTF)
• Urban Next 50 (U50) 
• Advancement Project, ‘Test, Punish, and Push Out: How "Zero-Tolerance" and High-Stakes Testing Funnel Youth Into the School To Prison Pipeline (AP)
• National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC)
• Urban Institute, Structural Racism: Promising Solutions (Next50)
• PolicyLink, For Love of Country: A Path for the Federal Government to Advance Racial Equity (PL)
• Child Trends, Federal Policies Can Address the Impact of Structural Racism on Black Families’ Access to Early Care and Education (CT)
• Children’s Equity Project, Start with Equity: 14 Priorities to Dismantle Systemic Racism in Early Care and Education (CEP)
• Color of Change, Winning Justice: Our Six Demands (COC)
• IFF, Five Ways That Lenders Can Interrupt Racism and Provide Restorative-Justice Capital in Our Communities (IFF)
• Prison Policy Initiative, Prison Gerrymandering Project: Solutions (PPI)
• Black To The Future Action Fund, Black Agenda 2020 (B2F)
• The Hamilton Project, Policies to Broaden Participation in the Innovation Process (THP)
• The Brookings Institution, Homeownership, racial segregation, and policy solutions to racial wealth equity (TBI1)
• The Brookings Institution, An analysis of financial institutions in Black-majority communities (TBI2)
• Poverty & Race Research Action Council, The National Housing Trust Fund and Fair Housing: A Set of Policy Recommendations (PRRAC1)
• Poverty & Race Research Action Council, A Vision for Federal Housing Policy in 2021 and Beyond (PRRAC2)
• Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Equity Considerations in Climate Adaptation Plans: A Call for Advocacy (PRRAC3)
• Megan Haberle, Fair Housing and Environmental Justice: New Strategies and Challenges (MH)
• PolicyLink, Race and the Work of the Future: Advancing Workforce Equity in the United States (PLRWF)
• PolicyLink, Building an Equitable Tax Code: A Primer for Advocates (PLBETC)
• PolicyLink, Breaking the Cycle: From Poverty to Financial Security for All (PLBTC)
• PolicyLink, The Competitive Advantage of Racial Equity (PLCARE)
• PolicyLink, All-In Cities Policy Toolkit (PLAIC)
• 2020 Presidential candidates Policy Proposals/Plans
  • Race Scorecard (RE; CI) [2020 Candidate Initials]
  • Douglas Plan (DP)
• Chicago Police Accountability Task Force, Recommendations for Reform (CPATF)
• Bring The H.E.A.T. (BTH)
• Brennan Center, Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement (BC)
• New York City Racial Justice Commission, NYC for Racial Justice: Final Report of the NYC Racial Justice Commission (NYRJC)
• Urban Institute, Centering Women’s Voices to Improve Maternal Health Policies (UIMHP) 
• Racial Identity and Profiling Advisory Board Report, (RIPA)
• California Reparations Task Force Final Report (CRTF)
• Books
  • Rothstein, The Color of Law (RCOL)
  • Rothwell, A Republic of Equals: A Manifesto for a Just Society (RREM)
  • Baradaran, The Color of Money (BCM)
  • Porter, American Poison (PAP)
  • Perry, Know Your Price (PKYP)
  • Taylor, Race for Profit (TRP)
  • Cashin, Place, Not Race (CPNR)
  • Troutt, The Price of Paradise (TPOP)
  • Sharkey, Stuck in Place (SSIP)
  • Reeves, Dream Hoarders (RDH)
  • Shapiro, Toxic Inequality (TSTI)
  • Darrity & Mullens, From Here to Equality (DM)
  • McGhee, The Sum of Us (MSOU)
  • Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans--and How We Can Fix It (BWOW)
  • Blow, The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto (BDYK)
  • Miller, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration (MHH)
  • Cashin, White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality (CWSBH)
  • Bullard, Dumping in Dixie (BDID)
  • Taylor, Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility (TTC)
  • Kim, Losen, and Hewitt, School-to-Prison Pipeline: Structuring Legal Reform (SPP)
  • Sander, Kucheva, and Zasloff, Moving toward Integration: The Past and Future of Fair Housing (MTI)
  • ​​Glaser, Suspect Race (GSR)
  • Baumgartner, Epp, and Shoub, Suspect Citizens (SC)
  • Flynn, Holmberg, Warren, and Wong, The Hidden Rules of Race (HRR)
  • Henning, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth (HROI)
  • Galster, Making Our Neighborhoods, Making Our Selves (GMON)