Partner Spotlight - Life After Release: Working to Abolish the Criminal Legal System and Rebuild Communities

Life After Release’s mission is to build a movement among Black women and families to abolish the criminal legal system, rebuild our devastated communities, and keep each other safe through community safety alternatives. Established in 2017 in the DC-Maryland-Virginia metro area, Life After Release (LAR) is led by formerly incarcerated women; their work has made national impact by setting a standard for community-based safety and care alternatives. They are organizing to build a post- conviction movement where individuals have the right to challenge their convictions and the system responsible for convicting them in the first place. By 2021, their legal empowerment and participatory defense work had saved 23 Black loved ones from 839 years of prison time.

In the last two years, LAR has bailed out over 50 Black mothers during their annual Mother’s Day Black Mama’s community bailouts. Through bailouts, court support, food, transitional housing, and other mutual aid efforts, more Black mothers are now free and gaining the resources that they need in order to better themselves and the wider community.

Their Justice and Liberation Institute provides life skills, grassroots organizing, and leadership skills training for formerly incarcerated individuals and their loved ones. Between 2021 and 2022, the institute has graduated 27 fellows, who have all engaged with critical criminal justice issues and campaigns, gained self-confidence, and connected with community members.

LAR has an ambitious vision for building power for and with formerly incarcerated and directly impacted people. Ahead of the 2022 midterms, they conducted a nationally sponsored bus/van tour with Black Voters Matter to get directly-impacted people to the polls to vote in Maryland. Their efforts helped produce a record-breaking turnout in the 2022 Maryland General Election.

“Between 2022 to 2024, we aim to register 50,000 formerly incarcerated people to vote and will pair our voter registration campaign with mutual aid and a needs assessment so that we can build a political platform that is responsive to the needs of criminalized people and communities,” says Alexiss Kurtz-Hoggard, LAR’s Director of Operations.

Learn more about their liberatory work at lifeafterrelease.org