An Advocacy Group Gives Crime Victims a Voice in Prison Policy
By Rebecca Koenig
June 1, 2016
Robert Gallagher
David Guizar visits his mother, Maria Guzman, who holds a picture of her slain son Oscar. On the wall behind them is a picture of another of Ms. Guzman’s sons, Gilbert, who was also murdered.
David Guizar has lost two brothers to murder. His oldest brother, Oscar, was shot in Los Angeles in 1983. Gilbert was shot in 2012.
Mr. Guizar’s story is not simply one of bad luck. According to a 2013 survey conducted by Californians for Safety and Justice, repeat victims of crime in the state are most likely to be young African-Americans and Latinos. Yet they have the least access to victim services and compensation programs.
“That’s a major gap a lot of public-policy makers aren’t aware of,” says Lenore Anderson, the nonprofit’s executive director.
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Robert Gallagher
David Guizar visits his mother, Maria Guzman, who holds a picture of her slain son Oscar. On the wall behind them is a picture of another of Ms. Guzman’s sons, Gilbert, who was also murdered.
David Guizar has lost two brothers to murder. His oldest brother, Oscar, was shot in Los Angeles in 1983. Gilbert was shot in 2012.
Mr. Guizar’s story is not simply one of bad luck. According to a 2013 survey conducted by Californians for Safety and Justice, repeat victims of crime in the state are most likely to be young African-Americans and Latinos. Yet they have the least access to victim services and compensation programs.
“That’s a major gap a lot of public-policy makers aren’t aware of,” says Lenore Anderson, the nonprofit’s executive director.
Launched in 2012, Californians for Safety and Justice aims to put the perspectives of crime victims at the center of efforts to revamp America’s criminal-justice system.. The nonprofit, a project of the Tides Center, has a budget of about $4 million, roughly 15 staff members, and support from the Ford Foundation and the California Wellness Foundation, among other grant makers.
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Ms. Anderson, a former San Francisco prosecutor, believes that “the majority of crime victims think prisons make matters worse and would rather see investments in treatment programs and rehabilitation.”
To that end, the nonprofit has successfully pushed for legislation that overhauled sentencing and shifted government funds once earmarked for prisons to the creation of trauma centers for crime victims.
It also formed Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, a statewide network of community groups that serve people like Mr. Guizar. He helps lead the network, which hosts Survivors Speak conferences that he says allow “people to tell their stories” and express views that fall outside of the “tough on crime” perspective traditionally expected of victims.
The nonprofit is now expanding nationally through the Alliance for Safety and Justice, which will seek to replicate its successes in other states.
Thanks to the work of groups like Californians for Safety and Justice, Mr. Guizar senses a new public awareness about the plight of families broken by crime. After more than 30 years, he says, people are finally talking about the deaths of people like Oscar and how they reflect the impact of violence and mass incarceration on minorities..
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Says Mr. Guizar: “He went from being a statistic to an image of transformation.”
