Just Communities Arizona

MISSION: To create, foster, and resource new models for safety and justice outside the punishment system. We work with people impacted by the punishment system to promote a holistic view of safety that encompasses physical, emotional, and economic health and wellness; cultivate the next generation of community leaders; and build community-based solutions.

Just Communities Arizona exists to affirm the inherent and undeniable dignity of every person and the immeasurable worth of every community. Core to that vision is our belief in building real, meaningful, and long-term safety in our communities. We can choose to increase safety on all levels-physical, economic, and emotional-by providing educational, social, and economic opportunities that give people a chance to meet their basic needs and realize their unlimited value and potential.

We foster new models for justice and safety while cultivating the next generation of community leaders. There are organizations all over Arizona creating holistic approaches to community safety-tackling food and housing insecurity, family and parenting support, harm reduction, and public health education with grassroots approaches.

Our task is to shift the narrative on what safety looks like--to help decision makers and funders identify these projects as "public safety" and move them to invest in them. Just Communities Arizona is a social justice organization that serves as a bridge between small local groups and the resources they need to serve their neighborhoods. We generate investments in community-led solutions that are already working.

In every facet of this work, we center the people directly impacted by the punishment system. We work with and for those directly impacted by the punishment system: people with convictions, formerly incarcerated people, and their communities.

Together with local communities, we're creating a world where safety is bigger than just freedom from crime; where prisons and jails are unnecessary, where reconciliation, truth-telling, and mutual interdependence foster healing, rather than retribution. Belonging, rather than isolation. Safety, rather than punishment.

Testimonials

"I read about your organization. I love what you do. For a couple decades now I've tried to find ways to support prison reform, justice reform, policing reform... There is a serious lack of justice in this country...And there seems to be no pathway to reform for the incarcerated. There are so many good people caught in the system who would be the most excellent of citizens if they had ever had a chance. Good people will do bad things when they need to feed themselves and their families...So I donated to your organization. I am always looking for ways to support justice system reform and your work stands out. Thank you." --Email from a recent donor