Sign Our Petition

​We urge our Legislature to expand alternatives to incarceration and reduce the jail population.  While the County has been a leader in alternatives to incarceration, we now stand at a critical moment; we can move forward into a sustainable community or we can regress into a punitive and wasteful mass incarceration system.  We are calling on organizations to demand community-based alternatives to incarceration.  We cannot continue to criminalize what are essentially public health, education and economic issues.  We are not just speaking to the Legislature. We affirm the responsibility of every community member to make Tompkins County a safe and vibrant home for all. We commit to continued action until this goal is met.

Sign here

Write your Legislator

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Find your legislator

​Sample letter here

Support with your Wallet

• Donate to groups that support people impacted by mass incarceration
  • The Ultimate Re-Entry Opportunity (URO) is an initiative of the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), established in 2014, dedicated to actively transforming the culture and process of reentry by facilitating community-wide collaboration between returning individuals, referred to as Transformative Society Builders* and the private and public sectors.
  • Opportunities, Alternatives, and Opportunities of Tompkins County Inc. (OAR) has a bail fund to help people who can't afford bail
    
• Divest: take your $$ out of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, and U.S. Bancorp: They fund Immigration detention centers and private prisons

First steps:  Sign our petition and write your legislator!

• Sign our petition
• Write your legislator
  • ​find your district here and your legislator's contact info here.
  • Sample letter here.

Support with your wallet:

• Donate to groups that support people impacted by incarceration
  
  • OAR bail fund program to keep people out of jail
  • URO is looking to purchase a half-way house
• Divest: take your $$ out of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, and U.S. Bancorp: They fund Immigration detention centers and private prisons

Support in your daily life:

• Rent out rooms, homes, and apartments to formerly incarcerated people; lower rent, and accept Section 8 on any rental properties owned
• Drive formerly incarcerated people to parol meetings, work, etc. 
• Hire formerly incarcerated people in your personal life as plumbers, builders, nannies, etc. Advocate for your workplace to do the same.

Support through direct action:

• Unite for Parole and Prison Justice: A day of advocacy and action
  • May 10, 2017 Legislative Advocacy Day 
• Help to build raised bed and a pergola in the backyard of OAR for gardening
• Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP)
  • If you are a Cornell student or professor apply to teach or TA to provide courses leading to a degree for people who are currently incarcerated
• Monthly Vigil Against Solitary Confinement
  • 23rd of every month from 5-5:30 outside of Ithaca Public Library