In Michigan, a Criminal Justice Reform Group is Scoring Wins
During the election, Michigan Liberation helped elect a new prosecutor in Oakland County. Two months later, that effort paid off when the prosecutor, Karen McDonald, announced in February that she would finally begin the process of giving the county’s “juvenile lifers” a chance at parole.
McDonald is one of 11 successful candidates endorsed by the criminal justice reform organization, including President Joe Biden and Megan Maddock, who was elected to the school board in Kalamazoo.
Michigan Liberation, whose membership is largely driven by formerly incarcerated people and their families, didn’t just lend their name to their chosen candidates. “We were able to contact over 4 million people through our phone and texting program,” including calling over 50,000 potential voters and even mounting a door-canvassing project, said Michigan Liberation organizer and Executive co-Director Elisheva Johnson. Johnson told Blue Tent the group has more than 500 volunteers.
A new organization—a lot of initial success
Michigan Liberation was founded in 2018. Its political action committee, the Michigan Liberation Action Fund, was founded the same year. The group’s combination of advocacy and electoral work is a key to its effectiveness.
In January, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a series of reform bills, some of which included recommendations from the state’s Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration—including decreasing driver’s license suspensions and reducing probation and parole in some cases. An organizer from Michigan Liberation gave testimony during one of the meetings of the task force. The group’s spokesperson, Tim Christensen, told The Appeal that the organization also had “multiple lobby meetings and rapid response calls/town halls with legislators” advocating for relief for incarcerated people at risk of COVID-19 in the state’s prisons.
Michigan Liberation’s advocacy efforts have included helping to organize a protest to free Grace, a 15-year-old girl sentenced to a juvenile facility last year when a judge decided her difficulties with online schooling constituted a violation of the teen’s probation. Michigan Liberation protested at the Michigan Department of Corrections in person to advocate for the release of incarcerated people who were eligible for parole to protect the residents from contracting COVID-19. They helped organize a September march to address racial injustices in Macomb County after allegations that a Black couple was targeted by hate crimes.
Krithika Santhanam, then a staff attorney for the Advancement Project, told me last year that Michigan Liberation organizers were “instrumental” in connecting attorneys with people incarcerated inside the Oakland County jail to aid a lawsuit seeking the release of medically vulnerable incarcerated people to protect them from the novel coronavirus.
“The reason that we were even able to file this lawsuit is because of Michigan Liberation,” she said.
Johnson told Blue Tent that Michigan Liberation supported protests in Wayne County after the murder of George Floyd.
“We were able to lift the voices of thousands and thousands of people, and start again to build a new narrative that people of color are not going to sit back and just let things happen to them,” she said.
Last month, Michigan Liberation joined a number of major organizations including the ACLU of Michigan, the Detroit Justice Center, the Michigan Center for Youth Justice and Safe & Just Michigan to push Gov. Whitmer to prioritize COVID vaccination for people held in the state’s prisons and jails.
“A prosecutor we can hold accountable”
And, of course, they successfully pushed new Oakland County Prosecutor McDonald to start resentencing juvenile lifers.
“Just days before the decision,” says a Michigan Liberation press release about the move, “a group of organizers and former juvenile lifers were invited to the prosecutor’s office to tell their story and encourage action to resentence remaining juvenile lifers to a term of years.”
“ I feel like we just won a heavyweight fight,” said Michigan Liberation member Ronnie Waters, as quoted by the release. “There are still cases to be determined, but we have to celebrate this huge victory.”
When it comes to Prosecutor McDonald overall, though, Michigan Liberation activists have mixed feelings.
“ Now, can we say that she 100% is the person that we would have wanted to lift up? No, but we had real conversations and really brought the community to her” to educate the then-candidate about the disproportionate number of Black people incarcerated by the county, Johnson said. “We were able to have those conversations with her and she understood. So we know that she’s a prosecutor that we can hold accountable.”
The group is also working on a new project to support people caught up in the court system. According to Johnson, the “participatory defense program” to “bring the family and the community together to advocate” for people on trial, including creating a “social bio” to tell judges what the accused person means to their community and loved ones “and humanize the person to the judge.”
Michigan Liberation is also undergoing some internal changes. In an undated announcement on its website, the group says it “is making space for the next iteration of executive leadership, which will center those most impacted by the criminal legal system.” As part of that process, Johnson and the group’s other executive co-director, Meredith Loomis Quinlan, will facilitate the transition before leaving in April.