We know the key to breaking cycles of crime. We’ve worked with formerly incarcerated people for 20 years and have seen that community programs have positive impacts on Black and Brown Transgender, Gender-variant, and Intersex (TGI) people. This includes people like Kim, who believes she may not be alive today if it weren’t for programs like ours. But a measure on the November ballot would shrink funding for critical programs that are a lifeline for members of the TGI community.
The Miss Major Alexander L. Lee TGIJP Black Trans Cultural Center provides housing and supportive services, job training, and mental health programs to system impacted community members. These evidence-based interventions improve public safety by addressing the root causes of crime—a lack of affordable housing, income inequality, and inaccessible healthcare. When people are better connected to what they need, like a place to stay and a way to make a living wage, they are less likely to commit crimes.
Kim’s story is a testament to this. When Kim was incarcerated, she wasn’t able to get the medical treatments she needed and had long waits to access support. She also was cut off from connecting with her family and friends, which helps keep her grounded.
Now, by having the opportunity to participate in our programs, rather than being incarcerated, she’s been able to get what she needs to turn her life around. She’s no longer sleeping in a tent, she has her own place to rest, and she feels more like herself. Kim says that without TGIJP and similar supportive programs, she would probably be in a mental health ward or wouldn’t be alive. These are the stories that Prop 36 wants to undo.
Only about half a percent of California’s population identify as Transgender, Gender-variant, or Intersex, but TGI folks makeup 1.6% of jails and prisons in the state. Latine people make up 39% of the state, but almost half of California prisons. Black residents only make up 6% of the state’s population but nearly a third of the prison population.
Proposition 36 on the Nov. 5 ballot would disproportionately hurt Black and Brown TGI communities by pushing more of us into incarceration while leaving the programs that keep us safe severely underfunded.
Prop. 36 would cut funding for organizations that provide direct service to support people who are getting back on their feet, and for diversion programs that keep people who have committed low-level crimes out of jail. Diversion programs are so effective that recidivism rates drop from 42% for someone who doesn’t go through a diversion program, to just 15% for someone who does.
If Prop 36 passes, the funding that went towards diversion programs that prevent crime would instead go towards criminalizing people for having an addiction, being poor, or being unhoused. That would mean that people like Kim wouldn’t have an option to get support—they would be locked up instead. Diversion programs and social services to support those leaving prison are very effective in preventing future crime. Keeping people who commit low-level nonviolent crimes in jail for longer is not going to make our communities safer; in fact, it can make crime worse.
We have so much left to do to create a future where Black and Brown TGI folks are liberated and have the tools we need to thrive. Keeping funding for community programs is just the beginning. We also need a future where there is access to gender-affirming healthcare, trauma informed care, and gender markation.
Prop 36 will take us in the wrong direction by putting more of our community into jails and prisons for low-level crimes. Mass incarceration will become worse, and recidivism will go up because of massive cuts to the programs that keep recidivism rates down. We deserve real solutions to public safety, not Prop 36.
Choose people, not prisons on November 5th.
eli dru is communications director at Miss Major Alexander L. Lee TGIJP Black Trans Cultural Center
