For decades, Washington has invested in increasingly harsher punishment as the solution to public safety. This investment has devastated communities and created a mass incarceration crisis in our state. If locking people up and throwing away the key worked, we would be the safest country in the world. The simple truth is, we are not. To make our communities safer, we need go further upstream to ensure the harm never occurs in the first place.

How do we do this? By investing in the pillars of healthy communities: education, economic stability, health care, built environment, and community.

In this blog series, we’ll explore the origins of our current criminal legal system. We’ll examine the impact this sprawling system has had on our families, schools, and communities. We’ll ask tough questions about what actually keeps us safe. Throughout the series we will hear from not only experts in the field, but also from people with lived experience inside our prisons and jails. This blog is a resource for anyone interested in building safer, healthier communities.