Ymilul Bates is a Bay Area teacher and the mother of a young man being adjudicated in Contra Costa. She reflects on her work with the young children in her classroom and her commitment to continue to support them and her own son as they learn from mistakes, resolve conflict and repair harm.

San Jose recently appointed a new police chief in the wake of the largest demonstrations against systemic racism in the history of the city and a groundswell of support to defund police. Here, families who have lost loved ones to police in Santa Clara County lay out a set of demands for the first 100 days of the chief's appointment, calling for a new vision of safety.

Joey has been fighting for his brother Hugo's freedom for nearly a decade. Hugo was sentenced to 105 years to life after he was wrongfully prosecuted by the DA using racist gang allegations. This week Joey testified at a state hearing to share Hugo’s story for why the Racial Justice Act should be retroactive and racism, like Hugo experienced, should not exist in the courtroom.

Families and advocates produced the following report compiling survey responses along with testimonial accounts from those inside and their families on the outside for a quantitatively informed statement on the conditions inside the jails during the COVID pandemic.

From behind the walls of Folsom State Prison, Ifoma Modibo Kambon reaches out to challenge us all to discover our strengths, purpose, and remember that through difficulties we are never alone.

This letter to the County Board of Supervisors chronicles the last two months of those detained in Santa Clara County jails during and after COVID outbreaks in the facilities - leading to a 9 day detainee hunger strike to demand basic human rights.

The following text is of an evocation De-Bug was asked to give about "safety for all" to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors January 12th, 2021 meeting.

In December 2020, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously decided to move away from incarceration and shut down the construction of the new jail. This win didn’t come easy -- it took years of struggle led by individuals inside and their loved ones outside who organized and came together to insist on a vision of freedom that our entire community can believe in. These photos document that struggle - and as an act of reimagining, we hung these photos on the fence

Read the Peace Dancer's December message. Khalilah Ramirez is a performance artist and author whose personal mission is to spread joy, love and peace with her dance.

Santa Clara County Community Celebrates Historic Move to Stop the Construction of a Jail, and Embark on a Community Process to Explore Alternatives to the Incarceration!

While incarcerated pretrial six years ago, Joseph Vejar led a hunger strike from Main Jail South to protest inhumane treatment. Today, years later, he reflects what it means to him that the community stopped the construction of a new jail.

The following piece originally appeared in the Mercury News.

On the California ballot this November 2020 is Proposition 16, which will bring back affirmative action in public employment, education, and contracting decisions. The aftermath of Prop 209 that was passed in 1996 resulted in a significant drop in Black and Latino youth in California’s public universities. Here in Santa Clara County, many of our young people are at the forefront of leading the fight for racial and gender equality through Prop 16. On September 26, the NAACP Yo

De-Bug developed a voter guide on the propositions we believe will lead to decarcerate our jails & prisons, increase higher education and employment opportunities for people of color and women, expand voting rights, hold corporations accountable to worker's rights & keep people housed. Download the images to share with your networks.

Khalilah Ramirez is an author, educator and performance artist known as The Peace Dancer. Her performance art, the Dance of Peace, is designed to radiate light, joy and peace to all who see it. This mission is based on the awareness that every person is important, innately holding light inside them that assists in the illumination of our world.

This system, with Breonna’s blood on its hands, cannot give justice to her. But we can. We can when we resist, reimagine and reset.

A harrowing personal account of how the California prison system exacerbated the spreading and contamination of a lethal pandemic.

This is a transcript of a speech given outside Maguire Correctional Facility in Redwood City by freedom fighter Nora Melendez. In 2018, her partner Sergio was held at this jail and transferred to ICE detention in Bakersfield, 250 miles away from his home in San Mateo County. Sergio was separated from Nora and their 3 young children for 8 months.

A poem inspired by the hunger strike in Santa Clara County Jails.

In the 17 years since its founding, the CJA been an advocate for humane policing practices including the banning of the use of Tasers by law enforcement.