JUSTICE SYSTEM REFORM
Ending America’s Incarceration Crisis
SCSJ seeks to reduce the number of people entering and remaining in the criminal legal system. We focus on front-end issues, like policing, over-criminalization, and the prosecutorial function. We also focus on back-end issues, like safely bringing people home from jails and prisons and ending excessively harsh policies fueling mass incarceration.
Our government is not merely failing to eliminate systemic racism and reduce vulnerability but instead exacerbating both with the carceral state.
The United States locks up more people than any other country on Earth. We criminalize poverty, needlessly separate children from their parents, and destabilize and destroy families, even entire neighborhoods, in the process.
Ending Mass Incarceration Cases
Ending Mass Incarceration Resources
James Richardson Mini-Documentary
The Case for Commuting NC’s Death Row
This booklet outlines how NC's death row is infected with racism and threatens the lives of innocent vulnerable groups.
Safe Return Report
This report analyzes "early" reentry efforts and their outcomes to determine whether early reentry and prosecutorial “second look” approaches can and should be continued or expanded.
Ending Mass Incarceration News
SCSJ Statement: ICE Detention Expansion Threatens Southern Communities
DURHAM, N.C. (March 24, 2026) — Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) is opposed to the federal government’s aggressive expansion of immigration detention centers, which threatens the safety, stability, and dignity of communities across the South and beyond. The federal government is pursuing a multi-layered detention expansion plan that has already pushed the number of…
Read More SCSJ Statement: ICE Detention Expansion Threatens Southern Communities
Innocent Greenville Man to Have Day in Court After 16 Years Behind Bars
GREENVILLE, N.C. (August 12, 2025) — James Richardson, an innocent North Carolina man wrongfully convicted for the murders of two people nearly two decades ago in Pitt County, will have his case back in court later this month as he continues to fight for his freedom. Richardson’s conviction in 2011 followed a deeply flawed…
Read More Innocent Greenville Man to Have Day in Court After 16 Years Behind Bars