Following our August 18th "No to Pre-Prisons" press event, on-line journal Our Weekly covered the Community Rights campaign in detail...check it out!

On Thursday, August 27th, Californians United for a Responsible Budget and allies held simultaneous press conferences in Los Angeles, Oakland and Sacramento urging Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to choose human rights over politics as usual by not appealing the historic federal court order on prison overcrowding. We urged them instead to submit a comprehensive prison reduction plan by September 18th as ordered by the courts...read more to learn how to take action on this critical issue!

With the new school year approaching, the Community Rights Campaign unviels its "No to Pre-Prison" Human and Civil Rights Platform to demand the end to LAMC 45.04 and Truancy Tickets.

On August 4th, a panel of 3 federal judges ordered California to reduce the prison population by 44,000 prisoners in the next two years to address the inhumane conditions caused by prison overcrowding!  As the LA Times reported: "The 185-page opinion...accused the state of fostering "criminogenic" conditions, compelling former prisoners to commit more crimes and feed a cycle of recidivism."

Our 4th annual Summer Youth Organizing Academy is underway. We launched SYOA last week with 18 students!

The most read Spanish language newspaper in LA covered our testimonies at the LAUSD Board on truancy tickets. The reporter interviewed our organizers and members, but he also further investigated the issue by interviewing other high school students and parents as well as school police.

BRU's rally at Mayor Villaraigosa's Inauguration yesterday received extensive media coverage. Along with our allies from the South Asian Network, and the Los Angeles Community Action Network, we were calling on the mayor to reduce his prioritization of police funding over social services.

Have you ever been in an unhealthy relationship? Has it been because in some way you enabled your partner to continue to behave in unhealthy ways? Unfortunately when it comes to our relationships to policy makers in Sacramento we continue to enable unhealthy choices that in the end affect us in dire ways. Resources that we need to have sustainable, well-educated and healthy communities are being given away to corporations through tax breaks while the legislators increase our taxes; spend billions of dollars on freeway and rail expansion that exacerbates global warming; construct shiny new prisons and hire prison guards and police while the golden state's schools are crumbling and teachers and counselors are being cut.

As a young black womyn, I think back to my experiences attending public school where I was often the only person of color in the honors or advanced classes. I think about what  it would have meant to have a space with other working class and students of color to discuss our concerns about the future of our people, our histories from a womyn’s and oppressed nationality perspective, build camaraderie and support with my fellow peers and most important gains the skills and knowledge to shift our conditions and history...