Street Certified National is a coalition of formerly incarcerated leaders from across the LIVE FREE national faith based campaign. The need for this space is informed by the understanding that those with justice impacted lived experiences need an exclusive space allocated towards their development, supporting the building of their network, and creating a culture of dignity. The goal of the space is to support a pipeline of development and well being for formerly incarcerated people across the country to pass policies that de-carcerate mass incarceration in America with dignity.

The benefit of joining the national campaign is that by building collective power people are trained in tools that will not just assist themselves to advocate for policies that will benefit their communities; but, also translate into skills that will help to improve conditions in their day-to-day lives. The prayer of this coalition is that formerly incarcerated people who work together will be architects of a world that is of our imagination and not just at our expense. The success of this coalition is determined by formerly incarcerated people seeing tangible, and sustainable improvement in their day to day lives, as well as the incarcerated population across America decreasing significantly with dignity.

You may have noticed the mention of dignity is relied on heavily in these descriptions. This is recognition that progressive spaces often compromise directly impacted people’s humanity at the expense of perceived “wins.” It is explicitly clear to this coalition that we can pass policy and maintain our humanity both at the same time.