About Texas Criminal Justice Coalition

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Mission

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) is committed to identifying and working towards real solutions to the problems facing Texas’ juvenile and criminal justice systems. We do this by educating a broad range of supporters using policy analysis and research, partnering with organizations and associations that share our core beliefs, and promoting criminal justice solutions that embody the principles of effective management, accountability, public safety, and human and civil rights.

Currently, TCJC has the following projects:

Juvenile Justice Initiative: Creating Avenues to Success for Troubled Youth and Families. This project advocates for juvenile justice policy solutions that maximize opportunities for troubled youth to become productive, law-abiding adults. Through educational reach, we promote increased funding for community-based alternatives to incarceration, treatment for substance abuse and mental health problems, juvenile drug courts, and restorative justice practices.

This project has created Texas Families of Incarcerated Youth (TFIY),which is a network comprised of family members of youth that are currently or formerly incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). TFIY’s mission is to offer support and information to families, and to advocate as a unified voice for systemic change for families of incarcerated youth.
Public Safety Project: Advocating for Fair, Effective Police Practices that Improve the Safety of Our Communities. This project engages in research and provides public education materials that address best practices in law enforcement. We seek to offer community members and law enforcement agencies the tools to work together to implement effective, public safety-focused, value-driven police services.
The Fair Defense Project: Ensuring a Just and Accountable Judicial System by Protecting Your Right to a Lawyer. This project works to ensure that every person is treated equally in Texas’s criminal justice system, regardless of wealth. Through community advocacy, media advocacy, and educational outreach, we want to inform folks that they have the right to an attorney in every case.
The Solutions for Sentencing & Incarceration Project: Researching and Advocating for Policies that Increase Public Safety While Decreasing Costly Jail and Prison Overcrowding. This project advocates for criminal justice policy solutions that strengthen communities by increasing public safety, saving taxpayers money, and reducing Texas’ over-reliance on the incarceration of non-violent offenders. Through educational outreach, we promote efficient probation strategies, increased funding for community-based alternatives to incarceration, and treatment for substance abuse and mental health problems, as well as other programs that help formerly incarcerated people become law-abiding and contributing members of society.

TCJC is committed to providing resources and conducting research on vital criminal justice issues that go far beyond our project areas above in order to continually renew the knowledge base that fuels our educational efforts. Towards that end, we have established the following resources:

Tools for Re-Entry: Advocating for Policies that will Enable the Formerly Incarcerated to Live Responsibly and Support their Families. These resource materials are intended for formerly incarcerated individuals, employers, landlords, and service providers who are taking part in re-entry initiatives. Our goal is to connect people who have been incarcerated with information about available educational training opportunities, housing, job opportunities, voting information, and other information necessary to become and stay law-abiding, productive citizens.

Tools for Practitioners: Featuring Best Criminal Justice Practices. This section provides toolkits and other resource materials for individuals working in our state juvenile and adult criminal justice systems: substance abuse treatment providers, members of law enforcement, attorneys and judges, probation and parole practitioners, and others.

Public Policy Center: Providing Non-partisan Policy Recommendations for Legislative Committees and Other Interested Stakeholders. This section provides broad policy recommendations for each of our projects, as well as comprehensive public education materials we have created that span our projects.