{"id":12774,"date":"2021-10-20T13:34:46","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T17:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=12774"},"modified":"2021-10-20T13:34:46","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T17:34:46","slug":"participatory-defense-what-it-is-and-why-it-deserves-our-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/participatory-defense-what-it-is-and-why-it-deserves-our-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Participatory Defense: What It Is and Why It Deserves Our Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades now, directly impacted communities, organizers, public defenders, academics, and others have sounded the alarm on the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States and its devastating effects on people of color and low-income communities, <\/span>particularly in Black communities.<\/span><\/a> Countless reforms aimed at protecting the rights of the accused and shrinking the size of the nation\u2019s prison population have been suggested, and some have even been enacted, <\/span>albeit with limited success<\/span><\/a>. However, most of these policies focus on lawyers and the courts as centers of change and ignore the power of those most affected by the criminal legal system\u2013\u2013the individuals accused of crimes and their loved ones. This is where participatory defense comes in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Participatory Defense?<\/b><\/p>\n

Participatory defense<\/span><\/a> is \u201ca community organizing model for people facing charges, their families, and communities to impact the outcomes of cases and transform the landscape of power in the court system.\u201d The model was developed by <\/span>Raj Jaydev<\/span><\/a> and directly impacted folks working out of <\/span>Silicon Valley De-Bug<\/span><\/a>, a community organizing, advocacy, and multimedia storytelling organization in San Jos\u00e9, California beginning in 2007. <\/span>As explained by Jaydev<\/span><\/a>, \u201cparticipatory defense essentially tries to make the family an extension of the defense team, a source of information and power for what is almost always a public defender.\u201d Through this work, participatory defense changes the way that justice is exercised and experienced in America by shifting power towards those who have direct contact with the system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are <\/span>three ideas central to the model\u2019s approach<\/span><\/a> and the support it offers participants:<\/span><\/p>\n