Defend Survivors

Letter Writing is Transformative!

Write to incarcerated survivors and let them know you support them and their freedom. Visit the S&P Letter Writing Action Center for tips, tools, resources, and addresses. Addresses also below!

Send Gov. Newsom a
#DVAM Action Letter

Send California Governor Gavin Newsom (or the Governor in your state) a #DVAM action letter urging him to commute incarcerated survivors
and support economic justice for all survivors!
Address and sample letter below.

#FreeThemAll for Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Sign and circulate the online petitions linked to the names below to urge Governor Newsom to support survivors of domestic violence by stepping up his extremely low commutation rate.

Explore, Use, and Share

Survived & Punished offers toolkits and media resources to support survivors and advocates to take action in their communities! Explore resources such as toolkits for grassroots defense campaigns and research projects, or media resources to
engage transformative justice.

Tomiekia Johnson
Tomiekia Johnson (WE4176)
P.O. Box 1508
Chowchilla, CA 93610

Christina Martinez
[Thanks to community support, Christina has been commuted, paroled, and released!!! Fundraiser link to support Christina coming soon...]

Brandy Scott
Brandy Scott (WE0141)
CIW – 16756 Chino Corona Rd.
Corona, CA 92880-9508

Gabriela Solano
Gabriela Solano (W82038)
P.O. Box 1508
Chowchilla, CA 93610

Send Gov. Newsom a Letter in Honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month:

Urge California Governor Gavin Newsom (or the governor in your state) to decriminalize survival, commute the sentences of all survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and secure economic justice for all survivors!

ADDRESS:
Governor Gavin Newsom
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814

SAMPLE TEXT:
Dear Governor Newsom,

This Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I join California residents urging you to commute the sentences of all incarcerated survivors of domestic and sexual violence in the state.

As many as 90% of people in women’s prisons, and many in men’s prisons, are survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Survivors are criminalized while attempting to navigate dangerous conditions of abuse and coercion. California prisons and detention centers perpetuate cycles of violence through the “abuse to prison” pipeline and because they are themselves sites of systematic gendered violence. This must end.

I call on you to boldly expand the historic increase in commutations and pardons. As an ally to survivors of violence, I urge you to recognize prisons and detention centers as forms of gendered violence and commute all survivors.

I also call on you to divest funding from the California Department of Corrections, an institution that perpetuates rape and domestic violence, and reinvest those public funds to services that survivors need to keep them safe, such as free comprehensive healthcare, free or low-cost housing, affordable childcare, public education, victim advocacy services, and restorative/transformative justice resources specializing in feminist approaches to sexual/domestic violence.

Sincerely,