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Email your leaders 📧

Unique messages are more impactful, but we make it easy!

Craft a SHORT message with our “Choose Your Own Adventure” template below.

TO: 

Governorpolis@state.co.us

BCC:

***Please make sure to BCC these folks; DO NOT CC ***

alec.garnett.house@state.co.us, pjweiser@coag.gov, stephen.fenberg.senate@state.co.us, paul.pazen@denvergov.org, dominick.moreno.senate@state.co.us, daneya.esgar.house@state.co.us, brittany.pettersen.senate@state.co.us, chris.kolker.senate@state.co.us, janet.buckner.senate@state.co.us, alex.valdez.house@state.co.us

SUBJECT: 

***Subject line ideas***

• Stand Up for Real Public Safety

• The Root Causes of Crime Have Not Changed

• An Evidence-Based, Not Fear-Based, Public Safety Policy

• Investing in Public Safety

• Services & Support, Not Cops & Cages

• Reject the Politics of Fear and Punishment

BODY:

My name is [FULL NAME] and I am from [YOUR ZIP].

***Choose an introduction, or craft one of your own along these lines***

• I appreciate your goal to make Colorado one of the safest states in the nation. As Colorado plans to make historic investments in behavioral health, it’s important that we address the root causes of crime with fact-based solutions that will help achieve public safety for all. 

• Thank you for presenting a public safety plan that focuses on evidence-based solutions to rising crime rates. There has been a lot of fear-mongering about crime in the press and from conservatives that crime is related to criminal justice reform, despite the facts showing the contrary. 

• I commend your public safety objectives and look forward to exploring improved, community-based solutions. As we know from prior studies, the threat of incarceration is not a deterrent, and in cities across America that cut their jail and prison populations, there was in fact a decrease in overall crime.
  

***Choose 1–2 things about the Governor’s plan you support***

I especially support your efforts to

• provide funding for badly needed behavioral health programs.

• divert crime by investing in youth services.

• invest in community-based organizations and services aimed at preventing violent crime from occurring in the first place.

• fund community response programs like Denver’s STAR program that will be the right response at the right time to protect our most vulnerable neighbors from harmful interactions with the criminal legal system.

• invest in a restorative justice pilot program. 

• intercept low-level offenders and divert them out of the criminal legal system, decreasing recidivism.

• support our kids, teachers, and school support staff by increasing resources for school-based mental health support.
  

***Choose something about the Governor’s plan you are concerned about***

I am concerned

• that the plan pits community programs against law enforcement for a single pot of limited funds. Please ensure the $8.3M in funds is divided beforehand, with the bulk of the funds earmarked for community programs. 

• that the focus is on co-responder programs vs. alternate or community responder programs. People experiencing mental health crises, homelessness, or drug overdoses should be shielded from criminalization whenever appropriate, and community responder programs that don’t include a law-enforcement element, like Denver’s STAR program, should be prioritized over co-responder programs.

• about your remarks about the refelonization of fentanyl. You say your plan is evidence-based, but the evidence is clear: increasing policing and carceral punishment for low-level drug dealers and users destroys individual and family lives, devastates communities, discriminates against people of color, undermines public health, and does nothing to decrease the use or sale of drugs. We can’t go back to these types of failed policies. 
  

***Ask leadership to affirm a positive vision of public safety for all***

• Please continue to use your platform to combat the distorted and false crime narrative being cynically leveraged in an election year by those who would have us return to the policies that fuel mass incarceration, but do not actually keep us safe. 

• Please support legislation that would protect vulnerable Coloradans from the harms of the criminal legal system. We should never have another story like Michael Marshall, Marvin Booker, or Elijah McClain again.

• As Rudy Gonzales of Servicios de La Raza said, “There has been a lot of fear-mongering about the rising crime in Denver. Many that speak to this rising crime want to take us back to failed policies of the past such as ‘tough on crime’, ‘broken window’ policing that don't work in our communities.” The data shows that community-based programs DO work, and I ask you to invest this money there. 

• We know law enforcement will not be the architects of their own reform, so it is imperative to protect our most vulnerable neighbors from the harms of our unjust criminal legal system. Please invest money for violence interruption into community response programs.

• Please direct our hard-earned tax dollars into community programs and services that are proven to reduce crime and harm, rather than increased money for law enforcement and incarceration, which has never been proven to reduce crime. If that worked, the United States would be the safest country in the world, by far.

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

Tweet your leaders 🐦

Social media messages make an impact. Sample tweets are below.

Handles

Jared Polis
@GovofCO

Attorney General Phil Weiser
@COAttnyGeneral

House Speaker Alec Garnett
@AlecGarnett

House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar
@Dlesgar

Senete President Stephen Fenberg
@SteveFenberg

Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno
@domoreno

Sample tweets

[Insert handle] Policies with more cops, courts, and cages have never made us safer and have only made our Black, brown, and most vulnerable neighbors far less safe. #COPublicSafetyPackage

[Insert handle] Please invest money in programs like Denver’s alternate responder program STAR that is the right response for behavioral health issues. #COPublicSafetyPackage

[Insert handle] Arresting and jailing people for poverty crime does not make us safer. Please invest the Public Safety Package money in proven community-based programs for violence interruption and harm reduction. #COPublicSafetyPackage

[Insert handle] Please use your platform to combat the crime narrative that falsely blames modest criminal justice reform for rising crime. We need to address root causes of crime and provide services for our community, not failed law-and-order policies. #COPublicSafetyPackage

[Insert handle] If we want to make our communities safer, we need accessibility and affordability for mental health and substance use disorder treatment, and harm reduction options—not arrest and incarceration, which only exacerbate these issues. #COPublicSafetyPackage

[Insert handle] Criminalization and incarceration only add more trauma to already traumatized people, increasing the risk of recidivism. Please explore restorative justice options that generate accountability and true individual and community healing. #COPublicSafetyPackage

[Insert handle] Any length of time in carceral conditions wreaks havoc on the nervous system, increasing the risk of recidivism. Let’s work toward a compassionate Colorado, where we address the root causes of harm and build safe, equitable communities. #COPublicSafetyPackage