Catalyze Reform
Empowering community-led change
Strengthening community-led police and criminal justice reform.
Real reform is community-led reform. Too often, elected leaders, police chiefs, and bureaucrats insist that communities trust the agency to police itself or direct its own improvement process. They marginalize lived experience, trusted community leaders, and grassroots organizations that are closest to the real-life issues and concerns.
But community-led reform is the only path to meaningful change.
Only communities themselves can lead an effort on real, lasting institutional reform by identifying the problems, the impact, and the path to building trust, protecting rights, and ensuring justice.
Local governments have their experts. Impacted communities should have theirs, too, so that any reform is true reform that genuinely serves the community’s needs.
Catalyze Reform is a critical community resource to even the odds and empower local groups to take the lead on reform and strengthening independent oversight. We don’t lead; we support and empower the leaders in their own communities.
What kinds of reform efforts can Catalyze Reform support?
We have a network of experts who can, at no cost, support communities on whatever justice issue is important to them. This includes police, jails, schools, and other racial and social justice issues. Our experts can advise informal coalitions, community-based nonprofits, “reimagining” committees, or citizen commissions.
Policies and practices
Catalyze Reform can support communities in addressing policies and practices on use of force, officer-involved shootings, de-escalation, racial profiling, crisis intervention, internal affairs investigations, officer discipline, and other issues in policing.
We also support efforts on jail/prison conditions, racial disparities in student discipline, and racial and other discriminatory harassment in schools.
Independent civilian oversight
Catalyze Reform can also support communities in establishing or strengthening independent civilian oversight of police and other institutions, such as independent police auditors, inspectors general, or citizen commissions.
How Catalyze Reform can support communities
Review / subject matter expertise
Catalyze Reform can review incidents, data, internal investigation reports, oversight structures, and policies and report our observations and recommendations to the community groups and/or on behalf of community groups combatting systemic racial inequities and other abuses.
Strategy / community engagement
Catalyze Reform can advise on advocacy strategy, communications, coalition-building, and community engagement. We can also conduct advocacy and coordinate community engagement on behalf of community groups, when asked to do so.
Training
Catalyze Reform can provide training to community groups on reform, independent police oversight, constitutional rights, civil rights laws, and other topics. We can also work with community groups to put together trainings for local government leaders.
“Community groups shouldn’t just have a ‘seat at the table’ that cities always offer. Impacted communities, particularly communities of color, should sit at the head of the table. That is the only path to real reform.”
— AARON ZISSER, Catalyze Reform founder