Increasingly, victims of crime and their surviving family members are speaking out for reconciliation, rather than retribution, in the debate over criminal justice reform. In April, about 500 people gathered at the Convention Center in downtown Sacramento, California for the annual Survivors Speak Conference. The conference, organized by Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ), a Public Welfare Foundation grantee, has become an important measure of the increasing recognition that crime survivors should be included in discussions about criminal justice reform and that, very often, perpetrators, victims and survivors come from the same communities, and even the same families. They were seeking not only more services to help them heal, but more resources for the violence-plagued communities that have been hit hardest by crime and incarceration.
