OUR STORY

The Campaign for Criminal Justice and Transparency (CCJT) was started out of a forum hosted by “Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community Trust” (ALPACT) Kalamazoo County branch, an organization comprised of local law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and community members. The ALPACT forum was called “Transparency and Accountability in the Prosecutorial Process” which was facilitated by then Kalamazoo County Defenders Inc Executive Director Josh Hilgart and County Prosecutor Jeffrey S. Getting. The goal of the forum was to help the public identify what it believed would be most helpful in bringing transparency to the prosecutorial process within the county and helping them organize themselves into a campaign. The public discussed the topic and asked Prosecutor Getting many questions about his work and office. While a number of potential campaigns were discussed the Open Database initiative became the main interest.

The participating community then met for a second meeting to discuss how it would obtain such data and decided that requesting the Kalamazoo County Commission vote to build such a database would be the best first step. Due to ALPACT being sponsored by the State of Michigan it does not allow for the lobbying of local government, so the members decided to form the Campaign for Criminal Justice Transparency (CCJT). After completing the resolution and presenting it to the county commission it was successfully passed in November 2021. Currently the citizen advisory committee comprised solely of individuals impacted by the criminal legal system has been seated and our ready to begin work on the goals outlined in the resolution.

“Today CCJT has started on a path of hearing what the community needs and wants for themselves and has made effort to implement these things alongside of them while educating where needed along the way. Working side by side with orgs, community, and those in the system who wants change CCJT has created a safe space for conversation and the work that needs to be done.”
— Executive Director Ashante Collins

Partners

  • ALPACT

    Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community Trust

  • Gryphon Place

  • Kalamazoo Defender

  • ISAAC

    Interfaith Strategy for Advocacy & Action in the Community