Truth and Reconciliation

Louisiana (LA.), a state known for its vibrant culture and unique heritage, unfortunately also bears the heavy burden of being one of the most heavily policed and incarcerated states in the country. LA. has the most prisoners per capita in the entire world. The residents of Louisiana, particularly those of color, face an alarming and unsettling reality – frequent, unconstitutional interactions with law enforcement that all too often escalate to violence, leaving individuals with little hope for justice.

Since 2013, residents of Louisiana have filed over 3,000 civilian complaints about police misconduct, of which only 10% were ruled in favor of civilians. Over the same period, we witnessed over 200 lives lost to police violence, with rare instances of accountability.

The impacts of this systemic problem ripple far beyond the initial encounters. Victims of police violence not only have to grapple with the physical injuries and psychological trauma inflicted upon them but must also navigate a criminal legal system steeped in historical racial biases. This system often wrongfully convicts these victims or coerces them into pleading to fabricated resisting arrest charges, further deepening the injustice.

It is in the face of these grim statistics and dire circumstances that the ACLU of Louisiana’s (ACLU-LA) Justice Lab: Putting Racist Policing on Trial™ was established.  The Justice Lab is an intensive litigation and storytelling effort to challenge racially discriminatory policing practices and combat police violence against people of color.

In addition to fighting police violence in the courts, ACLU-LA’s Justice Lab is also working to pilot radical redistribution models that create transformative and scalable programs to upend racist policing, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of poverty. To this end, the Justice Lab approached F4GI to help establish an innovative guaranteed income program for families impacted by police violence, funded directly by families who benefited from racial inequities. 

The resulting program, the Truth & Reconciliation Guaranteed Income Program, is funded in part by a $1 million commitment from Deacon Buck Close and Gracie Close, whose family profited from the labor of enslaved people.

The Truth & Reconciliation Guaranteed Income Program is the first guaranteed income program in the country to focus specifically on those impacted by police violence. The financial support provided by the program is intended to alleviate some of the economic burdens caused by racial injustice and systemic oppression.

ACLU-LA’s innovative Truth & Reconciliation program will support thirteen to fifteen people who experienced police violence or harassment and whose cases are no longer active but who did not receive settlement money. The program will deliver cash transfers of $1,000 a month for one year.