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AZ AANHPI for Equity is transforming the way communities and governments understand and shape public safety. Rooted in the philosophy of liberatory harm reduction, AZ AANHPI seeks to provide alternative models to the current status quo of the carceral state and end over-policing and over-incarceration that cycles harm and pain within our communities.

Through community programming and advocacy, we are building We Imagine Safety, a community-based public safety platform built on restorative and transformative justice principles, where communities find understanding, resolution, and accountability through collaborative dialogue and healing. We Imagine Safety’s five embodiments of healing include: liberatory harm reduction, family reunification, community-led futures, equity and inclusion, and restorative justice. Our rights restoration initiative Own Your Right 2 Vote will empower felony disenfranchised residents to be a part of the decision-making process.

A Note From We Imagine Safety

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Vision

We imagine an Arizona where safety is no longer defined by an oppressive carceral state, but rather grounded in community dialogue, trauma-informed care, and collective healing.

Mission

AZ AANHPI for Equity harnesses the visionary, healing power of our community to transform the way Arizonans define justice. We believe in the power of collective solidarity to reimagine and rebuild a public safety model rooted in community wellbeing. We aim to fuel policy change across Arizona, including in the areas of criminal justice, immigration, community development, and equity.

FIVE EMBODIMENTS OF HEALING

1. Liberatory Harm Reduction

We are working towards a society where we keep each other safe from harm through compassion and community-centered healing strategies.

Here's How: This is rooted in a philosophy known as liberatory harm reduction which “demands that there’s no one left behind, regardless of their behaviors, beliefs or mistakes.”¹ We believe in applying this compassionate approach to help survivors who have been harmed by our public health and criminal justice systems, including migrants, unhoused people, sex workers, drug users, queer and trans people, people with disabilities, and people impacted by incarceration. We want to meet people where they are, and aim to provide trauma-informed care, sensitivity, and understanding, as well as safe, inclusive spaces to fuel healing and help survivors build meaningful relationships, trust, and community grounded in radical love. ¹ Saving our own lives, Shira Hassan.

Safety is not criminalization

In the current system, people are stigmatized and criminalized for trying to survive. People who survive off of the street economy, like sex workers, can be arrested and imprisoned simply for doing their jobs. Unhoused people often face criminalization simply for not having a home to sleep in. In many cases, the people who are most in need of support are burdened with unrealistic requirements in order to receive treatment, housing, or physical safety; our current public health model requires sobriety in exchange for services.

2. family reunification

We are working towards a society in which families can flourish.

The right to have children and parent them within your culture as you see fit is a basic human right. The needs of families of color, families with various citizenship status, LGBTQ+ families, families with child services cases, and families from other marginalized groups should be listened to and met, not ignored and trampled upon. For example, we imagine that instead of separation, families seeking asylum at the border are met with compassion, given medical and mental health services, and evaluated in trauma-informed and developmentally appropriate settings. Policies and support systems should address the structural inequalities and systemic barriers families encounter, such as equitable access to healthcare, education, affordable housing, and social services.

safety is not family separation

Current narratives and policies are designed to tear families apart. Our immigration system normalizes family separation; children are left to navigate terrifying, harmful, prison-like facilities around the country -- alone. Likewise, over-policing and mass incarceration leads to families of color being separated over crimes of survival and poverty, filling foster homes with traumatized children when they could be at home with their parents. The conservative “Families First” narrative marginalizes diverse family structures, including single-parent families, blended families, LGBTQ+ families, or chosen families. By marginalizing these families, the narrative perpetuates stigmatization, discrimination, and a lack of support for those who do not fit within the hetero-white supremacist mold.

3. Community-led future

We are working towards a society in which “development” is community-led and community-focused.

Community-led development empowers local residents and community organizations to play a key role in decisions that impact their livelihoods. We believe in community investment, which looks like prioritizing affordable housing, social services, and infrastructure while preserving community and culture. We believe in investing in social services and community-focused infrastructure, including schools, parks, public transportation, and small businesses. We believe in protecting and expanding affordable housing through strategies like rent control, mixed-income housing, inclusionary zoning, and community land trusts, which can help preserve affordable housing stock. Check out our previous work advocating for community-led futures through our campaign Don't Get Pucked Outta Tempe.

Safety is not gentrification or displacement

The development of working communities by corporations and wealthy individuals from outside of the community, known as gentrification, marginalizes and displaces existing lower-income community members and communities of color by raising property values and the cost-of-living in neighborhoods. This process often comes with increased policing at the expense of poor people, unhoused people, and people of color. It prioritizes economic profit over community-oriented development.

4. Equity & Inclusion For all

We are working towards a society in which biases and discrimination are challenged, instead of accepted as the norm.

We envision a society where lawmakers craft policies that meet the needs of historically marginalized communities, not exclude them. We strongly believe in the power of embedding anti-bias training, anti-racism principles, and diversity education (including race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender expression, disability, socioeconomic and educational background) into policymaking systems. We advocate for individuals in decision-making positions, including state legislators, and city officials, to receive bias-informed training and education in order to ensure that each individual, regardless of their identity, can feel safe and flourish. We believe in a world where everyone is treated with respect and dignity, and where everyone’s human rights and civil rights are upheld.

Safety is not allowing biases to shape public policy

The development of working communities by corporations and wealthy individuals from outside of the community, known as gentrification, marginalizes and displaces existing lower-income community members and communities of color by raising property values and the cost-of-living in neighborhoods. This process often comes with increased policing at the expense of poor people, unhoused people, and people of color. It prioritizes economic profit over community-oriented development.

5. Restorative Justice

We are working towards a society in which justice is restorative and transformative.

We believe in restorative justice, where people directly impacted by injustices and community members can come together with individuals who caused harm to find understanding, resolution, and accountability without cages. We believe in treating everyone with humanity and dignity, and in providing safe spaces for individuals impacted by incarceration to heal and restore their rights, and for community members who have been historically marginalized to learn about avenues towards civic engagement and empowerment. We seek to build community safety, accountability, and healing outside of current state systems. We believe that it is necessary to begin working towards frameworks that reduce harm and limit cycles of violence. We recognize that state systems (like prisons, foster care, and ICE detention) are rooted in oppression. Ultimately, we believe in the power of our community to reimagine and transform the way we define justice.

Safety is not punitive and does not limit rights.

Our current punishment and incarceration systems, including the immigration system, are inhumane. Arizona has the 8th highest incarceration rate in the world, with harsh mandatory minimum laws that imprison non-violent offenders for long periods of time. Our state is notorious for terrible living conditions in its jails and prisons, where people have died due to negligence and abuse.This infrastructure is often built to maximize corporate profit, while the peoples’ tax dollars — over $1 billion per year — go towards caging people for crimes of poverty and survival instead of rehabilitation, treatment, education, housing, or other forms of social support. In most cases, people in jails, prisons, treatment centers and sober living are excluded from exercising their rights to vote, or are not provided with the tools and access to do so.

Own Your Right 2 Vote

Arizona is one of the most difficult states to navigate when it comes to rights restoration for formerly incarcerated people. For many Arizonans seeking to restore their rights after conviction and/or incarceration, the process can be extremely long, complicated, and overwhelming.

AZ AANHPI for Equity seeks to support those impacted by felony disenfranchisement through our rights restoration program. Help us uplift your voice and make sure your needs are heard!

What is felony disenfranchisement?

Even though most countries do not have felony disenfranchisement, many U.S. states suspend rights as a result of a criminal conviction. In the US, as a result of felony disenfranchisement, 5.3 million people with prior convictions do not have the right to vote — a process that essentially silences the voices of millions of people, even though they are valuable members of our communities with voices, opinions, hopes, and political beliefs that matter.

What are common barriers to rights restoration in Arizona?

If someone has multiple convictions, their voting rights will not be automatically restored. However, they may be eligible to apply to restore their right to vote through an application process post-“absolute discharge”.

How do I begin the rights restoration process in Arizona?

Under Arizona law, all people who are convicted of felonies lose the right to vote unless they have been “restored to civil rights.” If you have one (1) felony conviction, your voting rights will be automatically restored once you have:
(1) been discharged from your sentence, including probation and parole AND
(2) paid off any court-ordered restitution from the conviction.

Who should take our Rights Restoration Survey?

If you have been impacted by felony disenfranchisement, this survey is for you. The Rights Restoration Survey is AZ AANHPI’s outreach tool for finding people who need their rights restored, as well as to help us collect information to advocate for a better rights restoration process in Arizona.
Take the Survey

We Imagine Safety

Arizonans need a new voice. For far too long, elected officials are lobbied by for- profit interests while marginalized community members are facing evictions, battling mental health issues, working two to three jobs, lacking healthcare and bodily autonomy, are separated from family, and are stigmatized rather than supported. We Imagine Safety is our attempt to bring our voices to the forefront and to advocate for a collective society that builds each other up, not tear each other down. 

As the 13th most diverse state in the country, we need to address the disparities of marginalized people so we do not fall into the bad history of segregation or pushing communities out. With our intersectionalities of being women, non-binary, trans, queer, people of color, workers, tenants, unhoused, justice-impacted, migrants, first generation Americans, and disabled, we need to make sure our stories are uplifted and considered when shaping culture and policy. We Imagine Safety counteracts the harmful narratives and policies our people face due to us being unseen and unheard throughout history.  

We Imagine Safety came into fruition when our office was met with the unhoused community whose encampments were demolished. Our rapid response team set up a program called Coffee & Donuts where we built relationships and trust with one another while our safety outreach coordinators addressed their needs. We were able to unite families with our conflict resolution training, get folks into treatment through research and networking, organize food, clothes, and blanket drives with coalition partners, save lives with our liberatory harm reduction tactics we learned from Shot In The Dark, and keep people safe from criminalization by building trust with one another. Our program was exactly how we wanted to see the government and community address societal issues and that is why we are educating folks about these topics. 

I am hoping that with our compassionate approach, we can revive, hope, and heal as a collective. Our society has been reactive to issues, but now we can slow down and really analyze the solutions we have been implementing for decades. We have been cycling through hurt and pain with our punitive systems when social workers know the solutions are in healing from our generational traumas. I hope to find you in these spaces so you realize you are not alone, and see that there is a movement of visionaries working to build a future we are proud of. 

Today, our communities face an urgent challenge. Immigration laws that are meant to protect have often served as tools of division and dehumanization. Fortunately, we all have the voice and the strength to do what is right. Our communities have won for the right to be citizens, the right to vote, and the right to fight back. Our country can move forward on the path of justice, only if we take these steps together and take it now.
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