A Decade of Building Power, Policy, and Possibility

From Campaigns to a Permanent Institution: Building Power to End Permanent Punishments

My journey in this work began in 2012 with a simple but radical understanding: people living with arrest and conviction records must not only share their stories, WE must lead the strategy, design the solutions, and hold power in the fight for change. Over the past decade, every campaign, coalition, and legislative victory I’ve been part of has reinforced this truth. And it is precisely what led to the creation of the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments, an organization built to be a permanent institution carrying this fight forward for generations.

I began organizing with Fighting to Overcome Records & Create Equality (F.O.R.C.E.), an initiative of Community Renewal Society, a grassroots group led by directly impacted people demanding dignity, opportunity, and justice. In those early years, we pushed for Illinois’ first major expansion of record sealing, increasing eligibility from three convictions to nine. At the time, this challenged a deeply entrenched belief that punishment should follow people for life. Directly impacted leaders testified in committee hearings, met with lawmakers, and built relationships that moved policy. But just as importantly, they were learning how to negotiate, draft legislation, analyze systems, and build political power, not simply share personal stories.

Around the same time, we launched a local employment organizing campaign to expose how discrimination against people with records operated in practice. We sent over 100 qualified individuals most with college degrees and years of stability into local Walgreens stores to apply for jobs. None were called for interviews. This action revealed that the barrier was not readiness, but stigma. The campaign helped lead to Walgreens changing its hiring practices and contributed to broader fair chance employment reforms. It also showed directly impacted people that they could use data, coordinated action, and public accountability to move corporations not just appeal to their empathy.

From 2014 to 2017, as the work expanded, directly impacted leaders across multiple organizations recognized the growing need for coordinated statewide power. I became part of forming the Restoring Rights & Opportunity Coalition of Illinois (RROCI), a table led by directly impacted organizers determined to dismantle the structural barriers that kept people locked out of entire employment sectors.

Through RROCI, we launched and led the Absolute Bars Campaign, challenging laws that made it illegal for employers in health care, schools, park districts, and transit authorities to hire people with certain records  regardless of rehabilitation, qualifications, or time passed. This campaign not only opened employment pathways for thousands, but also demonstrated that directly impacted leaders could build statewide alliances, navigate complex policy landscapes, and drive systemic change.

We advanced legislation that reduced waiting periods, converted lifetime bans into time-limited restrictions, and created the foundation for today’s healthcare background check reform process. These victories opened real employment pathways for thousands of people. But more importantly, they demonstrated that directly impacted leaders could navigate complex policy, negotiate with agencies, and architect legislative solutions, not just advocate for them.

In 2017, we passed what was then the most expansive sealing law in the nation, expanding eligibility from nine convictions to thousands of offense categories including both violent and non-violent convictions. This victory was intentional in tearing down the false dichotomy that had long divided people into “deserving” and “undeserving” based on labels rather than growth, accountability, and time. We challenged the idea that some people were worthy of redemption while others were permanently excluded.

This win changed lives across Illinois. But it also revealed a deeper problem: even with expanded eligibility, relief still required individuals to navigate complex court systems, pay fees, and file paperwork. Access to justice remained tied to resources, leaving too many behind.

It was at this moment that a larger vision took shape.

We also knew that the fight against permanent punishments could not depend on temporary campaigns or the shifting priorities of organizations that mobilize for a single bill and move on once the moment passes. Our communities needed more than short-term, reactive reform cycles; we needed permanent power.

That understanding led to the creation of a permanent institution, led by directly impacted people, capable of driving long-term strategy, building infrastructure, developing leaders, and sustaining movement power across generations. That vision became the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments, a home for continuous organizing, policy design, leadership development, and narrative change, rooted in lived experience and built to carry this fight forward for the long haul.

The Coalition was built to ensure directly impacted people are not brought in only to share their trauma, but to write legislation, lead negotiations, design campaigns, analyze systems, mobilize voters, manage data, fundraise, and build organizational infrastructure. Just as importantly, it was built to lead implementation to ensure that policy wins do not stop at passage, but translate into real-world impact for the people they were intended to serve.

It is a home for leadership development, organizing, policy design, narrative change, civic engagement, and implementation oversight  all rooted in lived experience and sustained political power.

In 2023, we passed the FREE Act, restoring the right of people with records to serve as executors of loved ones’ estates  affirming dignity, family responsibility, and community stability.

And in 2025, after more than four years of coalition-building, research, organizing, and policy design, we passed and secured the signing of the Clean Slate Act legislation that automates the sealing of eligible records. The campaign was led by a steering committee of directly impacted organizations and supported by over 75 partner organizations statewide. It demonstrated that people once excluded from democracy could build bipartisan alliances, craft sophisticated policy, and deliver one of the most transformative justice reforms in the country.

Today, the Coalition is leading implementation of Clean Slate  ensuring that automation works, records are cleared, and relief reaches the millions who need it. At the same time, we are advancing the Fully Free Campaign to identify and dismantle the more than 1,000 statutory permanent punishments still embedded in Illinois law.

Looking back, the thread across every chapter is clear: this work has always been about building directly impacted political power, not charity. Not storytelling alone. Not short-term reform. But permanent infrastructure capable of reshaping law, narrative, and democracy itself.

What began in 2012 as a fight for a second chance has grown into a movement to end permanent punishment altogether led by the very people the system once tried to erase.

And we are just getting started.