Formerly Incarcerated & Convicted People and Families Movement

The Formerly Incarcerated & Convicted People and Families Movement (FICPM) is a network of over 50 civil and human rights organizations led by people with conviction histories and their families. Art for Justice supports its efforts to restore voting rights for people who were incarcerated and eliminate cash bail, as well as plan for its 2020 national conference. The Movement will also leverage the grant funding for COVID-19 rapid response efforts, including mutual aid and legal intervention for decarceration.

Art for Justice supports FICPFM in its efforts to dismantle of the mass incarceration system by promoting the leadership of those with lived experience. Key goals of our 2021 partnership include efforts to shore up the growing number of Quest for Democracy groups (Q4D). These groups are FICPFM’s capacity-building project consisting of 32 organizations across 18 states that build civic engagement and community organizing for returning citizens across the country. FICPFM will award grants to these groups to strategically plan to sustain their movement building.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, with its most recent grant, FICPFM was able to design and deploy a COVID-19 rapid response across its network, including mutual aid, medical treatment, legal interventions and sustained pressure to hold public officials accountable. FICPFM also expanded its digital organizing efforts and trained groups to use online organizing tools.

FICPFM hosted its bi-annual national gathering virtually in September 2020, which was a forum to educate, organize and mobilize the more than 1,200 formerly incarcerated attendees from across the country on the best practices of community organizing, civic engagement and strategic communication.

In advance of the presidential election, it educated and mobilized voters who were directly affected. These efforts spanned 22 organizations – with regrants ranging from $5,000 to $75,000 – and 13 regions (Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington DC). As a result, FICPFM registered more than 30,000 formerly incarcerated/convicted people and their families to vote and spoke with more than 100,000 voter contacts across the country.

Through its Art for Justice Activating Art and Advocacy grant, FICPM and the Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice will create a film showing the journey of the families of two young Latinx men murdered by the police as they gather the support and tools needed to demand justice. Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice has identified a gap in understanding of the ways in which police violence impacts Latinx communities. This project, along with Communities United’s ongoing organizing work, aims to create a new consciousness and to join Latinx and Black communities in the fight against police violence.