UnCommon Law

Life sentencing is a mass incarceration problem. Today, there are too many people in prison, and too few pathways home. 76% of people in prison are serving time for a violent and/or serious crime. In California alone, 35,000 people are serving life sentences - that amounts to roughly a third of our state’s prison population. Two thirds of them are Black or Brown. The vast majority of people in prison experienced serious trauma prior to their incarceration. Research has shown that between 62% and 87% of people incarcerated in men’s prisons have experienced traumatic events at some point in their lifetime, and the rate is even higher for women and those who identify as transgender. UnCommon Law is at the forefront of changing public narratives about people serving lengthy prison sentences for violent crime. For the past 15 years, our team has fought to ensure that all people incarcerated for violent crime have access to healing, justice, and effective legal representation. Through our unique, trauma-informed model of advocacy, we provide the space currently missing in the system for healing, accountability, and safe pathways home from prison. In developing new self narratives, the people we serve are able to more effectively disrupt violence inside and outside prison, and become leaders who change negative societal narratives about those incarcerated for violent crime. Our groundbreaking approach is changing policy and outcomes, driven by the voices and experiences of system-impacted communities.