Our Jewish values guide us toward a deep commitment to healing and repairing our world, and the BREATHE Act provides us with a concrete roadmap to realize this commitment. Realizing our vision of safety requires us to divest from the systems that cause harm — police, prisons, and more — and invest in building systems that sustain and support life. We are part of a powerful Black led, multi-racial, multi-sector movement demanding transformational change at all levels of government and society through investment in our communities and the infrastructure that keeps us safe — schools, public health, and more.

Read on to learn more about the BREATHE Act platform and the world we’re seeking to build. These recommendations are merely suggestions for where to start! Further reading and links to resource pages from our partners can be found below.

The BREATHE Act

• The BREATHE Act Is A Counterproposal To Justice In Policing Act - NPR 
• Black Women Are The Beating Hearts Behind The BREATHE Act - Essence
• The Breathe Act: A love letter via policy - The Activist Files Podcast

Section 1: Divesting federal resources from incarceration and policing & ending criminal-legal system harms

This BREATHE Act section terminates the federal programs and agencies that have been responsible for driving mass criminalization and incarceration. It also makes direct changes to shrink, end the abuses of, and decarcerate the federal criminal-legal and immigration systems. To understand how some of these programs and agencies came to be, who they harm, and why we should divest from them, start here: 

• The Invention of the Police - New Yorker 
• Defund Police Divest Explainer - Vox 
• Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind - The New York Times Magazine
• Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide - Slate 
• The Anti-Black and Anti-Semitic History of “Outside Agitators”: An Interview with Spencer Sunshine - It's Going Down 
• This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City - Scalawag

Section 2: Investing in new approaches to community safety utilizing funding incentives

Section 2 of the BREATHE Act builds out the infrastructure for a new paradigm of public safety: a non-punitive, non-carceral, prevention-oriented approach to community safety grounded in public health rather than criminal punishment. As Jews, we have a sacred obligation to pikuach nefesh, to preserve life. We can’t keep our community safe using the violent tools of white supremacy. New approaches to community safety are already here: 

• A new community safety blueprint: How the federal government can address violence and harm through a public health approach - Brookings
• The Future of Public Safety is Here in Newark - The Nation
• A New Story of Safety - Pollen

Section 3: Allocating new money to build healthy, sustainable & equitable communities for all people

BREATHE Act Section 3 invests funds into specific areas that are proven to ensure all communities can thrive regardless of the racial, immigration status, or economic make up of that community: education justice, health & family justice, environmental justice, economic justice, and housing justice. Here are some powerful examples:

• The People's Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance - Congressional Progressive Caucus
• How Buffalo residents are getting creative to eliminate the city’s ‘food deserts’ - Fast Company

Section 4: Holding officials accountable & enhancing self-determination of Black communities

Section 4 seeks to establish accountability: historical accountability for the U.S. legacy of racial exclusion and violence; political accountability through free and fair elections; and democratic accountability through measures that will enhance accountability for law enforcement. Here's what that accountability can look like:

• M4BL Presents Black Futures: An Ode to Freedom Summer - M4BL
• The Black Panthers: Ten Point Program
• Reparations Now Toolkit - M4BL