EPOCA

Thanks to the dedication of our members and donors, we are working hard on multiple long-term efforts. The links on the bar above will give you information about our current projects and recent wins, and updates will also be provided through the News section of the website.

Our first target of reform has been the CORI system, which allows most employers to screen out any applicant who has a criminal record of any kind. This practice reduces a white person's chances of being called back by 1/2, and an African Americans or other persons of color by 2/3. Clearly, the overuse of CORI is one of the least subtle and most far-reaching ways that people are held down in our society today. Few policies or systems keep people quite so desperate.

However, this struggle is not fundamentally about CORI, which is, after all, only the final measure of oppression in a criminal justice process that is itself the capstone for all the racism, sexism, homophobia, economic exploitation and other forms of oppression in our society. When we are pushed too far by these other forces and act out, the criminal justice system is there to remove us from the equation.

In fact, we are extremely vulnerable to injustices in housing, wages, health care (addiction, mental health, HIV/AIDS...). Meanwhile, our children are being shuffled through an abusive and criminalizing system of DSS and DYS.

CURRENT GOALS

- To win fundamental changes in Massachusetts' CORI system, including automatic non-dissemination of records that are either non-convictions or are convictions for which the sentence was completed more than 10 years ago (for felonies) or 5 years ago (for misdemeanors).

- Also, to win removal of criminal history questions from every application for housing, schooling, or employment throughout the state of Massachusetts. (Both these reforms are on the cusp of passage by the House of Representatives and have already passed in the Senate!)

- To carry out grassroots actions to monitor the enforcement of our City Ordinance and pending state law.

- To continue building our independent, worker-owned biodiesel business, the Empower Energy Cooperative, which will begin operation during the month of March, 2010.

- To carry out an intensive grassroots process of setting goals for a new campaign. Some popular possibilities so far include: 1) tackling injustices in the system of DYS and DSS; 2) fighting to include fair CORI hiring practices in "green jobs" and other employment initiatives; and 3) working to restore funding to educational programs behind the walls.