There is no one person in the community who makes all the decisions relating to the local criminal legal system. Instead, the decisions of law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, probation officers, county councils, and jail administrators all add up to determine which community members are incarcerated. But the power to enact change doesn’t start or end with the government actors who have formal purview over certain operations. Everyone in the community should understand what unique power they wield to advocate for decarceration and determine how to use their position to best achieve change.

• Community organizers. Community-based organizers and advocacy groups have the power to lead campaigns and build public pressure for change that is directed at local decision makers. They can request data from system actors to build accountability and highlight opportunities for reform, demand better of their local elected representatives, and educate others in the community about injustices that are perpetrated by the local system. They can also engage in regular court watching to monitor a particular problem or the implementation of a solution, attend public meetings focusing on criminal legal system issues, or bring in state or national reform organizations for input and publicity. They can also mobilize and organize community residents to support or oppose criminal legal system issues on the local ballot.
• Journalists. Reporters and journalists have the power to shape public opinion about the local criminal legal system. They decide what stories to tell, how to investigate those stories, and what angle their stories will take. They play a critical role in shining a light on local injustice, building pressure for local system actors to take certain policy actions, and holding local actors accountable for their decisions. Journalists also have the power to influence how the larger community views system-impacted people by pushing their newsrooms to use dignifying language, avoid using photos or language that play into the presumption of guilt for marginalized groups, and involve perspectives of people who have been impacted by the local system in local stories when possible.^[]See generally Lawrence Bartley, Lisette Bamenga, Adria Watson et al., The Language Project, edited by Akiba Solomon (New York: The Marshall Project, 2021), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2021/04/12/the-language-project.
• Judges. Judicial officers have enormous power within local systems. They decide who gets released from or detained in jail pretrial, who must pay in order to secure their freedom and how much, and the restrictiveness of pretrial release or probation terms. They also determine when to issue bench warrants, including when certain terms of pretrial release are not met, such as when someone fails to appear for court. In some cases, judges make determinations of guilt, and almost always, judges determine the sentence someone receives after they are convicted. Chief judges may also issue standing orders related to court or case administration that other judges must follow, including on issues such as making bail determinations and issuing warrants.
• Law enforcement. Local law enforcement agencies, such as police and sheriff’s departments, decide, within the confines of the law, who gets stopped, who gets arrested, whether or not they are booked into jail, and what charges are recommended for prosecution. State law determines the scope of local law enforcement authority to issue citations in lieu of arrest, but, although state law often allows broad use of citations, law enforcement authorities might formally adopt only a subset of those uses as departmental policy, typically with many exceptions.
• Local legislators and city and county executives. Local officials determine a community’s spending priorities, make funding decisions for local system agencies, fund community services that can help community members avoid legal system entanglement, and enact or repeal local policies. For example, local county councils can enact or repeal ordinances that criminalize life-sustaining behaviors associated with poverty, such as ordinances banning sitting or sleeping outside, loitering, or soliciting or receiving help.^[]Madeline Bailey, Erica Crew, and Madz Reeve, No Access to Justice: Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness and Jail (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2020), https://perma.cc/J353-MJ2U.
• Probation officers. Probation agencies determine what is required for people to comply with probation terms, when to report to the court that someone has violated their probation terms, when to recommend someone for termination of probation, and what fees someone under supervision must pay to remain in compliance. In many states, local courts contract with private companies to handle supervision. The payments to those companies are contingent on how many people are under supervision; given that companies can decide when to recommend early termination of supervision or when to report violations, this creates problematic incentives for keeping a person on probation.
• Prosecutors. City and county prosecutors, sometimes called district, city, or state’s attorneys, decide what crimes are prosecuted, who gets prosecuted, and who is offered diversion in lieu of prosecution. They also make bail recommendations to the court, control most of the evidence in a case, offer plea bargains, and make sentencing recommendations to the court. Lead prosecutors have the authority to adopt office declination policies—through which they publicly commit to not prosecute certain categories of charges—and have the ability to make powerful statements of support for policy changes falling under other agencies’ discretion, such as bail policies issued by the court or citation in lieu of arrest policies issued by law enforcement.
• Public defenders. County or state public defender offices are positioned to provide powerful frontline evidence of the many ways in which people who experience poverty, behavioral health challenges, or other forms of social and personal trauma are disadvantaged within local criminal legal systems. Public defenders and court-appointed defense attorneys can speak to the culture and practices of prosecutors’ offices and law enforcement and assist in holding those agencies accountable for promised changes. Public defenders can advocate for referring people to diversion opportunities and sharing stories of clients who have been successful in diversion or who have experienced harms within the system.
• Researchers. Local researchers and academics can request and analyze data from agencies in nearby cities and counties, conduct interviews with system-impacted people, draw conclusions from research that support the need for changes to the local criminal legal system, and use that research to point to evidence-based policy solutions. They can testify before local or state legislatures, issue reports and articles that community advocacy groups can use to support their campaigns, and provide data analysis and policy expertise to local system actors. Researchers often can develop a rapport with system actors that allows them to build the case for change from a neutral perspective.
• Sheriffs and jail administrators. Local jail administrators—often, but not always, the sheriff’s office—are tasked with staffing local jail facilities, collecting and maintaining data on jail bookings and operations, and coordinating operations and services within the jail and with other agencies, such as courts and state departments of corrections. They have the power to connect and build relationships with local service providers, advocate for local decarceration policies that will result in fewer people in jail, and speak out against expansion of local jail capacity. Sheriffs also have the authority to enter into or end jail-bed rental agreements with other counties, state departments of corrections, and federal agencies. Some jail administrators have implemented significant changes to conditions and culture inside the jail. They typically have rapport with local law enforcement officials and can help illustrate the harmful impact of punitive enforcement policies on the jail and larger community.
• State legislators. Legislators at the state level write the state criminal code and enact state-level policy on a wide range of criminal legal system issues. They have the authority to take actions such as adopting statewide bail reform, reclassifying categories of state criminal charges, scaling back state sentencing laws, and ensuring that counties have the guidance and resources to effectively implement state-level changes.
• System-impacted people. People who have experienced the local criminal legal system firsthand have the unique power to illuminate injustices within the system that others may not clearly see. They can provide critical perspectives and expertise in policy discussions, raise awareness of any unintended consequences that might arise from proposed reforms, and hold community advocacy organizations accountable for demanding necessary change.