The public receives numerous inaccurate, unfair, and prejudicial messages about the criminal legal system. Countering these messages and driving a narrative based on facts is imperative if we are to challenge and change harmful systems. Through strategic communications, we combine groundbreaking research with the voices of people impacted by the criminal legal and immigration systems to create powerful messaging that can advance opportunities to create more equitable systems of justice.

Vera’s communications team nearly tripled in size this year, increasing our capacity to correct misperceptions and drive public opinion toward reform. Through media coverage, blog posts, reports, op-eds, multimedia reports, and social media, Vera is reaching a larger audience and attracting more supporters to our work to achieve justice for all.

Vera Makes News

The press has historically served as a link between the people and the government that represents them, bringing accountability and transparency to a variety of systems. However, the media has also been responsible for many narratives that resulted in mass incarceration and an increasingly militarized police force. As media strategists, we shape narratives by creating a pipeline of stories and ideas that influence the press to shed light on the need for significant criminal legal system and immigration system reforms and to look at these issues with a racial equity lens.

Sona Rai
Media Strategy Director

Reaching people through media coverage of criminal legal and immigration issues is an integral part of Vera’s strategy to advance transformative change. Vera remains a trusted source of data, analysis, and expert commentary for national and local media outlets and appeared in dozens of news articles, op-eds, radio and television programs, and online publications in 2021. Each of these appearances allows Vera to advance facts that support our goal to eradicate racism in the criminal legal and immigration systems and transform them into systems that allow our communities to thrive. Here is a sampling of Vera’s most impactful 2021 media appearances:

• “New York Gave Every Detained Immigrant a Lawyer. It Could Serve as a National Model,” Vox, June 9, 2021
• “By Depending On Police, Biden’s Gun Violence Plan Will Not Make Communities Safer,” The Hill, July 1, 2021
• “Bail Reform Isn’t to Blame for Gun Violence,” New York Daily News, July 27, 2021
• “Minnesota County Attorney to Stop Prosecuting Non–Public Safety Traffic Stops in Honor of Philando Castile,“ CNN, September 9, 2021
• “The Jail on Rikers Island is Both Appalling and Generously Funded,” The Economist, October 2, 2021

Key Publications Amplify Vera’s Research and Center the Stories of Directly Impacted People

The written word is a key component of any campaign to inform, persuade, and drive narrative and behavioral change. Vera's publications are an integral part of our overall communications strategy to advance Vera's core priorities.

Cindy Reed
Editorial Stategy Director