As organizers, we know what our communities want and deserve: safety, accountability, and justice. But too often, politicians and elected officials present us with a false choice between safety and justice in order to distract us from their failure to deliver either. Those of us who have worked on criminal legal reform know what works to prevent crime and stop violence in our communities, and we know that mass incarceration and detention only move us further away from true safety and justice. 

Too many politicians lack the political will to fund solutions that challenge the status quo and deliver real safety for our communities. Our current political playbook is stuck in outdated “tough-on-crime” politics and rhetoric that do not reflect the will of our communities and criminalize communities of color. For those reasons, this rhetoric has failed in recent election cycles. Politicians employing this rhetoric have failed to deliver the safety and solutions people need and demand. As a handful of politicians continue leaning hard into the “tough” playbook in 2024, advocates and organizers must be prepared to address attempts to divide and demonize our communities. To move the conversation to be rooted in both good policy and good politics, we must ask not who is “tougher on crime,” but who is truly “serious about safety.”

This message guidance has been compiled to help organizing groups tell a comprehensive, solutions-oriented story that rejects racialized “tough-on-crime” rhetoric and drives us forward to the vision of safety, accountability, and justice our families need. The messaging recommendations in this guide build upon Vera Action’s 20 rounds of messaging research and its ongoing 10-year campaign to change the way candidates talk about crime, working to neutralize politicians’ reliance on over-policing and mass incarceration as campaign messages. In this guide, We Make The Future Action has taken Vera’s findings and infused them with valuable lessons gained from supporting state partners.

The issues discussed in this guide are highly localized. Organizers will need to adapt these messages to meet the needs of our communities. Feel free to use the provided messaging verbatim or adapt it to speak more accurately to your audience and context.

Click here to read the messaging guide from Vera Action and We Make The Future Action.