Beyond the Bars

Beyond the Bars is a worker center in Miami-Dade County that organizers workers with criminal records. Our members primarily work in precarious, low-wage jobs within the service, construction, and logistics sectors, while also engaging in various side-hustles in the informal economy. Our mission is to build the social and economic power of our members through policy innovation, leadership development, community organizing, and healing justice.

The context for our work:

One-third of workers in the US have a criminal record. The systems responsible for this staggering number of criminalized workers can be traced to the social, political, and economic changes of the 1970s and 1980s, marked by deindustrialization and an expansion of police powers following years of social revolution. On one hand, the US labor landscape shifted from stable, long-term employment with benefits and strong unions to precarious, short-term contract jobs with lower pay and fewer benefits. On the other, social services, public health, and welfare functions were radically defunded at all levels of government.                        

The consequence: incarceration surged by 500%, as new laws empowered police and prosecutors to imprison a surplus and increasingly destitute labor force and cash-strapped local governments began to levy extraordinary carceral fines and fees. At the same time, labor standards were depressed and organizing efforts were suppressed across the labor market.                        

Beyond the Bars is the first worker center in the country to challenge the central role of criminalization in the economy, confronting private sector entities and municipal & state policies to raise the wage floor & increase worker protections in industries most reliant on the labor of criminalized workers, eliminate all carceral fines and fees, and reduce the number of arrests, prosecutions, and incarcerations.     

Over the past three years, we have:

>> Eliminated more than $5M in jail fees and $70M in jail debt, affecting appx. 60,000 people booked annually.   

>> Run 2 neighborhood-based canvasses and 4 canvasses in county jails, surveying appx. 700 impacted people, with reports on the state of criminalized workers forthcoming. 

>> Graduated 5 criminalized workers from a six-month, paid fellowship program, providing hands-on training on base- building, policy advocacy, and public speaking, and engaging in intensive political and popular education. 

>> Educated appx. 100 members on labor protections, municipal fines and fees, prison industry, and more; ran training on county budgets and mobilized appx. 100 members to budget hearings.      

>> Hosted two “We the People” poetry slams, raising funds for incarcerated artists and displaying their artwork.

>> Supported 42 families through participatory defense program, resulting in the release of 12 people who were facing sentences >10 years.          

>> Established a medical mobile clinic at probation office, providing on-site medical care.                   

>> Developed monthly poetry workshop to be taught to dozens of poets incarcerated in the county jail.