Despite crime rates that are at a historic low point, if you read newspapers or watch television these days you may be convinced that there is a crime wave driving the incarceration boom in the U.S. Yet there is little attention given to the costs, both human and financial, of our over-reliance on incarceration, or to the long-term consequences on communities and families who are swept up in the criminal justice net.

Since we began our work in 1999, the Western Prison Project has been a voice speaking out against the over-incarceration of people here in the U.S., particularly people of color and people from low-income communities.

In these past five years, we have produced leading publications addressing significant criminal justice issues, including The Prison Payoff: the Role of Politics and Private Prisons in the Incarceration Boom and The Prison Index – Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry. These publications have been circulated widely to policy makers, the media, and advocates working in the reform movement to give them information they can use in their work.

Since 1999, we have also produced and distributed the 24-page quarterly, Justice Matters. This in-depth newsletter, which focuses on a vital criminal justice topic each issue, is now received by over 5,000 subscribers and is one of the top grassroots reform publications in the country.

We work on an ongoing basis with the news media and organizations throughout our region to promote stories and ideas that help educate the public about critical criminal justice issues. As our work garners more attention, we have become a key source of information for reporters both locally and nationally. This has helped get essential information about criminal justice issues out to a wider audience.

Late in 2003, we launched a coordinated media campaign focusing on our VOICE Project in Oregon, Montana and Utah. We received widespread and favorable media attention in our region, as well as national media stories, helping to boost voter registration among people with past felony convictions, and educate the public about felony disenfranchisement.

WPP remains committed to sharing information so that facts, not fear and rhetoric, shape people's decisions about how we should respond to crime and violence.