Our Mission
LSPC organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights, and to reunify families and communities. We build public awareness of structural racism in policing, the courts, and the prison system, and we advance racial and gender justice in all our work.
Our Strategies include legal support, trainings, advocacy, public education, grassroots mobilization and developing community partnerships.
We Believe
We believe in fighting racism and economic injustice as a means to ending mass incarceration.
We believe in the human dignity of people in prison and recognize that they come from and are part of our communities.
We believe in the right and responsibility of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people to speak and be heard in our own voices, transform our lives and communities, and fully participate in all aspects of society.
We Believe
We believe in public safety, and that it is achieved when all people have voice, communities thrive and our society is just.
We believe in the equality of all people, regardless of race, sex, gender, sexual identity, national origin, religion, physical or mental ability, and age.
We believe in and fight for the leadership of people most impacted by the prison industry.
We Believe
We believe in maintaining our core principles in our work and relationships.
We believe in living the change we want to see in the world.
Our Roots
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) is one of the first organizations in the country that was formed to support people in prison, specifically women, at a time when their struggles were nearly invisible. Over the last 40 years we have grown from a small law office to a national organization with a unique approach that engages in law, policy, communications, and community organizing to advance our work. We have expanded our focus from women in prison to include all incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and their families. We have seeded and served as an incubator to trailblazing organizations like Critical Resistance, Justice Now, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Prison Activist Resource Center and more. We have litigated dozens of cases resulting in trendsetting legal standards including expanding alternatives to incarceration, ending long term solitary confinement in California, and the protection of pregnant incarcerated people. Not only has our legal work protected the human rights and health of millions of currently and formerly incarcerated people, we’ve trained hundreds of attorneys and legal workers along the way.