Focus Areas

Guidelines  |  Grantee List

The mission of the Sentencing & Incarceration Alternatives Project (the Alternatives Project) is to reduce the scale of incarceration in the United States. Radical increases in rates of incarceration and increasingly severe criminal punishments threaten open society values by building a permanent underclass in the United States defined largely by race and income. To counter this trend, the Alternatives Project supports advocates, researchers, and practitioners advancing campaigns, research initiatives, and policies that seek to:

• eliminate race and class disparities in sentencing and incarceration;
• reduce the length of criminal sentences and promote judicial discretion in sentencing;
• promote alternatives to incarceration that emphasize rehabilitation and treatment;
• limit prison growth and prison privatization; and
• empower communities most affected by mass incarceration to develop and advocate for alternative policies that address underlying social, racial and economic inequality.

For further information, please see the Sentencing & Incarceration Alternatives Project grant guidelines.