Our Impact | Texas CJE

25 Years of Community-Centered Advocacy

Since our founding in 2000, the Texas Center for Justice and Equity has been steadfast in our mission to end mass incarceration, shift funding toward community supports, and reduce deep racial inequities in the criminal justice system. As we celebrate our Silver Jubilee in 2025, we honor our journey while charting an ambitious path forward.

For a quarter century, TCJE has amplified the voices of those most impacted by the criminal justice system—people of color, people experiencing poverty, and individuals with substance use disorders, mental health challenges, and trauma. Our advocacy has evolved from identifying systemic injustice to co-creating practical, sustainable solutions with the communities we serve.

A Moment of Transformation

Our Silver Jubilee marks not just a celebration of past achievements, but a strategic pivot toward greater impact. In recent years, we've critically examined our approach, recommitting to practical action and measurable outcomes that truly serve all people impacted by incarceration across Texas, especially Black and Brown people,

Today, we stand renewed in our commitment to disrupt harmful systems, amplify community voices, and advance bold policies that create pathways to opportunity. We are building on our longstanding presence across the "Texas Triangle" -Austin, Dallas, and Houston - and leveraging our unique position to drive innovative, effective policies of statewide and national importance.

Looking Forward

The next 25 years of TCJE will be defined by our unwavering focus on efficacy, accountability, and community-driven change. We will honor our legacy by learning from the past while boldly reimagining a justice system that truly sees and serves all Texans.

Join us as we write this next chapter together—a chapter defined by practical action, transformative solutions, and communities empowered to create the future they wish to see.

25 Years of Justice Reform: Key Milestones

Charting a Quarter Century of Transformative Change

Since our founding in 2000, the Texas Center for Justice and Equity has persistently challenged the status quo, advocating for systemic reforms that address the root causes of mass incarceration and racial inequity in our criminal justice system. Our journey reflects both the challenges and possibilities of justice reform in Texas—a state with one of the largest prison populations in the nation.

This timeline captures the pivotal moments that have defined our work, from grassroots organizing to policy victories, from community-centered programming to statewide advocacy campaigns. Each milestone represents not just an organizational achievement, but a collective victory powered by directly impacted communities, dedicated advocates, and cross-sector partnerships committed to reimagining justice in Texas.

How We Are Changing Texas

Nearly 660,000 children and adults are behind bars or on probation or parole in Texas. More than 9 million Texans have a criminal record. Those most affected are disproportionately people of color, living in poverty, and suffering with substance use disorder, mental health issues, intellectual disabilities, and trauma. For over two decades, TCJE, formerly the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and ProTex, has fought for change in 3 ways:

1. On the ground in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio – some of Texas’ largest local drivers of people into state incarceration. We know the local landscape and key players. We lead and support coalitions. And we educate leadership and local practitioners about strategies to help families and communities.

2. At the Texas Capitol, resulting in thousands fewer people entering prisons and jails since 2003, and more than 220 new pieces of legislation that aim to improve outcomes for Texans.

3. Building leadership among system-impacted people, including through our Texas Women’s Justice Coalition and our Statewide Leadership Council. Members of these system-impacted coalitions – many of whom are trauma and crime survivors – advocate throughout the state and at the Texas Capitol to end mass incarceration, protect people still inside, and help people during reentry.

TCJE’s recent campaign and coalition, “Finish the 5,” was a youth-led effort to close Texas’ ﬁve remaining child prisons by 2030, prevent new facility construction, and reinvest in school- and community- based resources and supports throughout the state, based on jurisdictions’ unique needs. In elevating and amplifying the voices of impacted people, TCJE created groundswells of support for bold approaches that promoted meaningful stability and wellness, led by people closest to the problem of mass incarceration.

With the support of committed people like you, we’ve seen real progress at the state and local levels.

✓ After we helped uncover rampant sexual and physical abuse in the state’s juvenile corrections facilities, we fought to ensure that all young people convicted of misdemeanors were removed from state secure confinement. Nine youth facilities have been shuttered since 2007 as populations have dropped, and we continue to push for state funding to be redirected to local rehabilitation programs.

✓ We pushed for the closure of eight adult corrections facilities since 2011 as 11,000 fewer people have entered prison.

✓ Since 2015, we fought to reduce the number of people receiving felonies for minor theft offenses – resulting in over 3,000 fewer people entering state-level incarceration.

✓ When the state was forecasting an increase in the prison population of 17,000 people, we bolstered the efforts of a small group of legislators seeking to stop the flow of people into prison – educating members of appropriations committees about smarter alternatives and partnering with probation leaders seeking more funding for community-based services. Ultimately, the Legislature chose to invest $241 million in treatment and diversion programs rather than fund facility construction, saving nearly $2 billion and averting a projected prison population increase.

✓ We fought for 8 new women’s dignity bills in 2019, which aim to improve conditions and outcomes for thousands of women across Texas who are justice system-involved or at risk of system involvement.

✓ In an effort led by formerly incarcerated women during Texas’ 2021 legislative session, we successfully advocated for a path to family reunification for people who lost custody of their children as a result of incarceration.

✓ We made sure the state removed children with minor offenses from dangerous youth prisons.

✓In Austin, we've called attention to local policing practices that disproportionately impact people of color, and we joined a successful movement to stop the construction of a new women's jail.

✓ We’ve created a program to help address students’ needs through specialized, in-school supports in Austin and Dallas.

✓ We successfully pushed for a bill that will expand access to occupational licenses for people with a conviction, helping the 65,000 people who return to our communities from prison each year.

✓ To ensure that Harris County reform recommendations are data-driven, we worked with January Advisors to develop a web-based dashboard that visually represents more than 800,000 criminal court dispositions in the county. It displays trends and outcome disparities, allowing users to see the degree to which arrests are skewed in low-income and neighborhoods of color; users also have access to bail trends and individual judges’ sentencing decisions. This dashboard is a game-changer in our advocacy work, sparking reform conversations by providing the data to show where change is most needed.

✓ When people accused of crimes cannot afford an attorney, the court appoints one for them—a process known as indigent defense. The relatively new Harris County public defender's office can only serve a fraction of the defendants who need it. The remaining cases have defense attorneys who are appointed by the judge. While this system is meant to ensure fair representation, research shows that campaign donations often influence how judges assign cases. On March 18, 2025, National Public Defense Day, 75 people attended our webinar where we showcased our Harris County Indigent Defense Dashboard built in partnership with January Advisors, Microsoft and the Urban Institute at the request of Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner. This interactive tool uses information from the Texas Ethics Commission and Harris County District Courts (HCDC) to provide a judge-level view of how judicial campaign donations are related to case assignments and outcomes.

Our Partners in Justice

At TCJE, we understand that meaningful justice reform requires more than isolated efforts—it demands strategic, cross-sector collaboration that amplifies our collective impact. Our partnerships reflect our commitment to building power through relationships that center community expertise, leverage complementary strengths, and create sustainable pathways for change.

Key Partners: TCJE seeks to engage people who have insight into the youth and adult justice systems, whose experiences can inform change, and who are positioned to implement that change. Our comprehensive, coordinated outreach and education extends to currently and previously incarcerated individuals and their families; agency and department heads; and system and community practitioners (including law enforcement, pretrial practitioners, attorneys, judges, probation and parole professionals, treatment providers, and reentry specialists). Separately, we seek to engage national, state- and county-level leadership, as well as other advocates and reformers (including religious groups, academics, and data specialists) in our advocacy efforts. Finally, we are in constant communication with the media about reform needs or new policies.

TCJE has primarily been grant funded, with our largest funders including Heising-Simons Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Public Welfare Foundation, Houston Endowment, Alliance for Safety and Justice, Microsoft, and the Urban Institute.

Moving forward, we invite organizations and individuals who share our commitment to justice and equity to join and donate to this collaborative ecosystem, where we can amplify each other's work and collectively create the change our communities deserve.

Looking Forward: Our Impact Goals

Charting a Bold Path for Measurable Change

As we embark on the next chapter of TCJE's journey, we are setting ambitious yet achievable goals that will guide our work through 2030. These targets reflect our renewed commitment to practical action, community empowerment, and measurable outcomes that directly benefit the communities we serve.

By 2030, TCJE is committed to achieving the following impact milestones:

Disrupt the School-to-Prison Pipeline

We will pilot and expand programming that equips thousands of Black and Brown scholars with transformative experiences that build leadership, cultural competence, and civic engagement skills. We'll couple this programmatic growth with policy advocacy that reduces exclusionary discipline and creates career-connected learning pathways.

Advance Decriminalization of Marijuana

We will leverage bipartisan momentum to achieve significant policy reforms that reduce racial disparities in enforcement, decrease incarceration rates for nonviolent offenses, and redirect resources toward community investments—measuring success by the number of people who avoid incarceration and the communities strengthened through reinvestment.

Build Powerful Advocacy Networks

We will quadruple the size of our national and local advocacy networks across Texas, creating a powerful grassroots movement that effectively influences policy at local and state levels. These networks will be led by those most impacted by the criminal legal system, with TCJE providing strategic support and coordination.

These goals represent more than organizational aspirations—they reflect our commitment to co-creating a justice system that truly sees and serves all Texans. We invite you to join us in turning this vision into reality.

Explore our strategic priorities and join us in creating practical, community-driven solutions for a more just Texas.