True safety comes from robustly funded public services, authentic community-building, and access to necessities like housing, cash, nourishing meals, and mental and physical health care. Our state can achieve greater safety and well-being for all if lawmakers: prioritize policies that help people meet their basic needs; ​reduce conditions that increase the likelihood of interpersonal harm; and effectively support people who have been harmed. Our work in criminal legal system policy is oriented toward ending punitive and exploitative systems that maintain cycles of poverty, disenfranchisement, and discrimination.