Straight Ahead is a statewide lobbying, electoral, and community organizing project that:
champions legislation to end death by incarceration and promote geriatric and medical parole;
promotes anti-carceral framing and policy demands in the discourse and output of legislators, policymakers, judges, district attorneys, municipal leaders, and other elected officials;
supports democratic engagement and progressive power-building through voter registration, mobilization campaigns, candidate endorsement, and voter referendums;
conducts survivor justice advocacy; and
provides political education and training in impacted communities.
Our Campaigns:
End Death By Incarceration
Another kind of death penalty has taken over Pennsylvania. Life without the possibility of parole is not life: it is a sentence to die in prison by incarceration. In PA, DBI sentences are mandatory for first- and second-degree murder charges—regardless of age, circumstances, intentions, or the human capacity for change.
There’s a trauma-to-prison pipeline. Too many people grow up deprived of stable food, education, healthcare, and family. The solution isn’t tearing apart families with harsher sentences –it’s investing in our communities.
End Felony Murder Sentencing
A significant driver of death by incarceration (DBI) in Pennsylvania is the second-degree or “felony murder” charge, which carries a mandatory DBI sentence. This unjust law requires people to die behind bars for when a death occurs during the commission of a felony, even when the person did not kill or intend to kill.
Preventing the court from tailoring sentences to fit the individual and the crime isn’t justice. Denying people even the chance of parole denies their humanity and capacity for change, and serves no public safety purpose.
Bring Our Elders Home
Pennsylvania has one of the oldest prison populations. Over 10,000 incarcerated people are currently elderly people serving lengthy or life sentences. The vast majority entered prison as teens and have been serving sentences for decades. Their healthcare needs are high, and often go unmet.
There is no good case against their release: studies show that recidivism drops to nearly zero after age 55. Releasing elders can provide guidance and knowledge to younger generations, to keep families together and supported.
End Long-Term Parole
Parole functions as an invisible shackle for thousands of people in Pennsylvania, which is among the states with the most people on parole—both in terms of total numbers and the percent of its population.
The huge number of people under oppressive state control and surveillance for many years makes the parole system fundamentally an extension of mass incarceration. Moreover, the frequent use of parole revocations is itself a leading driver of mass incarceration. Long-term parole is not a true alternative to harsh sentencing; it must be eliminated so as not to trap people in the carceral system.
End Solitary Confinement
For the nearly 70,000 people in Pennsylvania’s carceral system, the prospect of being placed in isolation and removed from all socialization for months or even years at a time is a constant threat. At any given time, there are more than 2,000 Pennsylvanians in state prisons and hundreds more in jails and detention centers who are in solitary confinement.
For more than a century, ample research has clearly shown that solitary is torturous and counter-productive. We must end this barbaric and racist treatment of adults and children throughout the carceral system.
My change didn’t come from being incarcerated, it came from being under the mindset of certain individuals—elders who had been there 20, 30, 40 years. The only thing they want to do is teach us to be better men, better fathers, better big brothers. They want us to go right where they went wrong.
Tyree Little
Straight Ahead Organizer
My change didn’t come from being incarcerated, it came from being under the mindset of certain individuals—elders who had been there 20, 30, 40 years. The only thing they want to do is teach us to be better men, better fathers, better big brothers. They want us to go right where they went wrong.
- Tyree Little
Straight Ahead Organizer
Help end death by incarceration sentencing
Join the growing Pennsylvania decarceration movement for healing and redemption.