Dignity and Power Now (DPN) is a Los Angeles based grassroots organization founded in 2012 that fights for the dignity and power of all incarcerated people, their families, and communities. Our mission is to build a Black and Brown led abolitionist movement rooted in community power towards the goal of achieving transformative justice and healing justice for all incarcerated people, their families, and communities.
Grounded in the principles of abolition, healing justice, and transformative justice, we have multiple programs centered around activism, health and wellness, and leadership building, including a coalition to end sheriff violence, a coalition to stop jail construction, an arts and wellness collective, a rapid response team of healers, a leadership development series for folks returning home from prison, a leadership institute for high school aged youth affected by incarceration, and an influential media department. Immediate campaign focuses include establishing comprehensive and effective civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and allocating the money from LA County’s 3.5 billion dollar jail plan into mental health diversion programs and community resources. Dignity and Power Now is founded and chaired by Black Lives Matter Cofounder Patrisse Khan-Cullors and is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit
ORIGIN STORY
In 2011 the ACLU launched a class action lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for abuses in the jail system. Having read the the 86 page report, Patrisse Cullors decided to create a performance art piece that highlighted her brother’s story of being abused in the county jails while dissolving the disconnect between the conditions inside custody and the community outside. That piece became STAINED: An Intimate Portrayal of State Violence. After a year of touring the piece around Los Angeles County it became clear that audiences wanted to do more than watch the piece – they wanted to change the county jail system. The Coalition to End Sheriff Violence project was born.
The coalition immediately began organizing formerly incarcerated people, survivors of sheriff violence, and their loved ones throughout the county to give their testimony to the Citizens Commission on Jail Violence and the County Board of Supervisors, demanding civilian oversight of the sheriff’s department. When it first began the coalition was the only community voice calling for civilian oversight. Within a year’s time they had secured two votes amongst the county supervisors in support of civilian oversight. Momentum was building.
It became clear that taking on mass incarceration meant building a multifaceted movement, a movement that understood that incarceration is traumatic and sheriff violence doesn’t just harm our loved ones in custody, it harms families and communities that become containers for that trauma once loved ones are released. Expanding the organizational, psychological, and motivational capacity to end state violence meant developing six other projects that used art, research, resilience practices, and leadership development as center pieces in the work. Dignity and Power Now was created to be the principle organization for a multifaceted, trauma informed, healing, motivated movement to end state violence and mass incarceration.
STAFF
OUR BOARD
Paul Dumont
Paul Dumont facilitates shared housing in the San Fernando Valley and throughout Los Angeles for people coming home from institutions, recovering from substance use disorder, and/or mental health conditions. Having achieved stability from a San Fernando Valley sober living home in 2004 after serving multiple prison terms and cycling in and out of homelessness for nearly two decades, he helps others find housing and stay out of government cages. Paul works daily on the front line to assist people to overcome all kinds of reentry obstacles. His professional work history includes management positions in the transportation, finance, and insurance sectors. Volunteer experience includes serving on nonprofit boards, Neighborhood Council planning, land use, zoning, housing, and public safety committees, as well as advocacy work for persons with disabilities. His passion is advocating for the rights of people denied access to housing. Paul draws resources from a vast network of advocates and decisions makers at all levels of government working to improve reentry outcomes and to prevent – and end – homelessness. As a single father of four, he enjoys learning from his kids how to make the world a better place.
Sandra Neal
Sandra is a Registered Nurse, currently teaching Medical Assisting at East Los Angeles Occupational
Center. She was hired as a Career Technical Education (CTE) Instructor for LAUSD-DACE, the largest public school district in Adult and Career Education over 10 years ago. Before earning her teaching credentials from the University of San Diego, her nursing specialties included: perioperative nursing, aesthetic nursing, clinical research studies, nurse manager in surgical aftercare, staff nursing at USC in the field of outpatient GYN surgery, labor and delivery, and home health. Born and raised in East LA, Sandra graduated from the East Los Angeles College School of Nursing, trained at the LAC-USC Medical Center, and worked for a renowned UCLA surgeon before changing her career path toward education, where Sandra felt was her true calling. The accomplishments Sandra is most proud of are:
- Being a proud mom to five children, and a super proud grandmother to five
- Having two of her children follow her career path, and are currently COVID-19 frontline healthcare workers.
- Returning to her (Licensed Vocational Nursing) LVN school to teach and mentor future healthcare leaders.
- Leading a team of curriculum developers to update the medical assistant program for the entire
After residing in and serving her community of East Los Angeles for over 50 years, Sandra recently moved to Atlanta, Georgia to join her daughter and three grandchildren. She credits much of her success to her supportive husband of almost 20 years. Sandra continues to teach and mentor her students in California through distance learning to ensure they become the devoted healthcare workers of our next generation.
Ren-Yo Hwang
Ren-yo received their PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Riverside, their master’s degree in Asian American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. While residing in Los Angeles for eight years (2009-2017), they collaborated with DPN, leading the editorial collective that produced our first zines in 2013 and 2014. They also volunteered and worked with California Coalition for Women Prisoners-LA, Gender Justice Los Angeles, St. John’s Transgender Health Program (South LA), UAW 2865 E-Board and Anti-Oppression Committee, and formerly Data Center-LA and Letsgo! Liberation Trans Legal Clinic (LGL).
Previous to living in Los Angeles, Ren-yo resided in New York, NY (2001-2009), and served as a volunteer and community member of organizations such as Audre Lorde Project, FIERCE, and Sylvia Rivera Law Project. These vital experiences of working within queer/trans* of color-led community organizations continue to form and guide my pedagogy, community research, and political investments and collaborations.
Ren-yo is currently an assistant professor in Gender Studies and Critical Social Thought at Mount Holyoke College. Their community-based scholarship and action research examine late 20th-century carceral technologies, abolition, transformative justice, QTBIPoC antiviolence activism, and visual cultures of resistance. Their current book project focuses on the emergence of hate crimes, community policing and gay/trans jailing in the 1980s Los Angeles, and the establishment of state-sponsored antiviolence strategies via progressive carceral reform.
Mark-Anthony Clayton Johnson
Mark-Anthony Clayton-Johnson is the Executive Director of Dignity and Power Now, a licensed acupuncturist, and seasoned organizer who was born and raised in Los Angeles County. As a founding member of DPN, Mark-Anthony facilitated and led the organizations two campaigns, including the fight to establish an independent civilian oversight commission over the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and to stop jail construction in Los Angeles County. He is a member of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table Leadership Team and the Founder of the Frontline Wellness Network (FWN); a project of DPN that organizes health care providers working to end the public health crisis of incarceration and criminalization through action oriented political education and through bridging relationships between providers and grassroots campaigns against state violence. In this capacity he is a member of the Executive Team of the JusticeLA Coalition, a Los Angeles based coalition that successfully stopped the County from spending $4 billion on a women’s jail and a mental health jail while reallocating those funds into community-based treatment and alternatives to incarceration.