Friday, February 20, 2015
Ford Foundation Joins Bipartisan Coalition to Change Criminal Justice System
Usually bitter adversaries, Koch Industries and the Center for American Progress have found at least one thing they can agree on: The nation’s criminal justice system is broken.
Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by the conservative Koch brothers, and the center, a Washington-based liberal issues group, are coming together to back a new organization called the Coalition for Public Safety. The coalition plans a multimillion-dollar campaign on behalf of emerging proposals to reduce prison populations, overhaul sentencing, reduce recidivism and take on similar initiatives. Other groups from both the left and right — the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Tea Party-oriented FreedomWorks — are also part of the coalition, reflecting its unusually bipartisan approach.
Besides Koch Industries and Laura and John Arnold, initial funders of the coalition are the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation. Other partners include the Leadership Conference Education Fund, Right on Crime and the Faith and Freedom Coalition....