Tomiekia Johnson’s case and several other incarcerated survivors of color were covered in a recent article in The Guardian! The article highlights the call for Gov. Gavin Newsom to grant incarcerated survivors emergency commutations and release them from a racist criminal legal system that is particularly dangerous during a pandemic.

Please circulate the article and continue to share this petition!

Listen to this recording of Tomiekia speaking about the criminalization of survivors of domestic violence and the systemic racism of criminalization.

Here’s a quote from Tomiekia in the article:

“Being a victim and survivor of domestic violence means that you need an intervention. You need help, you need healing,” said Tomiekia Johnson, 41, in a call last month from the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) near Fresno. “Sending them to prison, to places where anti-rehabilitation is the model, realistically it makes people worse.”

 

“While white male officers get away with violence, as a black woman, she was not believed, she said: “The system, they look at us differently, they look at us like we’re not victims.”

 

“I can’t help but notice that a lot of people that are getting second opportunities are not black and brown people”, she added.