These crime survivors want change. Here's the wish list they brought to the statehouse.
As people unloaded off of buses hailing from Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo, the crowd began to swell Wednesday morning on the south entrance of the Ohio Statehouse.
Holding aloft a bullhorn, Aswad Thomas stood outside in the chilly morning and rallied the crowd with a callback chant.
"Who speaks?" he asked.
"Survivors speak!" came the booming response.
"When survivors speak ...," Thomas prompted.
"Change happens!"
Thomas, national director of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, was there to rally the crowd of crime survivors and families of crime victims ahead of the organization's Survivors Speak Ohio event at the statehouse. The roughly 150 who had made the bus trip were there to call upon state lawmakers to expand housing and employment protections for crime survivors and pass other reforms to improve public safety in Ohio.
Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, a national network of crime survivors who advocate for public safety policies, organized the inaugural Ohio event in 2019. This year marked the third year for the Survivors Speak program after it was paused in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.
With 12,000 statewide members and chapters in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Mansfield, Crime Survivors for Safety is the flagship program for the criminal justice reform advocacy organization Alliance for Safety and Justice. Many of those members made the long bus trip Wednesday because they said it was important to them to urge lawmakers to make public safety legislation a priority.
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Among them was 68-year old Cleveland resident Brenda Glass, who said at 13 years old she was sexually assaulted at gunpoint by men she knew. At that time, resources and help were scarce for Glass and her family — circumstances she said she's sought to change through her advocacy.
"I saw my family suffering and struggling to cope, and there was no hope," Glass said. "We just want to continue to fight to make sure crime survivors have the opportunity to heal."
Glass joined crime victims from what organizers said were 35 Ohio cities there to call for policies that help address trauma, prioritize rehabilitation, and tackle the root causes of crime — approaches they contend would help end cycles of violence.
A series of speakers took to a podium inside the statehouse atrium to address the crowd, many of whom celebrated the recent passage of what they view as landmark legislation in public safety reforms.
That includes the recently passed Senate Bill 36, which reformed the state’s victims compensation program by expanding it for counseling to family members of victims, and which also updated the definition of a victim to include a family member who was a witness to a crime or who arrived immediately after a crime.
Organizers also credited their advocacy for the passage of Senate Bill 288 that Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law in January. While known for its new distracted driving penalties, those rules were only a portion of the sweeping legislation. It also overhauled how criminal records are sealed and expunged to give Ohioans a better shot at jobs and housing, attempting to reduce recidivism by helping them avoid the factors that caused them to commit crimes in the first place.
"What survivors want most is for what happened to them to never, ever happen to anybody else," said Candace Williams, Ohio State Director for the Alliance for Safety and Justice, speaking to the crowd.
In a show of bipartisan support for their cause, state representatives Tavia Galonski, D-Akron, and Brett Hillyer, R-Uhrichsville, both spoke to those who gathered inside the atrium. They acknowledged the importance of continued funding for trauma-recovery centers that facilitate healing for survivors of violence or loss. Ohio has eight centers so far, two of which are in Columbus.
"We know in our hearts that the system sometimes forgets victims, and being able to provide resources necessary helps all of us," Hillyer said to the crowd.
Among those in attendance were survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking and gun violence. Countless others may not have been victims themselves but have endured the pain of seeing loved ones injured or killed by violence.
That includes Natasha Lovelace, whose daughter Makayla Barlow was severely wounded two years ago when she was caught in the crossfire of a shootout while driving in the Cleveland area. Lovelace and Barlow, who is now 19, have both become anti-violence advocates.
Although Barlow was not at Wednesday's event, Lovelace was there to connect with other crime victims.
"I found that advocacy is so important because while she was going through recovery, I was the one advocating on her behalf," Lovelace said. "I'm continuing to do that for children or anyone else who isn't in a place to do it."
Eric Lagatta is a reporter at The Columbus Dispatch covering public safety, with a focus on in-depth coverage of social justice issues and crime trends.
elagatta@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Crime victims gather at statehouse to advocate for public safety laws
